Trust & Deception in Communications

Burgoon, Buller, Ebesu, and Rockwell (1994) note one reason why this issue has become so important in research--they point to the fact that media attention to a number of issues of deception, from the erosion of business ethics to the rise of cheating among students, has contributed to increasing public cynicism about the prevalence of honesty and truthfulness in public affairs. It does not seem that this has also translated into greater awareness of the amount of deceit perpetrated in everyday conversation nor improved the ability of people to detect such deception. Several researchers have found that in detecting deception, people are frequently no more accurate than they would be by chance alone (Bauchner, Kaplan & Miller, 1980; Kalbfleisch, 1985; Miller & Stiff, 1993). Burgoon, Buller, Ebesu, and Rockwell (1994) state that accuracy in judging the truth is

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nfer deceit from such cues. As a consequence, research seldom permitted deceivers and deception detectors to interact with one another (Burgoon, Buller, Ebesu, and Rockwell, 1994, 304). Instead, these researchers consider deception as an interpersonal, face-to-face communication event. For the receiver, one element in the process is examining suspicion, and this can be seen as a counterpart to the sender's deceit. Another consideration in analyzing this process is the relationship between sender and receiver and the degree to which they are familiar with one another: Recognition that deception frequently occurs among acquainted people and that such familiarity results in different communication patterns underscores the importance of examining forms of familiarity and their impact on successful deception and detection (Burgoon, Buller, Ebesu, and Rockwell, 1994, 304). Deception comes in a wide array of forms other than the outright lie, and among the features that differentiate them are amount and sufficiency of information, degree of truthfulness, clarity, relevance, ownership, and intent. Burgoon, Buller, Ebesu, and Rockwell (1994) distinguish between three relatively distinct classes of deceptions: falsification, concealme
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Approximate Word count = 1496
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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