Digital Deception

Normal is so boring

The TAT test basically flies in the face of everything I’ve ever been told, or believe, about myself. I wrote a 387 word story about a woman in science…which may or may not have been a take-off on the life story of Madame Curie. Anyway, perhaps because the story was not actually about me, the analysis was entirely out of whack.

On the Need for Achievement scale, the higher the number, the more you felt a need to achieve. It is undeniable that I have a serious need for achievement; it reaches unhealthy levels periodically. But according to the LIWC test, I have relatively little drive. While I did get cut-off before I got to the part where my fictional character wins her second Nobel Prize, I am surprised that the mentioning of the first did not send my score into the higher regions of the scale. Further, my entire story was about women breaking down science barriers and taking a lead in the field. I think something must have been off in the analysis.

I’m also low in a need for affiliation and power (both clearly untrue), and it’s kind of a toss-up whether I’m a positive or negative person (mid-scale on each).

Although it seems to have failed in the case of my own, personal, analysis, I think the LIWC test does have some predictive validity for deception. As Keila and Skillicorn point out, deception theory suggests that deceptive writings include a reduced frequency of first-person pronouns and exclusive words. Two of the LIWC dimensions are Self-references and Social Words.

Using fewer first-person pronouns enables individuals to dissociate themselves from their lie. Interestingly, according to the fine folks at LIWC, the use of big words has the same effect. While I did use a fair amount of big words, I made no first person references. Thing is, the directions for this exercise did not include that the story had to be about yourself. I was writing about one of the most influential women in the history of chemistry and physics, clearly not an undergraduate Communication major. Had I been given instructions to write a story about me and not an imaginative story with relation the provided picture, I might have lied. And research suggests that in that case, I would have used fewer first-person pronouns and bigger words.

Exclusive words are also indications of deception. Words such as “without,” and “but,” indicate a cognitively complex story, while lies are frequently not as complex. I used a lot of inclusive, or social, words in my story. Pennebaker et al. would say that this means I am outgoing and socially connected with other people; Keila and Zhou would each say this means I am a liar.

posted by Erica @ 11:08 AM