Deception and Emotion: The Effects of Motivation, Relationship Type, and Sex on Expected Feelings of Guilt and Shame Following Acts of Deception in United States and Chinese Samples

Abstract

This study explored whether people expect to experience guilt and shame following acts of deception, and whether such expectations are mediated by the deceivers' motivation, culture, sex, and/or the type of relationship between the deceiver and deceived. Students from China and the United States imagined themselves in several deception scenarios and rated the degree to which they would expect to experience guilt and shame following the deception. The scenarios depicted messages told for different reasons (e.g., to avoid conflict, to appear better) and with various relational partners (e.g., friends, spouses, strangers). Results indicated that motive, culture, and relationship affect emotional expectations following deception. No sex differences were found. These results and their implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• Cultural Differences
• Deception
• Emotion
• Guilt
• Intercultural
• Motivation
• Relationships
• Shame

The authors would like to thank Chunsheng Bai, Jacey Skinner, Harold Kinzer, Debora Seiter, Sally Yang, Chuhui Wang, and Dan Wang for their invaluable assistance with data collection and/or cross translation, and anonymous Reviewer B for especially helpful input.

Notes

Note. Standard errors appear in parentheses. No follow-up tests were conducted on Malice motivation or Stranger relationship because deviation contrasts are only conducted up to the degrees of freedom. An asterisk indicates significant difference from the grand mean.

This manuscript was accepted by the previous editor, Professor Jim L. Query.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John S. Seiter

John S. Seiter (Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1993) is a professor at Utah State University

Jon Bruschke

Jon Bruschke (Ph.D., University of Utah, 1994) is a professor at California State University, Fullerton.