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The Reluctance to Expose Dangerous Lies 1
Author(s) -
Taylor Levi,
Gittes Marci,
O'Neal Edgar C.,
Brown Susan
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1994.tb00584.x
Subject(s) - psychology , expose , social psychology , lie detection , phenomenon , epistemology , philosophy , physics , astronomy , deception
Three studies examined a hypothesized inhibition against exposing a lie. In Experiment 1, 21 men and 27 women were placed in conditions in which their nonexposure of another's lie resulted either in the risk of an experimenter's data being contaminated (impersonal consequence), or in the risk of the subject contracting pinkeye (personal consequence). Each person was given the opportunity to expose the lie, first in a group setting, and later in a private setting. Eighty‐three percent of the subjects in the impersonal condition and 77% of the subjects in the personal condition failed to expose the lie. Experiment 2 explored the phenomenon further by assessing whether subjects not in the presence of individuals other than the liar would be more likely to confront the lie. As in Experiment 1, it was found that most subjects did not reveal the lie, regardless of consequence condition of setting. In Experiment 3, it was anticipated that objective self‐awareness would interact with consequence information to produce more exposing behavior in the personal‐consequence condition, but not in the impersonal condition. Results generally confirmed the hypothesis; a significant interaction of Consequence x Self‐Awareness Condition was found.