Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Infants and Credibility

The University of Concordia reports that even in infancy humans can delineate between credible and non-credible sources.  The study, published in the journal Infant Behavior and Development, examined a group of 60 infants.

“This [study] shows infants will imitate behavior from a reliable adult,” says second author Ivy Brooker, “In contrast, the same behavior performed by an unreliable adult is interpreted as irrational or inefficient, therefore not worth imitating.”

The babies were divided in two groups; with reliable or unreliable testers.  To determine the reliability of experimenters they looked into a container with a reaction of excitement.  Then the infants were invited to discover if the container actually had a toy in it or was empty.

The follow up experiment then had the experimenter use their forehead in lieu of their hands to turn on a light.  The researchers recorded whether the infants would imitate the experimenter.  The study findings, only 34% of infants of unreliable testers followed the strange assignment.

“Like older children, infants keep track of an individual’s history of being accurate or inaccurate and use this information to guide their subsequent learning,” says senior researcher Diane Poulin-Dubois.

How Often Do You Lie?

We all now know (especially if you read our blog frequently) that we lie everyday.  Most of our lies are white lies and harmless enough or are they?

According to Dennis Merritt Jones, a Huffington Post author, keynote speaker and spiritual mentor, some of those white lies are harmful and holding us prison.

In his article, “You Lie More Often Than You Think“  he suggests that we are conflicted between what we really think or want and our desire to not risk the disapproval of others.

Dennis describes an assignment he once gave to his students in a relationship class.  He required them to go one week communicating exactly what they were thinking and feeling to those they came in contact with such as their family, spouses, friends and even strangers.  The exercise revealed that many people are challenged in their ability to be honest.

He also points out that Buddha taught that attachment is at the root of all suffering.  This can mean attachment to anything:  a person, a job, a relationship, exercise, acceptance etc.  Saying ‘No” to someone can be done without harm to you or the person who is requesting something of you.  Just remember when you say “no”, it is not what you say but how you say it.

He goes on to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The only sin that we never forgive in each other is a difference in opinion.”  His advice, ‘Explain to them [the person asking something of you]  that you are not rejecting them, only their request.  Know who you are and be free.’

The article goes on to ask these important questions:

Are you free to have a difference of opinion with others and express it without fear?  Can you say no without fear? And do you offer others the same freedom to say no to you without sending them on a guilt trip?

So, what are your answers?  Are you truly free in your relationships?

The Language of Language

What do people unconsciously communicate through things such as intonation, accent and phrasing?  And is it really possible to detect a lie?

Well, that is exactly what computer science professor and expert in spoken language, Julia Hirschberg, is setting out to examine.  Things to take into consideration, according to Hirschberg, “How do people convey that it’s another person’s turn to speak? What do people mean when they say ‘okay’? There are so many different ways it’s used.”

Reported on PHYSORG.COM Hirschberg is working with Barnard psychologist, Michelle Levine and Andrew Rosenberg on her current research project that was funded by a $1.5 million grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to study deception in speech across cultures.

In 2003 Hirschberg began her work with deception in speech, which is one of the largest collections of such data partly because, as she purports, it is so difficult to collect real lies in situations where the truth is known.

“The best liars are the people who tell the truth most of the time,” said Hirschberg, who received her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania.  This year, she received the International Speech Communication Association’s Medal for Scientific Achievement as well as the James A. Flanagan Award for Speech and Audio Processing from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

She hopes that her research will make great strides in the fields of security such as deception detection and language development.

What are your thoughts on this type of research? Do you think it is important to be able to delineate the signs of deceptions on a regular basis, or should such research findings be kept for science and security fields?  Could such research findings possibly impede our social relationships?