Currently supported research projects

Uncertainty (“doubt or uncertainty regarding the self, the world, and the interrelation between the two”, Arkin, Oleson, & Carroll, 2009, p. 8) is assumed to improve lie detection accuracy via an increase in the motivation to spot lies. This increased motivation should motivate individuals to not only process nonverbal and paraverbal cues, but also engage more in the effortful processing of verbal cues. As verbal cues are more valid regarding the detection of the deception, lie detection accuracy should thereby improve. The goal of this research project is to empirically test these ideas, clarify the mechanisms behind the improving effect of uncertainty, as well as test ways to make use of this effect in applied contexts (e.g. employment interviews).

Project management: Sarah Volz & Marc-André Reinhard

Research indicates that dishonesty in romantic relationships is linked to decreased relational satisfaction, commitment (Cole, 2001) and closeness (DePaulo & Kashy, 1998). Despite these negative consequences, romantic partners are assumed to tell about one lie in every three interactions (DePaulo & Kashy, 1998). The planned research should bring together two lines of research, which has not been merged so far: One the one hand, the question about which personality factors affect the prevalence of lying in romantic relationships already provides first insights (e.g., Kashy & DePaulo, 1996), but the investigation of potential associations to Honesty-humility are missing so far. On the other hand, Honesty-humility reliably appeared to be the major predictor for dishonesty in economic cheating paradigms (e.g., Hilbig & Zettler, 2015). With the present project, we aim to merge both lines of research to check the hypothesis that Honesty-humility is also negatively linked to dishonesty within romantic relationships.

Project management: Nina Reinhardt & Marc-André Reinhard