DePaulo, Bella

Lying in Everyday Life

Perhaps DePaulo's most famous research is her documentation of lying in everyday life. In two studies, she and her colleagues asked college students and community members to keep diaries of all their social interactions over a week, and to record information about any lies they told. These were the first studies to document how often people lie (approximately once or twice per day, on average), as well as the types and contexts of these lies. People generally told more self-centered lies than altruistic lies, except in dyads involving only women. People usually did not regard their lies as serious, did not plan most of their lies in advance, and usually did not worry about being caught.

Although people told fewer lies to close relationship partners (e.g., friends, family, and romantic partners), these lies tended to be more altruistic. Because most of these everyday lies were not considered serious, DePaulo and colleagues asked participants in a separate study to report the most serious lies they told and the most serious lies told to them. Most of these serious lies took place within close relationships.

Working with Charles Bond, DePaulo conducted a meta-analysis that synthesized the results of 206 previous studies to determine the ability of ordinary people to detect lies with no technical aids or special training. On average, people were accurate only 54 percent of the time, hardly better than chance (or 50 percent accuracy). However, people were better at judging lies based on auditory rather than visual information.

DePaulo is well known for dispelling the misconception that there is a Pinocchio's nose, or certain verbal or nonverbal cues that always mean that someone is lying. She and her colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 120 previous studies, examining a total of 158 potential cues to deception; most behaviors were not linked or were only weakly linked to deception. Nevertheless, they found some statistically significant differences between liars and truth-tellers; liars make a more negative impression, are less forthcoming, are more tense, and tell stories with fewer imperfections. Ironically, cues to deception are more pronounced among liars who are more motivated to succeed in getting away with their lies. DePaulo's research has also shown that the cues that people think indicate deception are not actually strongly related to deception.

DePaulo is one of very few researchers who have examined lie detection in friendships. She and her colleagues found that close friends are more accurate at detecting lies than less close friends.

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