Journal article

Publication year: 2002

Pages: 169-180

Journal: Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie

Volume number: 33

Issue number: 3

ISSN: 0044-3514

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1024//0044-3514.33.3.169

Publisher: Huber, Hogrefe

Abstract: 
The present study addressed the question which content characteristics lay persons use when judging the truthfulness of reports. Participants judged transcripts of self-experienced and invented statements concerning their credibility and were then asked to give three reasons for their decision. The reasons were categorized, and their relation to objective and subjective truth status of the statements was evaluated by regression analyses according the Brunswikian Lensmodel. Lay persons rely primarily on logical consistency. Contrary to credibility criteria used by experts to support the assumption of a statement being based on an experienced event, lay persons also reported a much less thanlie criterionmuch greater than the fantastic-fictitious character of a statement. However, this much less thanlie criterionmuch greater than did neither correlate with the objective nor subjective truth status of the statements. Expertise, in the sense of similar personal experiences was the best predictor of both subjective judgments of credibility and of objective truth status. Altogether, the criteria employed reliably predicted judgments of credibility but not objective truth status.

Harvard Citation style: Reinhard, M., Burghardt, K., Sporer, S. and Bursch, S. (2002) Lay persons' beliefs regarding content-related cues of deception, Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie, 33(3), pp. 169-180. https://doi.org/10.1024//0044-3514.33.3.169

APA Citation style: Reinhard, M., Burghardt, K., Sporer, S., & Bursch, S. (2002). Lay persons' beliefs regarding content-related cues of deception. Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie. 33(3), 169-180. https://doi.org/10.1024//0044-3514.33.3.169