Lying Words: Predicting Deception from Linguistic Styles

Matthew L. Newman · James W. Pennebaker · Diane S. Berry · Jane M. Richards

1,441 citations0/0 files storedPersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin

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Deception detection and forensic psychology Misinformation and Its Impacts Mental Health via Writing

Abstract

Telling lies often requires creating a story about an experience or attitude that does not exist. As a result, false stories may be qualitatively different from true stories. The current project investigated the features of linguistic style that distinguish between true and false stories. In an analysis of five independent samples, a computer-based text analysis program correctly classified liars and truth-tellers at a rate of 67% when the topic was constant and a rate of 61% overall. Compared to truth-tellers, liars showed lower cognitive complexity, used fewer self-references and other-references, and used more negative emotion words.

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References

1972A theory of objective self awareness 2002Psychological Aspects of Natural Language Use: Our Words, Our Selves 1981Attention and Self-Regulation : A Control-Theory Approach to Human Behavior 2003Cues to deception.1981Attention and Self-Regulation 1999Linguistic styles: Language use as an individual difference.1985Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage 1970Language within language: immediacy, a channel in verbal communication

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