Deception in romantic relationships: Subjective estimates of success at deceiving and attitudes toward deception

Participants (N = 97) completed a questionnaire about deceptive communicati on in romantic relationships. Responses indicated that people generally bel ieve that they are fairly successful in their efforts to deceive their part ners and, moreover, that they believe they are more successful in deceiving their partners than their partners are at deceiving them. Results also sug gest that attitudes toward dishonesty in romantic relationships are neither as simple nor straightforward as the costs associated with discovery might lead one to expect. In addition, participants' beliefs about the importanc e of honesty in romantic relationships and their perceptions regarding thei r own and their partner's success at deceiving one another predicted their use of certain modes of deception (i.e., falsification), as well as their r esponses to suspected deception (both how they responded when they suspecte d their partner may be lying and how they reacted to a partner's suspicions that they had been dishonest).