An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields
Feelings are often associated with physical reactions: terror can send chills down your spine, and love can leave you weak in the knees. A recent study has linked specific emotions to physical sensations. Researchers tested emotional responses in hundreds of subjects and then created maps identifying locations in the body where emotions cause physical changes.
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Somewhat unsurprisingly, the movies have painted a highly inaccurate picture of the power of polygraphs, or so-called lie-detector tests. While many crime dramas showcase a seemingly miraculous technology for distinguishing truths from lies, this portrayal, itself, is far from true.
However, a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry suggests that polygraph tests may yet have a role to play, alongside MRI machines and brain scans.
Subjects were asked to write down numbers and then lie to researchers about what they had written down. While being interrogated, each participant was subjected to both an MRI scan and a polygraph test, and the researchers attempted to evaluate when they were being lied to.
While the MRI test proved to be about 24 percent more effective than the polygraph, both tests employed in tandem were able to determine deception in almost every case: a remarkable achievement.
Previous studies on MRI testing found them to be up to 90 percent accurate, while the accuracy of polygraph tests ranged wildly from perfectly accurate to completely unreliable. Even 90 percent accuracy falls short of being reliable enough for criminal proceedings. However, with this study, the doors have opened towards justifying more research into lie detection testing.
As Dr. Daniel Langleben, a study author, said: “While the jury remains out on whether fMRI will ever become a forensic tool, these data certainly justify further investigation of its potential.”
In order to appreciate the significance of this study, it is important to understand the limitations that both MRI machines and polygraph tests face in detecting deception.
MRI machines generate images of the subjects’ brains. These images allow researchers to see any physical abnormalities or changes in blood flow, revealing which parts of the brain are currently active. Some of the earliest studies on MRIs as lie detectors had subjects select playing cards and then lie about which ones they had picked. This helped narrow down which parts of the brain light up when a person is being deceitful.
However, there may be confounding factors, as these MRI images often just reveal when the subject has to think quickly about how best to respond. While this does detect lies, it may also indicate uncertainty, or it could be easily misled by a well-rehearsed story that took no effort to recite.
Based on this uncertainty, every attempt to introduce MRI-based lie detection as evidence in court proceedings has failed. In fact, they often show false signs of deception, which would be a major flaw in court proceedings.
Polygraph tests, on the other hand, work by tracking the subject’s heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and other physiological responses. Law enforcement personnel ask “control” questions that are only tangentially related to the investigation at hand, as well as “relevant” questions which probe for details on the subject’s involvement in the crime.
If the subject shows a higher heart rate when asked the “relevant” questions, this indicates that they are attempting to conceal their guilt. However, there are significant underlying problems with this approach. In fact, there is little evidence to show that these physiological responses are even unique to the practice of deception.
Between the theoretical flaws and the fact that polygraphs can be outsmarted, it is understandable that they are currently not admissible in court proceedings.
For more information on polygraph tests, read our blog here. Also, check out this post to learn how you can be a better lie-detector.
People are often excluded from social groups. As researchers from the University of Basel in Switzerland report in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, whether uninvolved observers find this acceptable or not may depend on the facial appearances of those excluded. The exclusion of cold and incompetent looking people is more likely to be accepted.
Social exclusion – be it at school, work or among friends – is usually a painful experience for those affected. This behavior also often has a considerable effect on third-party observers: Bullying and ostracism with the aim to hurt the victims are seen as particularly unfair and morally unacceptable. However, in some cases, social exclusion is also perceived as justified. Groups are, for example, more likely to ostracize people who cause trouble or arguments in order to restore the harmony in their group.
Quick moral judgment
Whether uninvolved observers view social exclusion as morally justified or not can be very important for the victim as a possible intervention depends on that judgment. Making such a moral judgment, however, is often difficult and time consuming, which is why observers revert to relatively superficial indicators for guidance. One such indicator is the face of the excluded person.
In several studies, the team of psychologists from the University of Basel presented different male faces to a total of 480 participants. The facial characteristics had previously been altered using a recently developed method for facial manipulation. The portraits were manipulated to appear warm or cold and competent or incompetent. The participants looked at each portrait for two seconds before spontaneously deciding how acceptable they thought it was for a group to exclude this person.
More protection for warm and incompetent looking people
In all studies, participants found it more acceptable to socially exclude people whose faces looked cold and incompetent. However, exclusion was found least acceptable when those excluded looked warm and incompetent. A possible explanation for this could be that these people are often perceived as especially in need of protection and therefore excluding them from a group would be particularly cruel, says lead researcher Dr. Selma Rudert from the Center of Social Psychology at the University of Basel.
Earlier studies have shown that humans have very clear-cut ideas of what a warm or cold person looks like. However, there is no evidence for any relation between facial features and personality traits. In other words: Although appearances are deceptive, individuals let them guide their judgment. The perceived warmth and competence in a person’s face play an especially important role in this judgment.
Objectivity would be important
“Our results suggest that the first impression a person makes can also influence moral judgments that would actually call for objectivity”, explains Rudert. These impressions can have far-reaching consequences for how people behave in social exclusion situations: “It is conceivable that a cold and incompetent looking victim of exclusion would get less support or, in the worst case, bystanders may even actively join the ostracizing group – all based on one glance at the face of the victim.”