Exploring sanctioned and unsanctioned lies in interpersonal deception

This paper explores individuals' motivation to lie in experimental lie detection. Recent research has called into question the validity of experiments employing a sanctioned lie (lying to satisfy the experimenter's instructions) to investigate deceptive communication. Participants were randomly selected to tell the truth, tell a sanctioned lie, or tell an unsanctioned lie. Results indicated that interviewees failed to report any perceived differences in impression management, nervousness, or involvement between veracity conditions. Interviewers also failed to notice any differences in interviewees' behavioral displays across veracity conditions. Thus, the present study supports research efforts employing sanctioned lies to examine interpersonal deception. Results are discussed in terms of Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) stress and coping model.