INTERPERSONAL DECEPTION .9. EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SKILL AND NONVERBAL-COMMUNICATION ON DECEPTION SUCCESS AND DETECTION ACCURACY

Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) posits that socially skilled indi viduals are better able to project truthful demeanors and evade detect ion than are unskilled individuals. IDT also predicts that social skil ls benefit receivers, making them better able to detect deception. Pas t research by Riggio, Tucker; Throckmorton, and Widaman in 1987 (in tw o separate studies) has shown that socially skilled individuals emit n onverbal behaviors that enhance believability. The present study exten ds Riggio's findings by investigating how social skills and nonverbal communication work in concert to predict three forms of deception/dete ction success: believability, accuracy, and bias. Acquainted and unacq uainted dyads participated in interviews in which interviewees (sender s) answered two questions truthfully and then used falsification, equi vocation, or concealment to deceive on, the remaining 13 questions. Re sults confirmed that as sender social skills increased, believability increased and receiver detection accuracy decreased, especially during equivocation. Skilled senders were more fluent and less hesitant. Sen ders were more believable, and truth biases were higher if senders dis played greater involvement, positive affect, fluency, and composure an d used a concealment strategy. Hesitancy was also implicated in a comp lex way Only one dimension of receiver skill improved accuracy. Receiv ers were also more accurate if senders were less fluent.