I decided to conduct this experiment on my housemate Andy. I figured he would be a good subject because we are friends but he doesn’t know much about my past before I got to Cornell, ensuring that he wouldn’t be able to discount my lie based on knowledge of my past. I chose to tell him the false travel story face to face. My choice was supported by the Media Richness Theory, which states that a person will choose a rich media for more equivocal tasks and a lean media for less equivocal tasks. Since I was going to be telling him an ambiguous story with the intent to be deceptive, my communication was highly equivocal, therefore appropriating a rich media such as face to face. Since I was going to be deceptive, I wanted the ability to see his reactions to my story and adjust accordingly to make it more believable. While telling him the false story about the time I went to Spain with my family I took advantage of the ability to do so, changing the direction of the story when I saw he was beginning to doubt the truth of my statements. For example, I started to tell him that my family participated in a running of the bulls and when I saw from his reaction that he didn’t believe this at all I began to talk about the food we had there, getting away from the risky detection topic.
I chose to tell him the true story using Instant Messenger, a lean media. The Media Richness Theory would support this choice to use a leaner media for a less equivocal task, such as telling a true story about a travel experience. I told Andy about my trip to Europe two summers ago and how I visited Paris and London. He seemed very interested and overall the conversation went well.
After I had told him both stories, I asked him if he could tell in which one I was lying. To my surprise, he got it right. He correctly predicted that I was lying in person and telling the truth on Instant Messenger. I thought that the Social Distance Theory would have cause him to think I was lying on IM since it states that people are uncomfortable lying and choose to distance themselves through leaner media. However, he believed what I said on IM and not in person. When I asked him how he knew I was lying in person, he stated that I was rocking back and forth when I was telling the story and not really maintaining eye contact. He also stated that my statement about the running of the bulls was too unbelievable and over the top.
His detection is supported by the hypothesis we spoke about in class that detection is more accurate in face to face communication. The first part of the hypothesis states that there are many more cues and feedback in face to face communication as compared to leaner media. One of the reasons Andy detected my lie was due to my nonverbal cues (nervous rocking and lack of eye contact). These cues would not have been available in other media. The last part of the hypothesis states that lies in CMC can take more time and are editable. Due to the fact that I was coming up with the story on the spot, I made up the eccentric tale of running with the bulls. If I had been in a CMC communication, I would have had more time to simulate my story and be sure to not send a comment such as the above.
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4-1-lies-and-deceptions.html
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-lies-and-truths-of-travel.html
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
4 Little Black (Face)Book
I asked my friend to rank his Facebook page in the manner discussed in the assignment and here were his responses.
Photo - 4
Housing and School Info - 5
Information (Holistically) - 4
Activities - 3
Music - 4
TV - 3
Movies - 3
Books - 4
Also worth mentioning is that he admits to frequently untagging photos of himself and deleting comments on his wall.
I concluded that the profile picture and the housing and school information sections of the profile are the most analogous to assessment signals, whereas the rest of the information is similar to conventional signals.
The profile picture is costly because it displays all of your visual characteristics, and once you posted a picture of yourself, you now have to be consistent with that image. If you change it to reflect a different gender or race, people will notice and your deception will be detected. Similarly, your school/residential information is relatively public and people can use another source to confirm that information. In this way, lying about either would be very noticeable.
Your other information is less costly. Changing your favorite books or movies is less likely to tip off a viewer. Deception in these areas is easier because the information doesn't have to be as consistent and you can change it whenever you want.
For the most part, I agreed with my friends accuracy scores. He knew and was willing to admit to me when his page embellished certain attributes and where it reflected him accurately. I did find it interesting that he felt overall he was providing information that scored 4, but when asked to break it down, his mean score was a 3.4. This indicates he thinks he is more accurate than he is.
All his confessions fell in line with Catalina's research. He agreed that he only listed the books, movies, and activities that sounded the coolest, or conveyed a more attractive self. None of his listed activities were fictional, he just used selective self-presentation to put forth his best foot, so to speak. This supports Catalina's idea that deception is frequent but subtle, as well as strategic. This allows my friend to appear attractive and honest simultaneously. Especially drawing on the fact that he posts more pictures of himself surfing (one of his listed activities) than he does collecting baseball cards (one of his not listed activities). In this way, he can further support his selected self-presentation, while appearing honest.
I have one qualm about all this, however. Catalina's research makes sense for a dating site. Facebook is all about social networking, but I don't know too many people who "meet" on facebook. For the most part, facebook friending occurs meeting in real life first. If we understand this to be true (which you can argue isn't) than why do people feel the need to deceive and present themselves in such a favorable manner?
Facebook Actually Doesn’t Lie… More or Less
After interviewing one person on the validity of their Facebook profile I had thought that perhaps I interviewed one of the few who are honest about themselves online. In order to test my assumption I interviewed two more people. Of course their answers were almost identical to the first subject. The conclusion that I came to is that although Facebook offers a variety of ways to display oneself, it also makes it hard to lie about who you really are. One question I asked my subjects is why they did not lie about themselves on their profile. All three subjects said that their friends would see it and question it, or write on their wall and tell them to change it.
After the interview I noticed that the worst score of all of the subjects was a four out of five. I was particularly surprised by this because the social distance theory would suggest that because Facebook can connect people all across the world; people would create impressions about themselves that may not be particularly true but because they are also connected with close friends, they are not able to do so. When comparing the amount of deception with the chart which we went over in class it would be most similar to email, where less then 10% of lies were told.
I think it would be interesting if the same study was done with a new category specifically for Facebook. My prediction would be that Facebook would have the lowest percentage of lies when compared to; face to face, telephone, instant messaging and email. I also noticed that some of my subjects had numerous parts of their profile where they had nothing written. Turns out that they all decided to leave that section of their profile blank because it is where they would have most likely twisted the truth about themselves. This was a perfect example of selective self presentation and also how one can tell the truth but yet not be completely truthful.
After the interview I noticed that the worst score of all of the subjects was a four out of five. I was particularly surprised by this because the social distance theory would suggest that because Facebook can connect people all across the world; people would create impressions about themselves that may not be particularly true but because they are also connected with close friends, they are not able to do so. When comparing the amount of deception with the chart which we went over in class it would be most similar to email, where less then 10% of lies were told.
I think it would be interesting if the same study was done with a new category specifically for Facebook. My prediction would be that Facebook would have the lowest percentage of lies when compared to; face to face, telephone, instant messaging and email. I also noticed that some of my subjects had numerous parts of their profile where they had nothing written. Turns out that they all decided to leave that section of their profile blank because it is where they would have most likely twisted the truth about themselves. This was a perfect example of selective self presentation and also how one can tell the truth but yet not be completely truthful.
4 - Facebook Deception
Facebook is a social networking site. I decided to have my friend analyze their Facebook profile, and to identify any false statements that he may make in his profile. I had never actually taken the time to fully read this person's Facebook profile, so I was very interested to learn about the truths and lies in his profile.
Social distance theory directly relates to Facebook profiles and the ease people tend to have in being deceptive in their profiles. Facebook provides users with the opportunity to create false impressions, both about their physical appearance and personal traits, hobbies, background, etc.
My friend's profile was mostly true; he identified only two items that he lists under hobbies that are no longer true, but were accurate at one point in time in the past. Other than these two items, everything else he mentions in his Information and Education sections are true.
His real-life personality indicates that he would not lie in his Facebook profile. His pictures were true to his appearance. In addition, he is tagged in many photos. Photo tagging in Facebook can, potentially, lessen someone's ability to lie about their appearance; however, we can choose to un-tag ourselves if we don't like the way we look in any photos.
His photos portray a very easygoing, happy individual who enjoys hanging out with friends. For the three years I have known my friend, I have personally witnessed these characteristics and believe that his Facebook pictures accurately portray elements of his personality.
The online impression I get of my friend based on his Facebook profile resembles the impressions I have of him after face-to-face interactions. However, after examining my friend's Facebook profile in more detail, it was evident that social distance theory did play a small part in my friend's profile design. Even after he pointed out that two items were incorrect in his profile, he did not go back and remove the items. Here, social distance theory presents the idea that my friend sees no urgent need to update his profile because it is in an online profile; he would not lie about his hobbies if he were introducing himself to someone face-to-face.
Comment 1
Comment 2
Social distance theory directly relates to Facebook profiles and the ease people tend to have in being deceptive in their profiles. Facebook provides users with the opportunity to create false impressions, both about their physical appearance and personal traits, hobbies, background, etc.
My friend's profile was mostly true; he identified only two items that he lists under hobbies that are no longer true, but were accurate at one point in time in the past. Other than these two items, everything else he mentions in his Information and Education sections are true.
His real-life personality indicates that he would not lie in his Facebook profile. His pictures were true to his appearance. In addition, he is tagged in many photos. Photo tagging in Facebook can, potentially, lessen someone's ability to lie about their appearance; however, we can choose to un-tag ourselves if we don't like the way we look in any photos.
His photos portray a very easygoing, happy individual who enjoys hanging out with friends. For the three years I have known my friend, I have personally witnessed these characteristics and believe that his Facebook pictures accurately portray elements of his personality.
The online impression I get of my friend based on his Facebook profile resembles the impressions I have of him after face-to-face interactions. However, after examining my friend's Facebook profile in more detail, it was evident that social distance theory did play a small part in my friend's profile design. Even after he pointed out that two items were incorrect in his profile, he did not go back and remove the items. Here, social distance theory presents the idea that my friend sees no urgent need to update his profile because it is in an online profile; he would not lie about his hobbies if he were introducing himself to someone face-to-face.
Comment 1
Comment 2
4- Cancun or Bahamas?
I decided to tell a friend a lie about a traveling experience in rich media and the truth about a traveling experience in lean media. I wanted the lie to contradict the actual truth, so I lied about my travel during one specific time period. This way, there was a contradiction within my two conversations with the same person, so it would then be obvious I lied in at least one of the conversations. I told my friend, face-to-face, about a trip I made to the Bahamas my spring break of my senior year in high school, which is the lie. Then on AIM, later that day, I recalled my trip to Cancun during spring break of my senior year in high school. Clearly I could not have gone on both trips, so my friend pointed out the contradiction prompting me to ask, “In which conversation do you think I was telling the truth, and in which do you think I was lying?”
My friend immediately responded on AIM that he thought I was lying about going to the Bahamas. His reasoning did not have much to do with the social cues of our conversation, but rather his personal encounters with spring-breakers. He told me he knows that a lot of high-school kids go to Bahamas for spring-break, where spring-break in Cancun conjures up images of college-kids on MTV spring-break shows. So, he thought I went to the Bahamas and not Cancun, which is the opposite of what I actually did.
Just as the study on online dating predicted, I lied about a fact/achievement in ftf communication. This is consistent with the Media Richness Theory. I wanted to be ambiguous in my lie, and lies by nature are ambiguous, so I used the richest media, face-to-face. I thought my facial expressions and tone of voice could help me convince my friend I was telling the truth. I also gave many details of the fake trip. Face-to-face is recordless and synchronous which are two features that made telling a lie mentally easier. I told the truth over IM, and Media Richness theory predicts there would be less lies told over IM since it is normally used for unambiguous messages. I tried to use this idea to my advantage by telling the truth, and attempting to make it seem like a lie by taking a lot of time between sending messages to create the idea that I was taking time to think of how to phrase my lies.
While Media Richness Theory guided my decision over which media to tell a lie in and which to tell the truth, Social Distance theory may have played a role in my friend’s guess over in which conversation I was lying. My friend knew that I lied in one situation and Social Distance theory would predict it was in a mediated conversation because there is a greater distance and time to formulate lies and responses. Face-to-face could be more difficult to tell lies in because it is more-fast pace and there are so many more social cues. My friend perhaps did not pick up any obvious social cues in our face-to-face chat leading him to believe I lied in the Instant Messaging chat where I would have more time to create a false story, which was not the case.
My Comments:
Comm 245 Blue: Assignment 4 Option 1
Comm 245 Blue: 4.2 Not Too Far Off
My friend immediately responded on AIM that he thought I was lying about going to the Bahamas. His reasoning did not have much to do with the social cues of our conversation, but rather his personal encounters with spring-breakers. He told me he knows that a lot of high-school kids go to Bahamas for spring-break, where spring-break in Cancun conjures up images of college-kids on MTV spring-break shows. So, he thought I went to the Bahamas and not Cancun, which is the opposite of what I actually did.
Just as the study on online dating predicted, I lied about a fact/achievement in ftf communication. This is consistent with the Media Richness Theory. I wanted to be ambiguous in my lie, and lies by nature are ambiguous, so I used the richest media, face-to-face. I thought my facial expressions and tone of voice could help me convince my friend I was telling the truth. I also gave many details of the fake trip. Face-to-face is recordless and synchronous which are two features that made telling a lie mentally easier. I told the truth over IM, and Media Richness theory predicts there would be less lies told over IM since it is normally used for unambiguous messages. I tried to use this idea to my advantage by telling the truth, and attempting to make it seem like a lie by taking a lot of time between sending messages to create the idea that I was taking time to think of how to phrase my lies.
While Media Richness Theory guided my decision over which media to tell a lie in and which to tell the truth, Social Distance theory may have played a role in my friend’s guess over in which conversation I was lying. My friend knew that I lied in one situation and Social Distance theory would predict it was in a mediated conversation because there is a greater distance and time to formulate lies and responses. Face-to-face could be more difficult to tell lies in because it is more-fast pace and there are so many more social cues. My friend perhaps did not pick up any obvious social cues in our face-to-face chat leading him to believe I lied in the Instant Messaging chat where I would have more time to create a false story, which was not the case.
My Comments:
Comm 245 Blue: Assignment 4 Option 1
Comm 245 Blue: 4.2 Not Too Far Off
Monday, September 17, 2007
For the fourth assignment, I chose the second option. I specifically chose one of my housemates as my victim, knowing that our friendship of three years would come in handy for this assignment. I typed up a survey similar to Catalina’s and gave it to my friend. She circled 5 for every single section of her profile and then I looked over her profile carefully, testing my knowledge of her personal information, education and interests. With the exception of a couple of inside jokes and sarcastic comments about her major and semester job, her profile was 100% accurate.
I have to admit, when I first saw Catalina’s experiment with match.com profiles, I thought I would have similar findings for this assignment. However, when I really thought about it I realized that most people on Facebook get an account to keep in touch with old friends from high school and to ‘stalk’ people at their own school after meeting them on campus. Why would someone lie about their interests, education or personal information? Personally, I knew most of my friends before I made my Facebook account and I wouldn’t really friend anyone who would judge me based on what I choose to share on my Facebook. Depending on how you interpret assertion and conventional signals, Facebook consists of mostly conventional signals --- It would be really uncomfortable and in most cases pointless to lie about personal information or education. However, I guess it would be easier to justify lying about interests to portray a certain persona.
After discussing the assignment with my friend and evaluating her profile, she agreed with my observations and voiced her opinion that it just wasn’t worth the time or energy lying about some of the information you could possibly put on Facebook. Unlike math.com, we didn’t think that the purpose of Facebook was to find a prospective significant other or to impress anyone. If that was the case, then anyone could potentially adjust their information to fit anyone’s preferences quite easily if they really wanted to.
I think that the Social Distance Theory applies most to Facebook. In most cases, Facebook is not that socially distant. I know that if I tried to lie on my Facebook, I would get called out on it right away with tons of wall comments and it would just be awkward. Perhaps since you don’t really expect your friends to find you on a dating network, it is less awkward to lie and the added social distance accommodates one’s desire to cover up flaws without worrying about being called on it. Maybe that is why Catalina’s experiment detected some lies. After all this speculation the Social Distance Theory definitely makes a lot of sense. A lie on Facebook would be detected by good friends in a heartbeat. Being caught in a lie in public is quite embarrassing and I don’t know anyone who would enjoy being called out on lying on Facebook.
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-facebook-deception.html
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-facebook-profile-interview.html
4 Facebook deception interview
Facebook profiles offer a variety of different signals which can be used for deception. Assessment signals on facebook include the organization you are associated with (i.e. the university you attend or the company you work for) and perhaps your popularity (it is harder to fill up your wall if nobody wants to talk to you). Nearly everything else on your profile can be classified as conventional signals. Your interests, contact information, major, and activities may all be tweaked by the profile owner to create a certain impression. Even your name, age, gender, and pictures could be faked.
I interviewed an individual about the accuracy of various elements of her facebook profile. When asked to rate on a scale of 1 (completely inaccurate) to 5 (completely accurate), she responded with either 4 or 5 for every part of her profile. She told me that everything she would have lied about, she instead just omits from her profile. The only reason why some of her profile elements received a 4 instead of 5 was because she had not updated her profile in a long time, and some of her preferences have since changed. My own observations (based on what I know about her) have confirmed that her facebook profile information is very accurate.
Facebook is a relatively lean medium, and lying is an equivocal task. Thus, media richness theory predicts that lying does not happen all that often on facebook. But since facebook has the ability to connect people who are geographically distant, social distance theory suggests that lying is easier. Feature-based theory says that lying is unlikely on facebook. Facebook is largely an asynchronous medium, and most lies are constructed on-the-spot. Additionally, facebook is largely recordless, so lies can be removed at any time. As mentioned earlier, facebook is also distributed, meaning it is easier to lie to someone you aren’t geographically close to. But two of the three features necessary for extensive lying aren’t present on facebook, so the feature-based theory makes the same prediction as media richness theory. My interview results rejected social distance theory in favor of media richness theory and feature-based analysis.
These results oppose Catalina’s findings regarding online dating sites. One reason for this could be the type of audience expected. On facebook, your profile is subject to a wider audience. Therefore, close friends will tend to point out inaccuracies in your profile, making it less likely for you to lie in general. This portion of the audience is non-existent on dating sites, so it’s easier to lie – especially since you can cater your impression for one type of interpersonal relation.
Comment 1
Comment 2
I interviewed an individual about the accuracy of various elements of her facebook profile. When asked to rate on a scale of 1 (completely inaccurate) to 5 (completely accurate), she responded with either 4 or 5 for every part of her profile. She told me that everything she would have lied about, she instead just omits from her profile. The only reason why some of her profile elements received a 4 instead of 5 was because she had not updated her profile in a long time, and some of her preferences have since changed. My own observations (based on what I know about her) have confirmed that her facebook profile information is very accurate.
Facebook is a relatively lean medium, and lying is an equivocal task. Thus, media richness theory predicts that lying does not happen all that often on facebook. But since facebook has the ability to connect people who are geographically distant, social distance theory suggests that lying is easier. Feature-based theory says that lying is unlikely on facebook. Facebook is largely an asynchronous medium, and most lies are constructed on-the-spot. Additionally, facebook is largely recordless, so lies can be removed at any time. As mentioned earlier, facebook is also distributed, meaning it is easier to lie to someone you aren’t geographically close to. But two of the three features necessary for extensive lying aren’t present on facebook, so the feature-based theory makes the same prediction as media richness theory. My interview results rejected social distance theory in favor of media richness theory and feature-based analysis.
These results oppose Catalina’s findings regarding online dating sites. One reason for this could be the type of audience expected. On facebook, your profile is subject to a wider audience. Therefore, close friends will tend to point out inaccuracies in your profile, making it less likely for you to lie in general. This portion of the audience is non-existent on dating sites, so it’s easier to lie – especially since you can cater your impression for one type of interpersonal relation.
Comment 1
Comment 2
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