Exploring own-age biases in deception detection

Abstract

The present study explored own-age biases in deception detection, investigating whether individuals were more likely to trust those in their own-age group. Younger and older participants were asked to detect deceit from videos of younger and older speakers, rating their confidence in each decision. Older participants showed an own-age bias: they were more likely to think that deceptive speakers of their own age, relative to younger speakers, were telling the truth. Older participants were also more confident in their judgements of own-age, relative to other-age, speakers. There were no own-age biases for younger participants. In a subsequent (apparently unrelated) task, participants were asked to rate the trustworthiness of the speakers. Both age groups of participants trusted younger speakers who had previously told the truth more compared to those who had lied. This effect was not found for older speakers. These findings are considered in relation to the in-group/out-group model of social cognition and common stereotypical beliefs held about younger and older adults.

Keywords:

• Deception
• Trust
• Own-age biases
• In-group/Out-group model

We thank Emily Bonny, Anna Rokaszewiz, Tanza Longley and Louise Buchan for their assistance in collecting and coding these data.

This study was funded by a Sixth Century Fellowship from the University of Aberdeen and a small grant from the Nuffield Foundation [grant ref. SGS/38781] to G Slessor. Bailey, Ruffman and Slessor were also supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.

We thank Emily Bonny, Anna Rokaszewiz, Tanza Longley and Louise Buchan for their assistance in collecting and coding these data.

This study was funded by a Sixth Century Fellowship from the University of Aberdeen and a small grant from the Nuffield Foundation [grant ref. SGS/38781] to G Slessor. Bailey, Ruffman and Slessor were also supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.