Not Pollyannas: Higher Generalized Trust Predicts Lie Detection Ability - Research Paper Example

The key issue surrounding the study is the level of trust given to other people mainly because it is common for every person to have a low level of trust to avoid exploitation and deception. But the pioneers of this study argue that Pollyannas are adaptive learners who can predict lie detection ability and avoid exploitation more due to learned experiences. The hypothesis of the study states that “high trusters who may have learned to be more sensitive to negative social information than low trusters will be better at lie detection but not better truth detectors than low trusters” (Carter & Weber, 275).

Information that was used to test the study is the analysis done by several psychologists to detect deception. Psychologists believed that people are poor lie detectors by nature. In fact, evidence from a recent meta-analysis concluded that 61% of people classify truths as non-deceptive that even expert professionals in detection of lies such as psychiatrist and policemen cannot even distinguish lies from truth (Carter & Weber, 275). In the pursuit of the study, the investigators inferred the hypothesis to be true but to test the normal inference of people in terms of trustworthiness, investigators conduct an experiment surveying 46 Masters of Business Administrations (MBA) students regarding who among the generalized trust managers and the low trust managers can predict deception better.

As expected, the information from the survey form inferred that the general public believed that low trusters can detect lies easily because high trusters have inferior intelligence (Carter & Weber, 275). Five major concepts used in the procedure and measurement of hypothesis includes judgment on the following concepts: (1) deception of the interviewee; (2) confidence level about conclusions made; (3) interviewee’s truthfulness; (4) interviewee’s global honesty; and (5) hiring intentions (Carter & Weber, 276).

Investigators’ assumption is different from the layman’s assumption: investigators assumed that high trusters detect lies better contrary to the layman’s assumption that low trusters detect lies better. However, some basic assumptions that the readers already know are: propensities of trust vary among people, personal utilities are maximized in all social interactions, people are adaptive and flexible in social interactions, low trusters are suspicious people, and humans are poor lie detectors.

Conclusions do not follow the literatures presented that low trusters are better lie detectors than high trusters. Instead, conclusions gathered from the data or audience suggest the reverse conclusion: that high trusters are better lie detectors than low trusters and demonstrate more appropriate impressions and hiring intentions during a job interview (Carter & Weber, 277). The only exception noted in terms of literature was the proposal suggested by Yamagishi supporting the investigators’ assumptions.

Results of the studies confirm the hypothesis of the investigator by conducting statistical and analytical analyses. Carter and Weber utilized the regression analyses such as the SDT-relevant dependent variables yielding results which indicate that high trusters are more sensitive to signals of deception. Using the computed generalized trust scores, hypothesis was confirmed that high trusters were more accurate than low trusters in identifying which of the eight interviewees are lying or telling the truth.

Thus, results of the statistical