It wasn't me: why do humans lie?

I've always been terrible at poker and that's why I really hate playing the game.

The reason for my inept ability? I absolutely suck at lying. My poker face is so bad that even Stevie Wonder could expose me.

One time I was dealt a flop; an Aston Villa of a hand, but I still called and then raised my bet.

My heart started to race, I started to get sweaty and I became red in the face. One person folded, luckily, assuming that I had a killer, however everyone else stayed in, calling my outrageous bet of 50p (I was crazy). I knew I wasn't going to win with my dire three and nine of hearts, but I persevered, upping my bet to three Freddo bars.

Anyway... I lost that hand, and when bluffing I seem to always lose them. Everyone knew I had nothing from the start. They could see I was nervous, and they could see my increased irritation after calling every one of my bets.

The Poker Face

A poker bluff is just one example of a lie that humans have tried to perfect. We use lies to gain power and control, like Frank Underwood in House of Cards. We sometimes tell little white lies to make a situation less uncomfortable, or we tell a lie to increase our self-esteem, thus making ourselves look better.

Interestingly, humans aren't the only species that lie. Koko the gorilla, renowned for having a sign language vocabulary of 1000 words, ripped a sink off of the wall in her indoor enclosure. When asked who did it, Koko blamed her little pet kitten. Some animals feign death with the hope that a predator will just leave them alone.  The term 'playing possum' comes to mind.

Why do we lie?

The Invention of Lying, a Ricky Gervais film hated by critics but adored by me, is about a man set in a world where lying isn't possible and everyone is very blunt. Mark Bellison, a sort of nobody who gets fired from his job because he is too boring, learns how to lie and using his ability he gets rich, gets the girl. Following on from that he decides to do good to the world and passes his ability to lie to his son.

That was a terrible description of the film. After all, I'm a psychology student and not a film critic.

Mark's ability to lie came when he was need of rent money, but our ability to lie to someone may have come from our ability to cooperate.

When we help someone out, they are more likely to help us (the reciprocity principle of persuasion).   In the Animal Kingdom vampire bats help each other out by regurgitating blood to another bat that hasn't eaten in awhile.

However, deceiving someone into making them believe you've helped them out before could have allowed our ancestors to be rewarded without actually having to cooperate further. McNally and Jackson (2013) backed this up with primate studies, finding that the species that requires the most cooperation also has the highest rates of lying or deception.

To sum it up: if we want to do less but still be rewarded, it might be beneficial to us to lie.

But lying isn't always bad. There are white lies that we use that don't hurt others. We may lie to flatter people, gain people's trust and make ourselves more attractive to others.

Here is a list of some sweet White lies:

• It wasn’t me! 
• The table will be ready in 5 minutes. 
• Oh, yeah.  That makes sense. 
• Thank you so much!  I just love it! 
• Yeah, you look great in that dress. 
• Oh, things would have been different if I was there! 
• No, officer… I have no idea how fast I was going. 
• I’m 22. 
• Yeah, I’ll start working on that ASAP! 
• I thought I already sent that email out.  I’m sure I did. 

The Lying Arms Race 

Fall Out Boy coined: "I am an arms dealer, fitting you with weapons in the form of words" in their song This Ain't a Scene. No doubt it's one of my favourite F.O.B songs, and it is definitely one you can scream at the top of your lungs.

The lyrics make out that lies are like weapons, and when there is a weapon made, there is an arms race to better it. Just like any species that is in need of survival, an arms race breaks out in which two groups advance their defensive or offensive tactics to combat the other: The antelope was being eaten by the cheetah - so it got faster, but then the cheetah couldn't catch its food - so it too had to get faster.

In the case of the dinosaurs the leaf eaters got bigger and bigger so they wouldn't get eaten. Carnivores like good old T-Rex would have also needed to be bigger in order to catch them and not get hurt (although their arms did get smaller). 

Argentinosaurus: Its length, from its head to the tip of its tail, was 40m.That's one big dinosaur. T-Rex would have struggled here.

The above cases concerned predator and prey, but for lying there is a within species effect. Humans had to get better at detecting a lie so that they wouldn't get cheated. The liars would have had to combat this by getting better at lying i.e.not getting all sweaty and short of breath like I do when playing poker. 

THE END (OR NOT?)

So that concludes this blog post on why we lie, but it's only Part 1!

I mentioned that an armed race of lie vs. lie detection has evolved in humans. In my next blog Part 2 is going to talk about some of the methods that we use to detect lying. I'll be talking about Paul Ekman and micro-expressions and also how technology has helped us detect lies.

If you've liked this check out some of my other blog posts and subscribe via email. You get some notifications if and when I release the next one (look on the right side of the page).

Here is a link to my blog post on the power of authority:

http://thepsychologymann.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/compliance-to-authority-power-of-uniform.html

Compliance to Authority: The Power of a Uniform

COMPLIANCE TO AUTHORITY

Our instinct to obey authority can have dramatic consequences: A nurse may blindly follow a doctor's orders of giving a patient a lethal dosage of medicine even though she knows it may be wrong. The Nazis famous defence at the Nuremburg trials was "just following orders". Although fictional, Lance Corporal Dawson and Private Downey in A Few Good Men accidentally killed Private Santiago under the orders to give him a Code Red (It's a great film/play, I definitely recommend it).

Something is wrong here. Why do we comply to the request of someone of authority like rats (or children) comply to follow the Pied Piper? 

Milgram's experiment

Milgram seeked to investigate this conflict between obedience and conscience, particularly to find justifications for the atrocities committed by the Nazis in WW2. Was it possible that Germans were particularly susceptible to comply to authority figures? Milgram (1963) wanted to see how far the average Joe would go in obeying an order that involved hurting another person. 

You can watch the video below summarising his study.

The Procedure 

At the beginning of the experiment participants were introduced to one another, had a nice chat, then drew straws for two roles; either the teacher or the learner. However, one of the participants wasn't actually a participant, he was in on it (known as a confederate). There was also an experimenter dressed in a grey lab coat who ran the experiment.

The learner (confederate) was taught a list of world pairs that would have to later be recalled. Following this, he was strapped into a sort of electric chair.

Now the really interesting stuff starts...

When testing started the teacher was instructed by the experimenter to give the learner (remember he is a confederate) an electric shock when a word-pair was incorrect. These shocks started at 15 volts and went to 450V.

As the shocks increased, the increased discomfort of the learner (obviously) increased, yet the teacher would still increase the voltage. After a while, many of them refused to give any more shocks to the learner because they knew they were hurting him, but upon the instruction or command of the experimenter in the grey lab coat, they would keep going.

65% of the teachers went to the highest voltage whilst all of them went to 300 volts, definitely enough to kill a man.

The results rocked the U.S. Even ordinary people will follow orders given by someone of authority, even to the extent that they would kill them. 

The news shocked everyone.

The Power of the Uniform

In Milgram's original study the experimenter wore a grey lab coat. Nothing too huge or extravagant right? Well that grey lab coat had a pretty huge effect.  In an extension to the original the experimenter was 'called away' and an ordinary looking person in civilian clothing took his place. Without the lab coat, compliance dropped to 20%; an obvious sign that wearing the lab coat added power.

Bickman (1974) ran a series of experiments to find if different uniforms have different effects on obedience. He had participants approached by people in three costumes:

1) Milkman
2) Policeman
3) Civilian clothing

Passerbys were told to pick up a bag, give money to someone or move away from where they were standing. When told by the man in a seemingly convincing policeman uniform, the participants were twice as likely to follow an order than the other men in uniform. The compliance even continued after the policeman walked away.

Children also see power in a police uniform, and learn this at a pretty young age. When shown pictures of three different men, children were asked about who could make a lawful arrest. One man was a police officer out of uniform, the other was a police officer in uniform and the last was an imposter; a man who wasn't an officer of the law, yet was in uniform. Although told that he wasn't a policeman, the children still chose the non-policeman (Durkin)

An eye opening experiment also showed that a man wearing a costume could tell people to keep someone prisoner, get them to a jump on the spot or even worse than all of the aforementioned atrocities... litter.

So what can we do? Well we often look up to authority to help us. The person of authority is the one we trust. They may be wiser, and in the case of the police; they may truly come to our aid when we need them. So, still trust your neighbourhood Bobby, do what he says if it makes sense. However, if you aren't quite sure, make sure to ask for some identification.

References:

Bickman, L. (1974). The social power of a uniform1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 4(1), 47-61.

Durkin, K., & Jeffery, L. (2000). The salience of the uniform in young children's perception of police status. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 5(1), 47-55.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of abnormal and social psychology, 67(4), 371.

Inoculation theory: how to fight being influenced

The denial of scientific research can have dramatic consequences.

Sure, denying the existence of the dinosaurs or arguing that the Earth isn't round isn't going to kill anyone, but denial of the effectiveness of vaccines because it is believed that they cause autism is causing a rise in the number of preventable diseases.

When we present evidence that contradicts someone's beliefs, that someone's beliefs may grow even stronger. When proving that vaccines aren't linked to autism, anti-vaxxers express their belief even more strongly. The same occurs with the idea that humans are causing climate change; presenting more evidence can lead more people to believe the contrary.

The famous facepalm

Inoculation

To  neutralise the misinformation found in these theories one should make use of inoculation theory. This theory applies inoculation, often associated with vaccines, to knowledge. First developed by McGuire in 1961, inoculation theory helps us to preserve our original attitudes and beliefs in the face of persuasion. Just like a shot in the arm uses weakened or dead viruses that stimulates our immune system to protect against future attacks, an inoculation uses a weakened version of a future persuasion attempt. The weak attack is refuted (or the potential victim receives help to refute it), with the end results being that they are less likely to be affected by a stronger attack.

Applied Inoculation

The theory has been replicated in a variety of contexts including politics, public relations, and smoking and drinking prevention. Here is a video showing Obama making using of inoculation before he was elected President:

Research in Inoculation

Recognizing a serious problem with student credit card debt, and with no clear way to solve this (at the time), Compton & Pfau (2004) tested whether inoculation theory would extend to students under attack from credit card marketing. Compton & Pfau set out their inoculation in 3 phases:

1) Participants were assessed whether or not they had a credit card and their attitude towards credit cards.

2) Their attitudes towards credit cards were assessed again, followed by an inoculation message.

3) Participants were then subjected to a simulated credit card advertising message, then again were assessed on their attitudes towards credit cards

Results

Inoculation helped to defend against credit card advertisements, with students protecting healthy attitudes about credit cards. As the table below shows; students were also more likely to pay-down their credit card debts if they had them, whilst word-of-mouth communication about credit card debt to other peers increased.

How does it work?

Inoculation works by engaging the central route of processing an attitude. The inoculation message's weak attack causes the person to think carefully, unlike peripheral processing in which people bypass the whole thinking part. Inoculation causes people to think more than they would otherwise. This thinking develops stronger attitudes about an object, in the above case; attitudes about credit card use, and this will lead to a behaviour change (as the picture below shows)

So if you want to succeed in inoculating people against those pesky credit card companies, or against any cold-calling companies then it'll be good to follow these three rules:

1.  Warn the receiver of the impending attack.
2.  Make a weak attack (not too strong or weak; like a vaccine should be)
3.  Get the receiver to actively defend the attitude.


References

Compton, J. A., & Pfau, M. (2004). Use of inoculation to foster resistance to credit card marketing targeting college students. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 32, 343-364.

McGuire, W. J., & Papageorgis, D. (1961). The relative efficacy of various types of prior belief-defense in producing immunity against persuasion.The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62, 327.

Have I already told you my Déjà Vu joke?

Have I Already told you my Déjà Vu joke?

That's one of my favourite, and it may take a few seconds for your and cogs and wheels to get turning before you get it. 

I'd tell you some more of my hilarious jokes but there really are just too many of them to write in one blog post.

 Déjà Vu:

1) An annoying word to write on an English keyboard. I'll probably start referring to it as 'IT'

2) A French term for already seen.

3) A bloody difficult thing to explain.

IT is one of those events that just pops out of nowhere. You'll be chatting with your friends, eating your once gain unpalatable penne whilst nursing an all too well-known hangover with a strong cup of Joe.

Out of nowhere you'll be hit with a sudden feeling that you've been in this position before. You feel like the conversation you are having with your (also) hover friends is like something from a Back to the Future film.

You just have to proclaim this sudden feeling to the world with this simple catchphrase: 

Surely we've all said this at least once?

And of course you'll be met with the same old responses: nods, eyes rolling, and the painful

"Anyway...".

Why Déjà Vu?

In my previous 'article' I mentioned that I like talk about ideas or theories in Psychology that make me as curious as George.

Déjà Vu does just that. However I couldn't explain it off the top of my head.

My family coined a term for when I try and explain something of the top of my head. It's called a Josh Mann. I may have read something off the news, an article, something from twitter or the deep, dark depths of Facebook and because it was on the internet I obviously believed it (because the internet never lies). I then preach it like it was the truest thing I ever saw. However I do try back it up, with varying success.

Because I could never really explain Déjà Vu I thought I'd do some 'research'.

The end result would hopefully be that I'd be successful in explaining this truly weird phenomenon we all experience. Although it doesn't shape our lives too much, and it occurs extremely irregularly, you might at least finish this thinking: "that was cool, but why is the brain so weird."

What causes Déjà Vu?

For years people have pondered over Déjà Vu. 

Some psychiatrists believe that errors in our brain cause us to mix up the present and the past. Parapsychologists posit that when we have feel this stranger sensation, we feel it because we are replicating a past-life experience.

Another theory suggests a mix-up problem between short and long-term memory. Events that have happened just recently bypass the normal processing mechanisms and end up in long-term memory straight away. This gives us the sort of feeling that we are recalling an event from the distant past though it's really not so distant. 

It is also possible that there is a delay in the transfer of sensory information from one side of the brain to the other. In Déjà Vu one side of the brain may get the information twice in quick, but not immediate succession. They would then get the feeling that what they'd just experienced had happened before. 

Déjà vu, Drugs and Epilepsy

The subheading above may sound like a student written play at the University of Warwick but Déjà Vu, drugs and epilepsy are very much entwined.

In 2001, the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience reported a case of a 39-year-old Doctor who, in order to get rid of the flu, had taken drugs that increased concentrations of the neurotransmitter Dopamine in the brain. Within 24 hours he was experiencing intense and frequent episodes of Déjà vu but upon soon after stopping his course, the episodes went away. 

The study of epilepsy has found a strong association between Déjà vu and the seizures experienced by those with medial-temporal lobe epilepsy. This form of epilepsy affects the hippocampus, a brain structure involved in memory formation and storage. Those with medial-temporal lobe epilepsy were found to have experienced Déjà vu when having a seizure. 

Déjà vu, like Epilepsy, may be the result of misfiring of neurons in the brain at random. This causes healthy people to experience something that hasn't yet occurred. When parts of the medial temporal lobe activate together there is a sudden activation of the system that helps us recollect information.

Don't worry if you think you Déjà vu too often. Most of us experience it and it's more common if you are 15-25 years old. 

It's just your brain's natural way of telling you that it has screwed up a little, but not that much.

Hope you enjoyed this short little blog, 

The First of Many... I hope?

Blog Numero Uno

Starting a blog was not the first thing that came to my head when I woke up this morning. It was more along the lines off: "Oh crap, I'm going to be late for this lecture". My alarm, which I thought was set to an early (for a student) eight O'clock in the morning, wasn't. My reason for waking up on this cold, frosty January morning was the primitive need to assuage my thirst.

I sluggishly rolled out of bed, drank a pint of water, thereby fulfilling stage 1 in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I then halfheartedly prepared for a day of  writing up lecture notes and eating cold, unpalatable penne pasta.  

Finishing off my green eggs and ham for breakfast (just pesto and ham in an omelette, I know it sounds weird), I ran to catch the U1 bus, which as Warwick students know, hasn't always been the most reliable service (Disclaimer: it is improving!). 

After wrangling with one hundred other eager, and probably also late commuters, I settled into my module's core reading:  Influence, the Science of Persuasion by Dr. Cialdini, the "Godfather of Influence", who also has a pretty cool-looking website. See it here. 

I wasn't just reading his book because I was keen bean, but because the topic of influence absolutely fascinates me. Throughout the book Cialdini explains the various ways that the average Joe is influenced in daily life, and how you can avoid being influenced. On top of that, he gives people ideas in how they can influence other people. I find myself  often trying out some of these 'tricks'. When it works, the door-in-the-face technique, makes me beam with happiness.

Ask for something outlandish, or unreasonable. Due to its outlandishness, the victim of your persuasion technique would then most likely refuse. I wouldn't think that I would say yes if a random person asked me for £20 really

If denied, ask for something more reasonable. This reasonable request will now be more likely to agreed to than if it were asked alone. 

The door-in the face. Picture credit: buzzle

My favourite example, which I'm sure many of you have tried in the past (un)intentionally, is asking your parents for pocket money. You might have asked to get an extra £2 a week, and your parents will swiftly say no, so in the end you might say "well can I have 50p more a week then?". They may still say no, but you'd be much more likely to get that extra 50p than if you'd asked the question on its own. If you've succeeded then you could pocket an extra £26 a year, rougly equivalent to 260 Freddos circa 2006. 

Unfortunately for you lactose intolerant folks out there, just like me you would have had to make do with those sherbet straws.

Another one of my favourites is the foot-in-the-door technique, a relative of the door-in-the-face. This technique is similar as it involves compliance to requests, but differs as the request tends to gets larger after the initial one is accepted. You can read about it here (good old Wiki), or just scroll down.

Anyway. Why I decided to blog:

As part of that behaviour change module course credit, which I briefly mentioned before starting  to spiel off a few ways to become a clever Machiavellian, we have to write a blog. 

Before starting to write the blog, which by the way I haven't started, we first had to come up with behaviours that we would like to change. These behaviours have to be measurable and beneficial, for example finding ways to increase the number of people donating blood in the local area, getting people to live healthier, or getting people to car-share more so that traffic is reduced to and from campus (my own little suggestion).

To try make this blog at least good-ish, I started to looking at various sites that teach you how to write a good blog, even sites that screamed '10 TOP TIPS IF YOU WANT TO BE A BLOGGING STAR!'. I've seen some of my friends write blogs and they are great reads. After doing some perusing I actually thought; "yeah, I could do this". 

The people who know me know that I like to talk about random facts that I've read about. This Tuesday I found out from a lecture on human sexuality that the plural of penis isn't penises, it's penes. For some reason, I just had to tell a lot of people. I'm a fact guy who loves absorbing information from every front. Whether it's the plural of penis or the number of minutes in a year (525, 600), I love facts. 

A few Musical Theatre Readers will get this.

As a consequence of my fact loving and the FACT that I'm currently studying psychology, I thought that I would take advantage of my degree and write about some psychological ideas and theories that I find interesting.

My aim isn't to get famous from doing this, but just to do what blogging was sort of meant for: expressing views, spreading news and making people LOL from behind their screens, whether mobile or on a computer.

So buckle up. This is only the first blog out of what I hope is many. If you like learning about cool psychology things then this might be the blog for you. If you don't, then it's the perfect place to laugh at grammatical errors and unwitty humour.

If you haven't noticed, I use LOL a fair bit. You can watch the debate on LOL or HAHA below.

I'll be posting again when I find something cool-looking. However input would be highly valued. 

Like anything to do with Psychology? Let me know and I'll try and talk about it, backing it up with some facts and then maybe adding a little extra. Feel free to comment ask questions.

So yeah. My name is Josh Mann. I like Musical Theatre, I'm lactose intolerant and I eat weird things for breakfast. If you like Marvel, Game of Thrones or Star Wars then I could talk for hours. If you don't, I wont judge.

Thanks for reading.