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The Truth About Deception
By Meghan Laska
Operations and Information Management professor Maurice Schweitzer reveals how
promises, lies, and envy affect everything from business
negotiations to insurance fraud.
"I just love your new haircut." "Of course it's no problem
to take you to the airport." "That's a great sweater..."
Why do we say things we don't always mean? Does everyone
use some form of deception from time to time? According
to Operations and Information Management Professor Maurice
Schweitzer, not only does everyone use deception, but it's
something we start learning to use as early as age 3.
"We start to test it out as children," he explains. "A 3-yearold
might say something like, 'No, I didn't have a cookie.'
testing to see if his use of deception will be rewarded with another
cookie. And then you'll give the child feedback like, 'I
see cookie crumbs on your face,' and the child will learn to
remove physical evidence because that is how he got caught."
Schweitzer maintains that the "laboratory in which we live
gives us great feedback with which to improve our ability to
tell lies. We get clear and quick feedback as we learn almost
every time whether or not our lie worked."
On the other hand, he notes that our ability to detect lies is
often delayed and imprecise. "When I say that I can't go out
because I have to wash my hair, you just don't know if that is
true. Or if I tell you that I love that sweater, you won't know.
And whenever you visit me, you might put on that sweater.
So you get imperfect—or perhaps delayed—feedback. We
just don't learn as well in those types of settings."
As a result, Schweitzer says that deception represents
a tool—that some people are better at using than others—that
pervades many of our social exchanges, particularly negotiations.
"I became interested in understanding the mechanics
of deception and in particular the judgment process for why
people are more or less likely to lie. And that led me to think
about trust and the conditions under which we are more or
less likely to trust others."
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