ETHICS & BEHAVIOR, 23(1), 67–70Copyright © 2013 Taylor & F

ETHICS & BEHAVIOR, 23(1), 67–70
Copyright © 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1050-8422 print / 1532-7019 online
DOI: 10.1080/10508422.2013.757958
Beyond Abu Ghraib: The 2010 APA Ethics Code Standard
1.02 and Competency for Execution Evaluations
Bronwen Lichtenstein
Department of Criminal Justice
The University of Alabama
In 2011—a full year after the American Psychological
Association (APA) amended its ethics code
to prohibit psychologists from engaging in activities that
justified or defended violating human
rights (APA, Ethics Committee, 2010)—the Texas State Board
of Examiners of Psychologists
censured forensic psychologist Dr. George Denkowski for
artificially inflating the IQ of 14 defen-
dants as proof of competency for execution (CFE; Grissom,
2011). Denkowski was also censured
for methods that deviated from standard psychological practice;
that is, he developed his own
methods rather than use scientifically valid measures of life
skills and adaptive functioning. The
psychologist had manipulated two measures: inmates’ IQ scores
(which must be above 70 in

order to be mentally competent for execution) and their level of
adaptive functioning, tradition-
ally evaluated on the basis of collateral information from
relatives and close associates rather
than the assessor. Denkowski’s testing and methods were held
to be a clear violation of standard
practice and ethics for psychology. Out of 14 inmates whom
Denkowski had evaluated as legally
competent for execution, two were executed; the others await
execution.
Denkowski was reputed to be the go-to psychologist in
producing the desired result for the
state (Feltz, 2010). However, he had not started out that way.
Early in his career as an evaluator, he
was dismissed by the state after finding an inmate’s IQ too low
to meet the standard of being too
mentally impaired for execution. The state then hired an expert
for the case who disagreed with
Denkowski, and the inmate was duly executed. This early
experience was apparently an object
lesson for Denkowski, who began to testify so reliably for legal
CFE that he earned a reputation
for being “Texas prosecutors’ favorite tester [with] almost Dr.
Death status” (Feltz, 2010).
The case raises two essential points in terms of psychology’s
ethical role in evaluations
for CFE. First, Denkowski was willing to falsify data for the
prosecution, purportedly, in part,
because the work was both plentiful and lucrative (Feltz, 2010).
Second, Texas actively sought
mental health experts whose evaluations would lead to
execution. The state was exposed as a
willful director in obtaining the results it wanted from CFE, and
the psychologist was exposed

in terms of financial motivation and perhaps a belief system
aligned with the prosecution.
Deitchman, Kennedy, and Beckham’s (1991) study of forensic
psychiatrists and psychologists
in Florida found that supporters of the death penalty were more
willing than opponents to testify
in CFE evaluations, especially if they were male, socially
conservative, and in a salaried position.
Correspondence should be addressed to Bronwen Lichtenstein,
Department of Criminal Justice, Ph.D., The University
of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0320. E-mail:
[email protected]
68 THE FORUM
The authors concluded that self-selection factors determine who
is likely to participate in or avoid
conducting such evaluations.
The Denkowski case is not the only instance of unethical
professional actions in evaluat-
ing competency cases. An earlier example involves Arizona’s
nationwide search for a qualified
mental health professional who would agree to forcibly treat
mentally ill inmate Claude Maturana
so that he gained a rational understanding of his crime and why
he was being punished (Bright,
2004). The search began with a psychiatrist’s refusal to treat
Maturana’s mental illness for the
purpose of restoring him to CFE. The psychiatrist cited the
Hippocratic Oath in his refusal. After
an extensive search, the state was able to hire a medical director
from the Georgia Department of

Corrections for the task. Maturana was then treated for mental
illness but died during a surgical
procedure while still awaiting execution.
Although the Maturana case involves physicians rather than
psychologists (who cannot
prescribe treatments to restore mentally ill people to
competency), it raises the question of profes-
sional autonomy among mental health professionals who work
within the criminal justice system.
Psychologists who are state employees do not have the
equivalent of a Hippocratic Oath with a
“do not harm” principle to legitimize their refusals for
participating in treatment such as cogni-
tive therapy or evaluations that could lead to execution. Some
psychologists could cite the APA’s
amended Ethics Code Standard 1.02 as a reason for not
participating in therapy or evaluations
for CFE, but refusals are more difficult if the psychologist
regards participation as a professional
duty. There is also a question as to whether the APA ethics code
is as powerful as the Hippocratic
Oath in preventing injury or harm, particularly if psychologists
cannot agree on whether or not
execution is a violation of human rights. The APA has not
adopted a ban on execution; thus,
psychologists may perceive their involvement to be ethical
because they oppose the death penalty
and see their efforts as subservice to the system, because they
believe that killers should pay
the ultimate penalty, or simply because they consider neutral,
scientifically valid psychometric
testing to be prima facie ethical.
A third case concerns Texas inmate Michael W. Hall, who
received the death penalty despite

evidence that he was mentally impaired according to the
standard for execution. The verdict was
unsuccessfully appealed, first to the 5th Circuit Court of
Appeals and then to the U.S. Supreme
Court (Hall v. Thaler, 2010). The case is instructive for what it
reveals about expert testimony
in an adversarial legal system. Boccaccini, Turner, Murrie, and
Rufino (in press); Murrie et al.
(2009); and Rufino, Boccaccini, Hawes, and Murrie (2012)
found that adversarial allegiance
influences evaluators’ test scores in commitment proceedings
for sex offenders—an outcome
that is likely to apply to competency evaluations as well. In
Hall, both experts disagreed about
Hall’s level of mental impairment and thus competency for
execution. The defense expert, Dr.
Mark Cunningham, an experienced evaluator who had testified
335 times for the defense, found
the inmate’s IQ too low to meet the standard for CFE. The state
then accused him of bias because
he had never been retained by the prosecution in a capital case.
By contrast, the state’s expert, Dr.
J. Randall Price, who had testified 232 times for both
prosecution and defense, was considered
to be objective and his findings were thus credible. The defense
lost the appeal, and Hall was
executed on February 15, 2011.
Hall’s case reflects the professional realities of providing expert
testimony in CFE hearings in
the U.S. legal system. In view of his alleged role as a hired gun
for the defense, Cunningham’s
evaluation was deemed biased. In the three cases described
here, the court’s power to weigh
the value of forensic evaluations in support of the case for death
is indicative of its ultimate

THE FORUM 69
jurisdiction and judgments over legal matters. These judgme nts
are outside the APA’s ability to
influence professional ethics in forensic psychology. However,
the next logical step would be for
the APA’s code of ethics to go beyond revised language on
human rights violations to make a
clear statement about psychology’s role in evaluating inmates
for execution. A useful statement
could clarify both the foundations of the underlying
methodology and science as well as the
professional standards for evaluation. It arguably could clarify
whether evaluations are ethically
desirable or functionally necessary. Despite much debate about
psychology’s involvement after
the death penalty was reestablished in 1976, and a subsequent
call for a moratorium on death
penalty cases until procedural flaws and biases were dealt with
(APA, 2001), the APA has failed
to address the ethics of treating mentally ill inmates who are to
be brought to trial for capital
murder or evaluated for CFE. This lack of clarity is in direct
contrast to the ethical principles
of the American Medical Association (AMA), which explicitly
bans physicians from taking any
role in the execution process, including treating mentally ill
inmates with psychiatric drugs and
administering legal injections (AMA, 2012).
Let me make the case more clearly in terms of what the 2010
APA Ethics Code Standard
1.02 may mean for forensic psychologists who evaluate

prisoners for competency or those who
are employed in corrections. The legal system begets winners
and losers; regardless of personal
ethics or objectivity, psychologists are hired to perform
evaluations, usually for one side or the
other. The three examples cited here suggest that the legal
system is in control and that psycho-
logical evaluations are useful mainly when both sides agree or,
as happens in most cases, the
state does not hire an evaluator for this purpose (see Brodsky
1990; Kan, Boccaccini, McGorty,
Noland, & Lawson, 2009). For psychologists who are employed
in corrections, their personal
or situational allegience is likely to be to the institutions that
employ them; hence Denkowski’s
ethics violations on behalf of the prosecution, the successful
recruitment of a prison employee
from elsewhere to treat Maturana so that he could be executed,
and—because the state hired
its own expert for IQ testing—the failure of Hall’s appeal to
prevent execution. Ewing (1987)
reminded us that psychologists who refuse to treat a mentally ill
inmate could be on shaky ground
because all inmates are legally entitled to therapy and refusals
could lead to disciplinary action or
loss of employment. Forensic evaluators who are state
employees might be subjected to similar
pressures.
The APA has tightened its ethics code because psychologists
were involved in military inter-
rogations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. What, if any, effects
will the prohibition on human rights
violations have on how psychologists are perceived in the U.S.
legal system? In the law of unin-
tended consequences, the stricter (but still undefined) code

could lead prosecutors and judges to
have a basis to attack forensic evaluators even more vigorously
in order to disqualify test scores
that fail to meet the intelligence or adaptive functioning
standards for competency. Perhaps this is
why the state so often forgoes hiring experts for competency
evaluations in capital cases: it is too
risky to hire ethical mental health professionals or,
alternatively, too easy to undermine evidence
from psychologists who testify for the defense. In the absence
of clear guidelines from APA
about human rights violations and how they should be defined—
and whether being involved in
the assessment of competency for execution constitutes such a
violation—psychologists’ neutral-
ity could be viewed with greater skepticism by prosecutors and
the courts. The amended APA’s
Ethics Code Standard 1.02 could be extrapolated as demeaning
any professional activities, how-
ever lawful, that might facilitate or inflict bodily harm on
defendants or convicted felons as well
as prisoners of war. Perhaps it is time for the APA to step up
and unravel the dilemmas relating to
70 THE FORUM
human rights, the public good, and ethical obligations in
therapies or evaluations that could lead
to execution.
REFERENCES
American Medical Association. (2012). AMA’s Medical Ethics
2.0. Retrieved from http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/

physician-resources/medical-ethics/code-medical-
ethics/opinion206.page
American Psychological Association. (2001). The death penalty
in the United States. Retrieved from: http://apa.org/about/
governance/council/policy/death-penalty.aspx
American Psychological Association, Ethics Committee. (2010).
Report of the ethics committee, 2009. American
Psychologist, 65, 483–492.
Boccaccini, M. T., Turner, D., Murrie, D. C., & Rufino, K. (in
press). Do PCL-R scores from state or defense
experts best predict future misconduct among civilly committed
sexual offenders? Law and Human Behavior.
doi:10.1037/h0093949
Bright, S. B. (2004). Why the United States will join the rest of
the world in abandoning capital punishment. In Debating
the death penalty (pp. 176–182). New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Brodsky, S. L. (1990). Professional ethics and professional
morality in the assessment of competence for execution:
A response to Bonnie. Law and Human Behavior, 14, 91–97.
Deitchman, M. A., Kennedy, W. A., & Beckham, J. C. (1991).
Self-selection factors in the participation of mental health
professionals in competency for execution evaluations. Law and
Human Behavior, 15, 287–303.
Ewing, C. P. (1987). Diagnosing and treating “insanity” on
death row: Legal and ethical perspectives. Behavioral Sciences
& the Law, 5, 175–185.
Feltz, R. (2010, January 5). Cracked: Despite a U.S. Supreme

Court ban, Texas has continued to send mentally retarded
criminals to death row. Will a Mexican immigrant’s case correct
this injustice? Texas Observer. Retrieved from http://
www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/cracked/
Grissom, B. (2011, April 16). Texas psychologist punished in
death penalty cases. The Texas Tribune.
Retrieved from http://www.texastribune.org/texas-dept-
criminal-justice/death-penalty/texas-psychologist-punished-
in-death-penalty-cases/
Hall v. Thaler, 10–37 U.S. 09–70015 (2010).
Kan, L., Boccaccini, M. T., McGorty, A., Noland, R. M., &
Lawson, K. (2009). Presenting information about mental
retardation in the courtroom: A content analysis of pre-Atkins
capital trial transcripts from Texas. Law & Psychology
Review, 33, 1–28.
Murrie, D. C., Boccaccini, M. T., Turner, D. B., Meeks, M.,
Woods, C., & Tussey, C. (2009). Rater (dis)agreement on
risk assessment measures in sexually violent predator
proceedings: Evidence of adversarial allegiance in forensic
evaluation? Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 15, 19–53.
Rufino, K. A., Boccaccini, M. T., Hawes, S., & Murrie, D. C.
(2012, February 20). When experts disagreed, who was
correct? A comparison of PCL–R scores from independent raters
and opposing forensic experts. Law and Human
Behavior. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/h0093988
Copyright of Ethics & Behavior is the property of Taylor &
Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or

emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder's express written permission.
However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Colwright 1996 by
the American Psychological Association, Inc.
1996, Vol. 71, No. 4, 703-716 0022-3514196/$3.00
Truth and Investment: Lies Are Told to T h o s e W h o Care
Bella M. DePaulo
University o f Virginia
Kathy L. Bell
Texas Tech University
Participants discussed paintings they liked and disliked with
artists who were or were not personally
invested in them. Participants were urged to be honest or polite
or were given no special instructions.
There were no conditions under which the artists received
totally honest feedback about the paintings
they cared about. As predicted by the defensibility postulate,
participants stonewalled, amassed
misleading evidence, and conveyed positive evaluations by
implication. They also told some outright
lies. But the participants also communicated clearly their
relative degrees of liking for the different
special paintings. The results provide new answers to the
question of why beliefs about other people's
appraisals do not always correspond well with their actual

appraisals.
I n their formal roles as p a r e n t s and supervisors, a n d in
their
i n f o r m a l roles as colleagues and friends, people often
provide
us with evaluative feedback. T h e y c o m m e n t on o u r
work, o u r
behavior, o u r friends, a n d o u r lovers. These appraisals are
im-
p o r t a n t for m a n y reasons, including t h r e e i n t e r d e
p e n d e n t ones.
First, evaluative feedback can be o f great e m o t i o n a l
signifi-
cance. Second, it can have i n s t r u m e n t a l value; for e x a
m p l e , it
can shape p e r f o r m a n c e a n d guide i m p o r t a n t life
decisions.
T h i r d , the appraisals o f o t h e r s - - o r o u r perceptions
o f t h e m - -
can f o r m and i n f o r m o u r sense o f self(e.g., Baldwin,
1992; Fel-
son, 1992; Jussim, Soffin, Brown, Ley, & K o h l h e p p ,
1992;
M c N u l t y & Swarm, 1994; Mead, 1934). According to the
sym-
bolic interactionists, the self t h a t develops is a " l o o k i n g
glass
s e l f " (Cooley, 1902) f o r m e d b y o u r perceptions o f
others' re-
sponses t o us.
The looking glass m e t a p h o r seems to i m p l y t h a t the
question
Of the accuracy o f perceptions is n o n p r o b l e m a t i c ;
we can sim-

ply l o o k to others and see their opinion o f us reflected b a c
k to
us directly (Felson, 1992; Glaser & Strauss, 1964). Yet the pre -
ponderance o f evidence suggests t h a t there is considerable e
r r o r
in o u r perceptions o f how others view us (e.g., DePaulo,
Kenny,
Hoover, Webb, & Oliver, 1987; K e n n y & DePaulo, 1993). O
u r
perceptions o f others' appraisals c o r r e s p o n d imperfectly
with
Bella M. DePaulo, Department of Psychology, University of
Virginia;
Kathy L. Bell, Department of Psychology, Texas Tech
University.
This investigation was supported in part by a Research Scientist
De-
velopment Award from the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental
Health
Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health
(NIMH)
and an R01 Award from NIMH. We thank Malaika Almarode,
Dan
Alter, Lori Cuatina, Robert Cooley, Alexandra Dahne, Irene
Dalton,
Laura Daniel, Naomi Driesen, Dave Gawrylowicz, Darby Gibbs,
Salina
Guliani, Joan Hairfield, Joe Ho, Ken Hodge, Alicia Hughes,
Melinda
Lantz, Traci Mann, Joanne Moak, Nikki Picerno, Lynne
Robinson,
Scan Robinson, Laura Rogers, Karen Swarmer, Laura Tuck,
Benita
Watson, Ken Watson, and Cheryl Witt for their help with this

research.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
BeUa
M. DePauio, Department of Psychology, Gilmer Hall,
University of Vir-
ginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903. Electronic mail may be
sent via
the Internet to [email protected]
their actual appraisals, a n d o u r self-perceptions are m o r e
closely linked to o u r perceptions o f how others view us t h a
n to
their actual views o f us (Felson, 1992 ).
W h e n we err in our perceptions o f how others view us, we
may do so because others d i d n o t c o m m u n i c a t e their
views o f
us openly and honestly, or because we m i s i n t e r p r e t e d
their ap-
praisals. T h r e e elements are i m p o r t a n t : w h a t the
evaluators
t r i e d to convey (as i n d i c a t e d b y their own r e p o r t s
) , w h a t t h e y
actually d i d convey (as indicated, for example, by t r a n s c r
i p t s o f
w h a t they s a i d ) , and how their c o m m u n i c a t i o n s
were perceived
(as i n d i c a t e d b y people's i m p r e s s i o n s ) . Studies
o f meta-accu-
r a c y typically o m i t the m i d d l e element: There is n o
precise
r e c o r d o f w h a t evaluators actually said, or the r e c o r d
is never
analyzed. In the present research we assessed all t h r e e
components.

A n i m p o r t a n t reason for dishonesty in evaluative c o m
m u n i -
cations may be t h a t evaluators c a r e m o r e a b o u t the e
m o t i o n a l
i m p a c t o f their feedback t h a n its i n s t r u m e n t a l
value. The feed-
b a c k t h a t supervisors can provide t o floundering
employees, for
e x a m p l e , is potentially o f i n s t r u m e n t a l value b o
t h to the em-
ployees and to the organization, yet supervisors are reluctant to
provide feedback to those employees a n d often delay doing so
(Larson, 1989). Honesty a n d openness are highly p r i z e d
char-
acteristics o f friendships, yet even friends are reluctant to
share
their unflattering appraisals o f each other (Blumbergo 1972;
Mayer, 1957). The persons directly affected by b a d news have
the greatest need to know t h a t news, yet people are m o r e
in-
d i n e d to c o m m u n i c a t e such news to uninvolved t h i r
d p a r t i e s
t h a n to the targets (Felson, 1992; Tesser & Rosen, 1975).
As an individual's personal investment in an object increases,
b o t h the i n s t r u m e n t a l and the e m o t i o n a l
significance o f evalua-
tive feedback are likely to increase as well. For example, when
an a r t student is discussing paintings with other people, the a
p -
praisals t h a t they can provide are m o r e e m o t i o n a l l y
i m p a c t f u l
and also m o r e useful when the paintings are the a r t
student's
own work t h a n when they are the creations o f other artists.
Yet

we t h i n k t h a t e m o t i o n a l considerations will prevail,
and evaiu-
ators will be less honest a b o u t the paintings when they are
the
a r t student's own w o r k - - p a r t i c u l a r l y when they
dislike the
work---even though it would be especially useful to the a r t
stu-
703
7 0 4 DEPAULO AND BELL
dents t o know how their work really is perceived b y other
peo-
ple. For instance, a r t students whose work is p o o r yet who
never
h e a r t h a t from others may pursue a m a j o r or even a
career to
which they a r e ill suited.
In the present research, p a r t i c i p a n t s looked over a set o
f
paintings, chose the two they liked the best and the two they
liked the least, a n d i n d i c a t e d j u s t how m u c h they
liked each o f
those four paintings. T h e y also wrote o u t w h a t they
liked and
disliked a b o u t each painting. O n l y then d i d they learn t
h a t they
would be discussing those paintings with an a r t student who
was
personally invested in one o f the liked and one o f the
disliked

paintings. Those conversations were v i d e o t a p e d ( a n d
later
t r a n s c r i b e d ) . After each conversation, we asked the p a
r t i c i -
p a n t s how honest a n d how c o m f o r t a b l e t h e y h a
d been and how
m u c h liking they h a d t r i e d to convey. We then showed
the vid-
eotapes to judges who i n d i c a t e d their perceptions o f the
p a r t i c -
i p a n t s ' honesty and actual liking for the paintings. We p r e
d i c t e d
t h a t the p a r t i c i p a n t s would be m o r e dishonest and
m o r e un-
comfortable, and would exaggerate their liking more, when they
were discussing the paintings t h a t were special to the a r t
stu-
d e n t - e s p e c i a l l y when they disliked those paintings.
G o f f m a n (1967, 1971 ) p r o v i d e d a perspective for
under-
standing people's reluctance to say exactly w h a t they feel. He
argued t h a t in o r d e r for everyday social life to p r o c e e
d smoothly,
it is i m p o r t a n t for people to give deference to the "faces"
(identities) t h a t others seem to be claiming. As politeness
the-
o r y has d o c u m e n t e d (P. Brown & Levinson, 1987; R.
Brown &
G i l m a n , 1989; Holtgraves, 1992), people understand this
and
act accordingly. N o one needs to tell us to be polite when dis -
cussing an ugly p a i n t i n g with the artist who created it.
Dis-
agreements and criticisms are face-threatening and will be c o m
-

m u n i c a t e d only very politely, i f at a l l - - b u t even
positive c o m -
munications, P. Brown a n d Levinson argued, can be face-
t h r e a t e n i n g (e.g.,. c o m p l i m e n t s t h a t cause e m
b a r r a s s m e n t ) .
Telling people explicitly to be polite and to t r y to avoid hurt-
ing another person's feelings, then, should result in c o m m u n
i -
cations t h a t are n o different t h a n i f no instructions h a d
been
given. In b o t h instances, people will dishonestly convey
overly
positive appraisals. To b r e a k down the s t u r d y b a r r i e r
s to the
c o m m u n i c a t i o n o f negative evaluations, it may be i m
p o r t a n t to
underscore explicitly the i m p o r t a n c e o f honesty. I n the
present
research, we explicitly i n s t r u c t e d some o f o u r p a r t i
c i p a n t s to be
honest a b o u t their appraisals. O n l y f r o m such honest
evalua-
tions, we said, c o u l d the a r t students really l e a r n a b o
u t other
people's perceptions o f art. We p r e d i c t e d t h a t these
instructions
would d a m p e n p a r t i c i p a n t s ' exaggerations, relative
to condi-
tions in which p a r t i c i p a n t s were i n s t r u c t e d to be
polite o r were
given n o special instructions, b u t we were unsure as to
whether
they would elicit evaluations t h a t were totally honest.
T h e situation we created was a very difficult one for the par -

ticipants, especially when t h e y were discussing paintings
they
disliked with the a r t student who p a i n t e d them. Bavelas
and her
colleagues (Bavelas, Black, Chovil, & Mullett, 1990) character-
ized this situation as the m o s t c o m m o n sort o f " c o m m
u n i c a t i v e
a v o i d a n c e - a v o i d a n c e conflict: [ Participants h a d ]
a choice be-
tween saying something false b u t k i n d and something t r u
e b u t
h u r t f u l " (p. 5 8 ) . O n the basis o f m o r e t h a n a
dozen experi-
ments, Bavelas et al. concluded that, in these situations, people
equivocate. T h e y avoid answering the question t h a t is
asked,
they avoid describing their own opinion, they are unclear in the
answers they do give, and they sometimes even avoid
addressing
the person who posed the question. Bavelas et al.'s research,
then, tells us what people do not say in a v o i d - a v o i d
situations
( o r at least in role-play versions o f t h e m ) , b u t it stops
short o f
telling us w h a t they do say. Even their conclusions a b o u t
w h a t
people d o n o t say are based n o t on content analyses o f
the c o m -
m u n i c a t i o n s b u t on judges' global impressions.
We agree with Bavelas et al. (1990) t h a t people prefer to
avoid
telling either o u t r i g h t lies o r hurtful truths. Therefore, we
pre-
dict, as they did, t h a t the rate o f telling outright lies will be

low.
However, we t h i n k t h a t the rate o f lying, though low,
will still be
responsive to o u r experimental manipulations. Specifically,
we
predict t h a t p a r t i c i p a n t s will be m o s t likely to lie
when discuss-
ing paintings they dislike with a r t students who are personally
invested in t h e m - - e s p e c i a l l y i f the participants had
been in-
structed to be polite.
In the difficult situation we created, we t h i n k that p a r t i c i
-
p a n t s have two goals: T h e y want to mislead the a r t
student
a b o u t how they feel, b u t they also want to be able to deny
that
they lied. T h e i r c o m m u n i c a t i o n s will be governed
by w h a t we
will call the defensibility postulate, t h a t is, p a r t i c i p a n t
s ' inclina-
tion to exaggerate their liking for the paintings and to convey
dishonest appraisals o f t h e m will be t e m p e r e d by
considerations
o f defensibility (see also Schlenker, 1980). Participants will
craft c o m m u n i c a t i o n s which, i f challenged, can be
defended as
either truthful or at least n o t clearly deceptive. In the context
o f
this experiment, we t h i n k t h a t one way they can do this is
to
amass misleading evidence. As the a r t student continues to
p r o b e t h e m a b o u t their opinions o f the paintings,
they can men-
tion m o r e and m o r e o f the things t h a t they really do

like a b o u t
the paintings, while being a bit m o r e restrained in
enumerating
the aspects o f the paintings t h a t they really do dislike. The
result
is a c o m m u n i c a t i o n t h a t is likely to succeed in
conveying a mis-
leadingly positive i m p r e s s i o n yet can still be defended as
t r u t h -
f u l - - a f t e r all, all o f the positive aspects m e n t i o n e d
were ones
t h a t the p a r t i c i p a n t s really d i d like a b o u t the
paintings. N o t
mentioning all o f the disliked aspects, they might argue, is n o
t
d i s h o n e s t - - t h e y j u s t d i d n o t m e n t i o n them.
We t h i n k t h a t the participants will also come u p with
entirely
new aspects o f the paintings t h a t they will c l a i m to l i k
e - - a s p e c t s
t h a t they h a d n o t written down when we first asked t h e
m to
describe what they liked and disliked a b o u t the paintings.
Per-
haps they will tell themselves t h a t they j u s t noticed these
new
virtues o f the p a i n t i n g d u r i n g the conversation with
the a r t stu-
dent. Defensibility is especially likely to r e m a i n intact i f
they
also notice some new aspects o f the p a i n t i n g that they
dislike.
Again, though, the newly discovered disliked aspects will be far
o u t n u m b e r e d by the new liked aspects.

The prediction made by Bavelas et al. (1990) that people will
avoid stating their own opinion is consistent with the
defensibility
postulate and was directly tested by the coding o f participants'
explicit expressions o f liking or disliking for the paintings. W
h e n
participants are discussing a painting they dislike, especially
one
that is special to the a r t student, they might s t o n e w a l l - -
t h a t is,
avoid making any explicit evaluations at all. They might also
mention fewer aspects o f the paintings that they like or
dislike.
LYING AND CARING 7 0 5
T h e r e is a n o t h e r very clever way t h a t p a r t i c i p a
n t s c a n defen-
sibly i m p l y m o r e l i k i n g t h a n t h e y really do feel
for t h e p a i n t i n g s ,
a n d t h a t is b y m a n i p u l a t i n g w h a t t h e y say a
b o u t t h e p a i n t i n g s
i n w h i c h t h e a r t s t u d e n t s a r e not p e r s o n a l l
y invested. T h a t is, a t
t h e s a m e t i m e t h a t p a r t i c i p a n t s t r y t o
avoid saying explicitly
t h a t t h e y dislike t h e a r t s t u d e n t ' s o w n p a i n t
i n g s t h a t t h e y detest,
t h e y c a n b e far less r e t i c e n t i n v o i c i n g t h e i r
distaste for the p a i n t -
ings c r e a t e d b y o t h e r a r t students. T h e strategy is
o n e o f social
c o m p a r i s o n b y i m p l i c a t i o n . I n c o m p a r i s o
n to t h e negative a p -

praisals t h a t were explicitly stated a b o u t t h e o t h e r a
r t i s t s ' work,
t h e w i t h h o l d i n g o f a n y explicit a p p r a i s a l s o
f t h e a r t s t u d e n t ' s
o w n w o r k will s e e m r a t h e r positive. T h o s e c o m
m u n i c a t i o n s a r e
also defensibly positive: I f pressed, t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s
c a n c l a i m
t h a t t h e y d i d not say t h a t t h e y liked t h e a r t s t
u d e n t ' s o w n work;
t h e y s i m p l y said t h a t t h e y d i d n o t like t h e o t
h e r artists' work.
W h e n we showed t h e v i d e o t a p e s o f t h e c o n v e r
s a t i o n s to t h e
judges, we gave t h e m t h e s a m e i n f o r m a t i o n t h a
t t h e artists
w o u l d b e likely to have i n t h e c o m p a r a b l e real
life situations.
T h a t is, the j u d g e s k n e w w h e t h e r t h e p a i n t i
n g s were special to
t h e artists, b u t t h e y d i d n o t k n o w w h a t t h e p a
r t i c i p a n t s really
d i d t h i n k o f t h e p a i n t i n g s . T h e y also d i d n o
t k n o w t h e partici-
p a n t s ' i n t e n t i o n s - - t h a t is, w h e t h e r t h e y
were m a k i n g a n y spe-
cial effort to b e h o n e s t o r polite.
W e p r e d i c t e d t h a t t h e j u d g e s w o u l d r e p o r
t s o m e o f t h e s a m e
t h i n g s t h a t t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s w o u l d say t h e
m s e l v e s - - t h a t t h e p a r -
t i c i p a n t s were less h o n e s t a n d less c o m f o r t a b l
e , a n d exaggerated
m o r e , w h e n discussing the p a i n t i n g s i n w h i c h

the artists were
m o r e i n v e s t e d (cf. D e P a u l o & K i r k e n d o l ,
1989; D e P a u l o , La-
nier, & Davis, 1983; D e P a u l o , Stone, & Lassiter, 1 9 8 5 b
) . I f t h a t
were all t h a t t h e j u d g e s n o t i c e d , t h e n those
results m i g h t s i m p l y
reflect j u d g e s ' t h e o r i e s a b o u t how people c o m m
u n i c a t e to peo-
ple w h o care, r a t h e r t h a n a n y real d i s c e r n m e n t
. However, b e -
cause t h e j u d g e s d i d n o t k n o w w h e t h e r the p a
r t i c i p a n t s liked or
disliked a p a i n t i n g , i f t h e y also t h o u g h t t h a t t
h e p a r t i c i p a n t s
s e e m e d especially less h o n e s t w h e n d i s c u s s i n g
t h e special p a i n t -
ings w h e n t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s disliked t h o s e p a i n
t i n g s , t h e n t h e y
w o u l d b e showing s o m e i n s i g h t i n t o p a r t i c i p
a n t s ' t r u e feelings.
It is i m p o r t a n t to n o t e t h a t we asked t h e j u d g e s
directly j u s t
how m u c h t h e y t h o u g h t t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s
really d i d like each o f
t h e p a i n t i n g s . I f t h e y d i s c o u n t e d t h e p a r t
i c i p a n t s ' expressions
o f l i k i n g t o o m u c h i n t h e special c o n d i t i o n s
( b e c a u s e t h e y k n e w
t h a t t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s were t a l k i n g t o artists w
h o were p e r s o n a l l y
i n v e s t e d i n t h e p a i n t i n g s ) , t h e y w o u l d b e
w r o n g a b o u t t h e par-
t i c i p a n t s ' a c t u a l feelings (cf. G i l b e r t & M a l o n
e , 1995; S n y d e r &

F r a n k e l , 1976). I f i n s t e a d t h e y were t o o i n c l i
n e d to take w h a t
the p a r t i c i p a n t s said at face v a l u e (e.g., D e P a u l o
, 1992, 1994;
D e P a u l o , Stone, & Lassiter, 1985a; G i l b e r t & M a l o
n e , 1995;
J o n e s , 1 9 9 0 ) , t h e y w o u l d a g a i n b e wrong, b u
t i n a different di-
rection. T h a t is w h a t we predicted. Because we expected t
h e
p a r t i c i p a n t s ' verbal strategies to b e effective i n c r e
a t i n g m i s l e a d -
ingly positive i m p r e s s i o n s , we expected t h e j u d g e s
to believe
t h a t t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s really d i d like t h e special
p a i n t i n g s m o r e
t h a n t h e n o t - s p e c i a l ones.
M e t h o d
P a r t i c i p a n t s a n d A r t S t u d e n t s
Participants were 47 male and 47 female introductory
psychology
students who participated for partial fulfillment of a course
requirement
in an experiment that was ostensibly about psychology and art.
Five
other participants were excluded: 2 men and 1 woman who
surmised
the purpose of the experiment, 1 man whose speech could not be
un-
derstood, and t woman who completed the forms improperly.
Partici-
pants were randomly assigned to the six between-subjects cells

formed
by the crossing of the two degrees of investment (paintings
were de-
scribed as the art student's favorites or her own) with the three
kinds of
instructions (honest, no instructions, polite). There were 7 or 8
men
and 7 or 8 women in each of the cells.
Three women alternated in the role of the art student, and 3
women
and 2 men served a~ experimenters. Preliminary analyses in
which art
students and experimenters were included as a factor in the
design
showed fewer significant effects involving the factor than
would be ex-
pected by chance.
P r o c e d u r e
Participants were r u n individually and were told that the
experiment
was designed to help art students learn more about how art is
perceived
by people who are not experts. Participants were then left alone
in a
room to choose the 2 paintings they liked the most and the 2
they liked
the least from 19 paintings that were displayed. (The paintings
had been
painted by undergraduates in an introductory painting course.)
Partic-
ipants rated each of these 4 paintings on 9-point scales of
liking, with
higher numbers indicating greater liking. The experimenter then

re-
turned and gave the participant a second questionnaire on which
the
participant was asked to describe briefly, in an open-ended
format, what
he or she liked and disliked about each of the4 paintings.
The experimenter then told the participant that he or she would
now
discuss the four paintings with the art student. The experimenter
men-
tioned that the art student may have actually painted some of
the paint-
ings herself, and she would tell the participant if she had. The
experi-
menter also informed the participant that the art student would
not
know that the four paintings were ones that the participant
selected and
that she would not ever see the participant's ratings of liking for
the
paintings or the brief descriptions of what the participant liked
and dis-
liked aboui the paintings.
The art student always claimed that one of the participant's two
most
favorite paintings (randomly selected ) and one of the
participant's least
favorite paintings (also randomly selected) were special to her
in some
way. The two types of specialness, or degrees of investment,
were ran-
domly assigned. In the moderate investment condition, the art
student
claimed that the painting was one of her favorites ("This is one

of my
favorites" ); in the high investment condition, she claimed that
the paint-
ing was one of her own ("This is one that I d i d " ) . She
introduced this
information just before asking the participant what he or she
thought of
the painting.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of three
instructional
conditions. One third of them were instructed to be honest when
dis-
cussing the paintings with the art student. Specifically, they
were told:
If it turns out that the art student did paint some of these
paintings,
you should still be very honest in describing your own opinions
about those paintings. Tell her truthfully what you liked and
what
you disliked about each painting you discuss, even if the
paintings
are ones she painted herself. This is supposed to be a learning
ex-
perience for the students. For them to really learn about
people's
perceptions of art, they have to hear unbiased descriptions of
those
perceptions. They need to know what you really did like and
really
did dislike about each painting you discuss.
Some of the art students like to mention which ones they really
liked of the ones that are NOT theirs. Again, be sure to be
honest

about your own opinions oftbe paintings. Tell her what you
really
7 0 6 DEPAULO A N D BELL
t h i n k o f the painting, regardless o f what her opinions
might be.
They will learn more i f they hear your t r u e opinions.
A n o t h e r t h i r d o f the participants were instructed to be
polite to the
a r t student and to try not to h u r t her feelings. Specifically,
they were
told:
I f it turns o u t t h a t the student did paint some o f these
paintings, try
to convince her t h a t you really did like the ones she painted
so t h a t
her feelings won't be hurt. It is O K to mention things you
dislike
about her paintings when she asks, b u t j u s t try to convey
the im-
pression t h a t overall, you like the ones she did. This study is
sup-
posed to be a learning experience for the participants, but we d
o n ' t
want any of t h e m to end up feding badly because of it.
Some o f the art students like to mention which ones they liked
o f
the ones t h a t are NOTtheirs. Again, it is O K if you d o n ' t
agree with
h e r - - y o u can say that, but j u s t try to be real nice about

it.
In the no-instructions condition, participants were not given any
par-
ticular instructions about what to do.
After determining t h a t the participant understood the
instructions,
the experimenter left the room, t u r n e d on a hidden video
recorder, then
returned with the art student. After introducing the participant
to the
a r t student, the experimenter left the room.
The art student, who was unaware of the participant's
instructional
condition ( b u t did know which paintings the participants
liked and
disliked), then proceeded to interview the participant a b o u t
each of
the four paintings, in counterbalanced order. She asked the
following
questions about each painting, giving the participant ample time
to an-
swer each question before moving on to the next: " W h a t do
you t h i n k
o f it? W h a t are some o f the specific things you like about
it? (Anything
else?) W h a t are some o f the specific things you dislike
about it?
(Anything else?)" Participants were instructed by the
experimenter n o t
to ask the art student about her opinions. The art students were
trained
to deflect any such questions.

After the discussion o f each painting, the a r t student left the
room
while the participant completed a questionnaire about the
discussion.
O n 9-point scales, participants indicated how m u c h liking
they tried to
convey to the art student, how honest and straightforward they
had
been, and how comfortable they felt while discussing what they
liked
a n d disliked a b o u t the painting. Participants were
debriefed, and all o f
t h e m signed a consent form allowing us to use their
videotapes.
J u d g e s a n d V i d e o t a p e s
Seven male a n d 14 female undergraduates were recruited to
rate vid-
eotapes (with sound) o f the discussions o f the paintings. The
tapes were
rated by j u s t one judge at a time. N o t all o f the judges
rated all o f the
tapes; on the average, each tape was rated by 6 men (the range
was 5 - 7 )
and 12 women ( 1 1 - 1 4 ) .
The discussions o f the paintings were edited onto 17
videotapes o f
about 1 hr each. A nearly equal n u m b e r o f participants
from each con-
dition appeared on each tape. After each discussion o f each
painting,
there was a 10-s rating pause. During the pause, judges rated the
partic-
ipant on 9-point scales o f honesty, actual liking for the

painting, degree
of liking that the participant was trying to convey to the art
student,
a n d comfort, with higher numbers indicating more of each
attribute.
Reliabilities (alphas) were .78 for honesty, .94 for actual and
conveyed
liking, and .71 for comfort.
T r a n s c r i p t s a n d C o d e r s
Exact typed transcripts were made o f all o f the discussions o
f all o f
the paintings. Three undergraduates coded the transcripts. One
coded
the conversations o f h a l f o f the participants in each
condition ( 188
conversations), and a second coded the other half. We used
these cod-
ings in the analyses. The third person coded 48 o f the
conversations
coded by the first person and 44 o f the conversations coded by
the sec-
ond person. The conversations in each set included
approximately equal
numbers from each condition. The codings o f the third person
were
compared with those o f the first two to assess reliability.
Verbal S t r a t e g i e s
Each coder coded three verbal strategies separately for each
discus-
sion o f each painting.

1. Explicit evaluations o f liking and disliking. Coders
indicated
whether the participants explicitly said t h a t they liked the
paintings and
whether they explicitly said that they disliked them.
2. Total number o f liked and disliked aspects that were
mentioned.
Coders counted the total n u m b e r of different aspects o f the
paintings
t h a t participants said t h a t they liked and the total n u m b e
r they said
they disliked. For example, i f participants said they liked the
color, the
shading, and the originality, they would get a score o f 3 for
total n u m b e r
of liked aspects.
3. Number o f new liked and disliked aspects that were
mentioned.
Coders counted the n u m b e r of aspects of the paintings t h a
t participants
said they liked and disliked t h a t were different from the
aspects t h a t the
participants had described in writing before they knew they
would be
meeting an art student. To code this variable, coders first
identified each
o f the liked and disliked aspects that participants described in
writing,
then they identified the liked and disliked aspects from the
transcripts
of the discussions, then they compared the two sets.
R e l i a b i l i t i e s

There were two intraclass correlations for each variable: One
was the
correlation between the first coder and the third, and the other
was be-
tween the second coder and the third. For explicit evaluations of
liking
the reliabilities were .96 and .96; for explicit evaluations o f
disliking
they were .85 and 1.00; for total n u m b e r of liked aspects,
.88 and .92;
for total n u m b e r o f disliked aspects, .88 a n d . 8 0 ; for
new liked aspects,
.75 and .80; and for new disliked aspects, .71 and .59.
R e s u l t s
M a n i p u l a t i o n C h e c k s
O n a m a n i p u l a t i o n c h e c k q u e s t i o n n a i r e ,
all p a r t i c i p a n t s i n
t h e h o n e s t c o n d i t i o n i n d i c a t e d t h a t t h e i r
g o a l was t o b e h o n e s t
a b o u t t h e i r feelings a b o u t t h e p a i n t i n g s . All
p a r t i c i p a n t s i n t h e
p o l i t e c o n d i t i o n i n d i c a t e d t h a t t h e i r g o a
l was t o t r y t o b e n i c e
a n d a v o i d h u r t i n g t h e a r t s t u d e n t ' s feelings.
W h e n q u e s t i o n e d
a b o u t t h e i r u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f t h e i n s t r u c t
i o n s j u s t b e f o r e b e g i n -
n i n g t h e d i s c u s s i o n o f t h e p a i n t i n g s , all p
a r t i c i p a n t s c o r r e c t l y
r e p o r t e d t h a t t h e a r t s t u d e n t m a y h a v e p a
i n t e d s o m e o f t h e
p a i n t i n g s ( o r t h a t s o m e w e r e t h e a r t s t u d
e n t ' s f a v o r i t e s ) a n d t h a t

t h e y w o u l d n o t k n o w w h e t h e r t h e a r t s t u d
e n t h a d p a i n t e d a n y
o f t h e p a i n t i n g s u n t i l t h e y m e t her. N i n e t y
- t w o o f t h e 9 4 p a r t i c -
i p a n t s c o r r e c t l y i n d i c a t e d t h a t t h e y w o u l
d b e d i s c u s s i n g t h e f o u r
p a i n t i n g s t h e y h a d s e l e c t e d . ( B e c a u s e t h
e 2 p a r t i c i p a n t s w h o
i n i t i a l l y v o l u n t e e r e d t h e w r o n g a n s w e r c
o r r e c t e d i t a f t e r f u r t h e r
p r o b i n g , a n d b e c a u s e all o f t h e i r o t h e r m a
n i p u l a t i o n c h e c k d a t a
w e r e c o r r e c t , t h e i r d a t a w e r e r e t a i n e d i n
t h e a n a l y s e s . ) All o f t h e
p a r t i c i p a n t s u n d e r s t o o d t h a t t h e a r t s t u d
e n t s w o u l d b e l i e v e t h a t
t h e p a i n t i n g s p i c k e d f o r d i s c u s s i o n w e r e
s e l e c t e d a t r a n d o m b y
LYING AND CARING
Table I
Effects o f Participants" Liking for the Paintings and Artists '
Investment on Participants" and Judges" Ratings
7 0 7
Type of painting
Disliked Liked Fs (1, 82)
Not Not Artists' Participants'
Ratings special Special Difference special Special Difference

investment liking Interaction
Participants
Comfort 6.47 5 . 0 5 1.42"*** 6.88 6.61 0.27 60.19"***
58.69**** 19.52"***
Honesty 7.66 6.38 1.28"*** 7.99 7.98 0.01 48.50****
67.68**** 47.07****
Actual liking 2.30 2.34 0.04 7.35 7.35 0.00 0.03 1392.96****
0.04
Conveyed liking 3.18 3.96 0.78** 6.44 6.79 0.35 26.89****
176.90"*** 2.90*
Exaggeration 0.88 1 . 6 2 0.74*** -0.91 -0.56 0.35 19.94"***
74.85**** 1.64
Judges
Comfort 5.85 5.75 0.10"* 6.08 6.06 0.02 4.62** 73.70****
3.00*
Honesty 6.56 6.22 0.34**** 6.51 6.37 0.14"* 46.94**** 1.17
6.65***
Actual liking 3.67 3.84 0.17* 5.91 5.98 0.07 4.85** 766.96****
1.11
Conveyed liking 4.14 4.65 0.51"*** 6.41 6.70 0.29***
45.19**** 670.52**** 4.24**
Exaggeration 0.47 0 . 8 1 0.34**** 0.50 0.72 0.22****
84.72**** 1.02 3.40*
Note. The special paintings were the ones in which the artists
were invested. Difference is not special minus special for
comfort and honesty, and
special minus not special for actual liking, conveyed liking, and
exaggeration. MSEs for artists' investment were, from top to
bottom, 2.22, 1.60,
0.82, 2.27, 1.42, 0.26, 0.23, 0.60, 0.66, and 0.08. For
participants' liking they were 3.11, 2.59, 1.70, 9.82, 4.93, 0.37,
0.41, 1.18, 1.30, and 0.12. For
the interaction they were 3.14, 1.59, 0.77, 2.82, 2.07, 0.24,

0.28, 0.47, 0.54, and 0.09.
* p < . 1 0 . * * p < . 0 5 . ***p<.01. ****p<.001.
the experimenter. All p a r t i c i p a n t s also u n d e r s t o o d
t h a t the
a r t student would n o t see w h a t t h e y h a d written a b o
u t the
paintings.
Analyses o f p a r t i c i p a n t s ' initial ratings o f their
liking for the
paintings i n d i c a t e d t h a t they liked their two favorite
paintings
far m o r e t h a n their two least favorite ones ( M s -- 7.35 a
n d
2.32). Because the paintings t h a t were described as special to
the a r t student were r a n d o m l y assigned, p a r t i c i p a n
t s should n o t
have liked t h e m any better t h a n the ones t h a t were n o t
special,
and in fact they d i d n o t ( M s = 4.82 a n d 4.84; see Table
1 for
significance tests).
D e s i g n a n d M e a s u r e s
D a t a were analyzed with a mixed-design analysis o f
variance
( A N O V A ) . The between-subjects factors were the
instructional
m a n i p u l a t i o n ( p a r t i c i p a n t s were t o l d t o be
honest o r polite o r
t h e y were given no i n s t r u c t i o n s ) and m i s t s '
degree o f invest-
m e n t in the special paintings (those paintings were described
as

either the artists' f a v o r i t e s - - t h e m o d e r a t e i n v e s
t m e n t condi-
tion, o r as their own w o r k - - t h e high investment c o n d i
t i o n ) .
T h e within-subjects factors were the artists' i n v e s t m e n t
in the
paintings ( t h e y were invested in the special paintings and n
o t
invested in the not-special ones) a n d the p a r t i c i p a n t s '
liking for
the paintings (disliking or liking), i
P a r t i c i p a n t s ' reports o f how honest a n d
straightforward they
h a d been in their discussions were highly correlated, r ( 9 2 )
=
.86, p < .001, and so they were averaged to f o r m a single m e
a -
sure o f honesty. T h e m e a s u r e o f p a r t i c i p a n t s '
actual liking for
the paintings was their ratings o f their liking for each o f the
paintings before they knew t h a t they would be meeting an a r
t
student. T h e i r reports o f how m u c h liking they h a d
tried to con-
vey to the a r t student were collected after the discussions. We
assessed the degree to which the p a r t i c i p a n t s h a d
exaggerated
their liking b y subtracting p a r t i c i p a n t s ' actual liking
for each
p a i n t i n g from the degree o f liking t h a t they t r i e d to
convey. The
other dependent m e a s u r e was p a r t i c i p a n t s ' ratings
o f their com-
fort d u r i n g each o f the discussions. Similarly, for the

analyses o f
the judges' impressions, d e p e n d e n t m e a s u r e s were
judges' per-
ceptions o f the p a r t i c i p a n t s ' honesty, comfort, actual
liking for
the paintings, a n d degree o f liking t h a t they seemed to be
t r y i n g
t o convey. We c o m p u t e d exaggeration scores b y
subtracting per-
ceptions o f actual liking f r o m perceptions o f conveyed
liking.
I Sex of participant also was included as a factor in the design,
but the
results of that factor are not of central relevance to the theme of
the
present report and therefore are not included. They are currently
avail-
able from BcUa M. DcPaulo and will be reported in a
subsequent article
that will include several studies in addition to the data from this
re-
search (Witt, Bell, & DcPaulo, 1996). The significant effects for
partic-
ipant sex that did occur in the present research generally
indicated that
the overall effects were characteristic of both the men and the
women,
but they were even more characteristic of the women. For
example, the
judges believed that both the men and the women were trying to
convey
more liking for the special paintings than for the not-special
ones, but
they saw a bigger difference for the women than for the men.
The degree-

of-investment factor was included to test whether our
predictions for
investment would be qualified by degree of investment.
Although those
results will not be presented, significant interactions did occur
for par-
ticipants' self-reports and judges' impressions. In all instances,
the in-
teractions indicated that the effects of investment were even
stronger
when the art students were highly invested in the paintings (the
paint-
ings were their own work) than when they were moderately
invested in
them (the paintings wcrc their favorites). Complete results are
available
from Bclla M. DcPaulo.
Participants" Self-Reports a n d Judges" I m p r e s s i o n s
Paintings that were liked and disliked, special and not special
As we predicted, the m a i n effect of investment was
significant
for all relevant dependent measures (see Table 1 for statistical
tests a n d significance levels). W h e n the paintings were
special
to the a r t students (second and fifth c o l u m n s of Table 1 ),
com-
pared to when they were n o t (first a n d fourth c o l u m n s )
, the
participants reported being more uncomfortable a n d more dis-
honest. They also tried to convey more liking, a n d they

exagger-
ated their liking more. Similarly, all m a i n effects of liking
for
the painting were significant. Participants said they were less
comfortable and less honest when discussing the paintings they
disliked than the ones they liked. They tried to convey more
liking for the paintings they liked, b u t they exaggerated their
liking more for the paintings they disliked (i.e., they tried to
convey more liking t h a n they really did feel). In fact,
according
to their self-reports, participants actually understated their
liking for the liked paintings. Also as predicted, the effects of
the artists' investment on participants' honesty a n d comfort
depended significantly on whether the participants liked the
paintings. Participants were significantly less honest and less
comfortable when discussing the special paintings than the not-
special ones only when they disliked the paintings.
The judges also thought that the participants were more u n -
comfortable and dishonest when discussing the special paint-
ings than the not-special ones a n d that they tried to convey
more liking, and more exaggerated liking, for the special paint-
ings. The differences in honesty and conveyed liking that they
noted were even more striking when the participants disliked
the paintings t h a n when they liked them.
There was a significant m a i n effect of investment, b u t n o
sig-
nificant interaction with liking for the painting, on judges' im-
pressions of participants' actual liking for the paintings. Partic -
ipants liked the special paintings almost exactly the same as the
not-special ones. The judges did n o t know this, and from
watch-
ing the tapes, their impression was that the participants really
did like the special paintings even more than the not-special
ones. 2

There was one other way in which the judges' impressions
departed from the participants' self-reports. The participants
said they exaggerated their liking for the disliked paintings b u t
understated their liking for the liked paintings. The judges
thought that the participants were always exaggerating their lik-
ing (especially so for the special paintings). Tests of whether
the exaggeration (or understatement) scores differed from zero
were significant for all four paintings for the participants' self-
reports (all p s < .05 or smaller) and the judges' impressions
(all
p s < .001 ).
Finally, although the judges were n o t told whether the partic-
ipants liked the paintings, their impressions of the discussions
o f the liked and disliked paintings were accurate. They thought
the participants really did like the liked paintings more, and
were trying to convey more liking for them, and that they felt
less comfortable discussing the disliked paintings.
Honesty and politeness. Did the participants who were in-
structed to be honest or to be polite behave and feel differently
than those who were left to their own devices? Significant m a i
n
effects of the instructional m a n i p u l a t i o n for the
measures of
honesty, F ( 2 , 82 ) = 8.42, p < .001, M S E = 6.92, and
exaggera-
tion, F ( 2 , 82) = 4.66, p = .01, M S E = 4.89, indicated that
they did. The means for self-reported honesty in the honest, no-
instructions, and polite conditions, were 7.71, 7.85, and 6.95,
respectively. The difference between the honest and the no-in-
structions conditions was n o t significant. The difference be-
tween the no-instructions and the polite conditions was signifi-
cant, F ( 1, 82) = 14.31, p < .001. In their reports of their own

honesty, then, participants given n o special instructions were
more similar to the participants instructed to be honest than to
those who were urged to be polite. The judges' impressions of
the participants' honesty showed the same thing, F ( 2 , 82) =
3.03,p = .05, M S E = 0.85. The judges thought that the partici -
pants were no less honest in the no-instructions condition ( M =
6.49) than in the honest condition ( M = 6.46, F < 1 ), b u t
they
thought the participants were significantly less honest in the po-
lite condition ( M = 6.30) than in the no-instructions condition,
F ( I , 82) = 5.33,p = .02.
However, in the degree to which they reported exaggerating
their liking for the paintings, participants in the no-instructions
condition were more similar to participants who were told to be
polite. (The u n i n s t r u c t e d participants did not differ
signifi-
cantly from the polite participants [ F < 1], but they did differ
significantly from the honest participants, F [ 1, 82 ] = 4.30, p
=
.04.) In fact, participants in both the no-instructions and the
polite conditions said that they tried to convey more liking than
they really did feel (Ms = 0.37 and 0.61 for the no-instructions
and polite conditions, respectively), b u t participants in the
2 We thought that if our judges had instead been completely
unaware
of the most important constraint in the present research--when
the
participants were and were not talking to artists who cared--they
might
have been even more taken by participants' expressions of
liking. To test
this, we prepared exact typed transcripts of the four
conversations of 8
of the participants in the no-instructions and polite conditions

who were
talking to the artists about paintings that were or were not the
artists'
own. We recruited 65 raters (32 men and 33 women) to report
their
impressions of how much the participants really did like the
paintings
in each conversation, on the same 9-point scale used by our
judges.
Approximately half of the raters (n = 33 ) rated the
conversations with
the same information that our judges had--that is, they knew
when the
artists claimed that the paintings were their own. For the other
raters
(randomly assigned), that critical information was removed
from the
transcripts. The key interaction between whether the paintings
were or
were not special, and whether the judges knew that they were
special,
was significant, F( 1, 61 ) = 33.54, p < .001, MSE = 0.94. When
the
paintings were not special, raters perceived almost exactly the
same
amount of liking when they knew that they were not special (M
= 4.75 )
as when they did not know that (M = 4.79). However, when the
paint-
ings were special and the raters knew that they were, they
thought that
the participants liked those paintings much less (M = 4.66) than
when
they did not have that information (M = 5.40). That is, raters
dis-
counted some of the liking that participants expressed when

they knew
that the participants were talking to an artist who cared. The
implica-
tion for understanding the ratings made by our judges, who did
know
when the paintings were special, is that they may have
(inaccurately)
perceived even greater differences in liking between the special
and not-
special paintings if they had not had that crucial information.
LYING AND CARING
Table 2
Effects oflnstructions and Artists" Investment on Participants"
and Judges'Ratings
7 0 9
Instructions
Honest No instructions Polite
N o t Not Not
Ratings Fs(1, 82) special Special Difference special Special
Difference special Special Difference
Participants
Honesty 7.42**** 7.86 7.56 0.30 8.09 7.59 0.50** 7.52 6.39
1.13"***
Conveyed liking 6.44*** 4.73 4.97 0.24 5.07 5.42 0.35 4.62
5.73 1. l l****
Exaggeration 8.58**** - 0 . 2 5 - 0 . 1 7 0.08 0.21 0.53
0.32*** - 0 . 0 2 1.23 1.25"***

Judges
Actual liking 2.96* 4.86 4.84 - 0 . 0 2 4.77 4.86 0.09 4.73 5.04
0.3 l***
Conveyed liking 6.30*** 5.36 5.50 0.14 5.23 5.64 0.41"***
5.24 5.88 0.64****
Exaggeration 3.72** 0.50 0.66 0 . 1 6 " * * 0.46 0.78 0.32****
0.51 0.84 0.33****
Note. Difference is not special m i n u s special for honesty,
special minus not special for conveyed liking, exaggeration, and
actual liking.
* p < . 1 0 . * * p < . 0 5 . * * * p ~ . 0 1 . * * * * p < . 0 0 1 .
honest condition said t h a t they conveyed slightly less liking t
h a n
they felt ( M = - 0 . 2 1 ) .
D i d the i n s t r u c t i o n a l m a n i p u l a t i o n influence
the way the par-
ticipants discussed the paintings t h a t were or were n o t
special
to the a r t students? Significant interactions between the
instruc-
tional m a n i p u l a t i o n and the investment variable for the
m e a -
sures o f honesty, conveyed liking, and exaggeration, i n d i c a
t e d
t h a t it did. As shown in Table 2, in all three i n s t r u c t i o
n a l condi-
tions, p a r t i c i p a n t s said t h a t they were less honest
when the art-
ists were invested in the paintings t h a n when they were not,
and
they also said t h a t they t r i e d t o convey m o r e liking
and t h a t they

exaggerated their liking m o r e when the artists were invested.
The degree to which they showed these effects, however, in-
creased f r o m the honest t o the no-instructions to the polite
con-
dition. (See the c o l u m n s in Table 2 labeled Difference. )
For the
exaggeration measure, for e x a m p l e , the degree to which
partic-
i p a n t s exaggerated their liking m o r e for the special t h a
n for the
not-special paintings was only 0.08 ( a n d n o t significant) in
the
honest condition; it increased to 0.32 in the no-instructions
condition and to 1.25 in the polite condition. I n fact, for all
t h r e e measures, p a r t i c i p a n t s in the no-instructions
condition
were m o r e similar to the p a r t i c i p a n t s in the honest
condition
t h a n they were to the p a r t i c i p a n t s in the polite
condition. Con-
trast analyses showed t h a t the difference between the special
paintings and the not-special ones was the same for the honest
condition and the n o - i n s t r u c t i o n s condition for all
three mea-
sures ( F s < 1 ); b u t the special versus not-special difference
was
significantly greater in the polite condition t h a n in the no-in-
structions condition for all measures (all p s = .007 or smaller).
T h e judges also thought t h a t the ways t h a t the p a r t i c
i p a n t s
h a n d l e d the discussions o f the special ( c o m p a r e d to
the not-
special) paintings were influenced b y their a t t e m p t s to be
honest or polite. T h e judges thought t h a t the p a r t i c i p a
n t s t r i e d

t o convey m o r e liking and m o r e exaggerated liking for
the spe-
cial paintings t h a n for the not-special ones ( a n d they
tended t o
t h i n k t h a t the p a r t i c i p a n t s really d i d like the
special paintings
more, which they d i d n o t ) , a n d t h e y also noticed t h a
t the degree
to which p a r t i c i p a n t s t r i e d to favor the special
paintings in-
creased f r o m the honest to the n o - i n s t r u c t i o n s to
the polite con-
dition (see Table 2).
T h e way t h a t the u n i n s t r u c t e d p a r t i c i p a n t s
c o m p a r e d to the
others was different for the judges' ratings t h a n for the
partici-
p a n t s ' own reports. I n the self-report data, the degree to
which
the p a r t i c i p a n t s favored the special over the not-special
p a i n t -
ings was essentially the same for the p a r t i c i p a n t s who
were t o l d
to be honest as for those who were left to their own d e v i c e s
- -
c o n t r a r y to o u r predictions. The judges, in contrast,
thought
t h a t u n i n s t r u c t e d p a r t i c i p a n t s were no
different from the polite
p a r t i c i p a n t s in the degree to which they favored the
special
paintings. ( T h e F s were < I for exaggeration, and 2.52 a n d
2.51,
b o t h p s = . 12, for actual and conveyed liking,

respectively.) The
judges also thought t h a t the u n i n s t r u c t e d p a r t i c i
p a n t s were
different from the honest p a r t i c i p a n t s in the degree to
which
they favored the special paintings; for conveyed liking, F ( 1,
82)
= 3.46, p = .07, and for exaggeration, F ( 1, 82) = 4 . 8 2 , p =
.03.
Finally, the i n s t r u c t i o n a l m a n i p u l a t i o n was
especially i m p o r -
t a n t to the way the p a r t i c i p a n t s dealt with the artists'
investment
when the paintings were ones the p a r t i c i p a n t s disliked.
The
three-way interaction o f instructions, investment, and liking
for
the p a i n t i n g was significant for p a r t i c i p a n t s '
reports o f their
honesty, F ( 2 , 82 ) = 12.23, p < .001, M S E = 1.59. As
shown in
Table 3, when p a r t i c i p a n t s liked the paintings (see last
three
c o l u m n s o f the t a b l e ) , the instructions they received
h a d virtu-
ally n o effect in any o f the conditions on how honest they
were
a b o u t the special c o m p a r e d to the not-special paintings.
How-
ever, when p a r t i c i p a n t s disliked the paintings (first
three col-
u m n s o f Table 3), they a d m i t t e d to being less honest a
b o u t the
ones t h a t were special to the artists c o m p a r e d to the
ones t h a t

were not. T h i s difference was significant in every
instructional
condition, b u t it increased from the honest ( M = 0.50) to the
n o - i n s t r u c t i o n s ( M = 0.94 ) to the polite condition (
M = 2.38 ).
O n c e again, the u n i n s t r u c t e d participants, in their
self-reports,
were m o r e similar to the p a r t i c i p a n t s who were t o l d
to be honest
t h a n to those who were t o l d to be polite. The difference
between
special and n o t special was n o t significantly greater in the u
n i n -
s t r u c t e d condition t h a n in the honest condition, F ( l ,
82) =
Table 3
Effects o f Instructions, Participants' L i k i n g f o r the
Paintings, and Artists'
Investment on Participants" and Judges" Ratings
Type of painting
Disliked Liked
Ratings and Not Not
instructions special Special Difference special Special
Difference
Participants: Honesty
Honest 7.58 7.08 0.50** 8.14 8.04 0.10
No instructions 7.90 6.96 0.94**** 8.28 8.22 0.06

Polite 7.48 5.10 2.38**** 7.55 7.67 -0.12
Judges
Honesty,
Honest 6.52 6.39 0.13 6.54 6.37 0.17*
No instructions 6.67 6 . 3 1 0.36**** 6.58 6.42 0.16*
Polite 6.49 5.97 0.52**** 6.42 6.33 0.09
Conveyed liking
Honest 4.27 4.30 0.03 6.46 6.71 0.25*
No instructions 4.01 4.59 0.58**** 6.45 6.69 0.24*
Polite 4.15 5.07 0.92**** 6.32 6.70 0.38***
Note. The special paintings were the ones in which the m i s t s
were invested. Difference is not special minus
special for honesty and special minus not special for conveyed
liking.
* p < . 1 0 . * * p < . 0 5 . ***p<.01. ****p~.001.
1.89, p = . 17, b u t it was significantly greater in the polite
condi-
tion t h a n in the u n i n s t r u c t e d condition, F ( 1, 82) =
20.25, p <
.00 I.
The judges also n o t i c e d t h a t it was especially di fficult
for the
p a r t i c i p a n t s to discuss the special paintings t r u t h f u
l l y when the
p a r t i c i p a n t s disliked the paintings b u t were trying to
be polite
a b o u t them, F ( 2 , 82) = 3.27, p = .04, M S E = 0.28. As
shown
in Table 3, the degree to which the p a r t i c i p a n t s seemed
to be

m o r e dishonest when discussing the disliked paintings t h a t
were
special to the artists ( c o m p a r e d to the disliked paintings t
h a t
were n o t special) increased from the honest to the n o - i n s t
r u c -
tions to the polite condition. The s a m e p a t t e r n o c c u r r
e d for
judges' perceptions o f the liking t h a t p a r t i c i p a n t s
seemed to be
trying to convey, F ( 2 , 82) = 4.74, p = .01, M S E = 0.54. W
h e n
the p a r t i c i p a n t s disliked the paintings, the judges
thought t h a t
they seemed to be trying to convey especially m o r e liking for
the
special t h a n for the not-special paintings and t h a t this
tendency
increased from the honest to the n o - i n s t r u c t i o n s to the
polite
condition. Again, the judges, in c o n t r a s t to the
participants,
thought t h a t the u n i n s t r u c t e d p a r t i c i p a n t s
were m o r e similar to
the p a r t i c i p a n t s who were told to be polite t h a n t o
the p a r t i c i -
p a n t s t o l d to be honest. F o r perceptions o f honesty, the
special
versus not-special difference for the disliked paintings was n o t
significantly smaller in the n o - i n s t r u c t i o n s condition t
h a n in the
polite condition, F ( 1, 82) = 1.57, ns, b u t it was nearly
signifi-
cantly greater in the n o - i n s t r u c t i o n s condition t h a n
in the
honest condition, F ( 1, 82) = 3.25, p = .07. For the measure o f

conveyed liking, the corresponding values were F ( 1 , 82) =
3 . 0 3 , p = .08, a n d F ( 1, 82) = 7 . 9 3 , p = .006.
Verbal S t r a t e g i e s
Design. The design for the analyses o f p a r t i c i p a n t s '
verbal
strategies was the s a m e as for the p a r t i c i p a n t s ' self-
reports and
the judges' ratings, except t h a t one within-subjects factor o f
p r o -
fessed affect (liking--disliking) was added. For the measure o f
explicit evaluation, the levels were ( a ) whether the
participants
explicitly said t h a t they liked the p a i n t i n g and ( b )
whether they
explicitly said t h a t they disliked it (see Cochran, 1950, and
Ro-
senthal & Rosnow, 1991, for the use o f ANOVA with dichoto-
m o u s dependent variables). For total aspects m e n t i o n e d
a n d for
new aspects mentioned, the levels were n u m b e r o f liked
aspects
m e n t i o n e d and n u m b e r o f disliked aspects
mentioned.
Initial likes and dislikes. To be sure t h a t participants d i d
n o t like m o r e aspects o f the special paintings t h a n the
not-spe-
cial ones even before they met the a r t students, we analyzed
the
n u m b e r o f liked and disliked aspects o f all o f the
paintings t h a t
p a r t i c i p a n t s h a d described in writing. The interaction
o f invest-

m e n t with n u m b e r o f liked versus disliked aspects was n
o t sig-
nificant ( F < 1 ). Thus, p a r t i c i p a n t s began by listing a
l m o s t
exactly the same n u m b e r o f likes a n d dislikes for the
special
paintings as for the not-special ones.
Professed affect. The m a i n effect o f professed affect was
sig-
nificant for all t h r e e measures. Across the discussions o f
all o f
the paintings, the p a r t i c i p a n t s were almost twice as
likely to say
t h a t they liked a p a i n t i n g ( M = 0.44) t h a n to say t h
a t they dis-
liked it ( M = 0.24), even though all p a r t i c i p a n t s
actually liked
the exact same n u m b e r o f paintings t h a t they disliked, F
( l, 82)
= 56.09, p < .001, M S E = 0.13. T h e y also mentioned m a n
y
m o r e things t h a t they liked t h a n disliked a b o u t the
paintings
( M s = 5.26 and 3.61), F ( 1 , 82) = 66.49, p < .001, M S E =
7.64, and o f the aspects o f the paintings t h a t they m e n t i
o n e d
b u t had n o t originally listed, significantly m o r e o f t h e
m were
aspects t h a t they liked t h a n disliked ( M s = 3.26 and
2.04), F ( 1,
82) = 4 3 . 0 1 , p < .001, M S E = 6.47.
L i k e d and disliked paintings. Participants had m o r e diffi -

LYING AND CARING 71 1
culty c o m m u n i c a t i n g t r u t h f u l l y a b o u t the
paintings t h a t they
disliked t h a n a b o u t the ones t h a t they liked. The
interactions
between professed affect a n d liking for the paintings were
sig-
nificant for all t h r e e measures. As shown in Table 4, when
par-
ticipants liked a painting, they said so 81% o f the time;
however,
when they disliked a painting, they said so explicitly only 48%
o f the time, F ( 1, 82) = 353.70, p < .001, M S E = 0.19. W h
e n
p a r t i c i p a n t s liked a painting, t h e y m e n t i o n e d m
a n y m o r e things
a b o u t it t h a t they liked t h a n t h a t they disliked, b u t
when they
disliked a painting, t h e y m e n t i o n e d fewer t h a n one
m o r e thing
a b o u t it t h a t they disliked t h a n liked, F ( 1, 82) =
217.25, p <
.001, M S E = 5.05. Similarly, when discussing a p a i n t i n g
t h a t
they liked, p a r t i c i p a n t s m e n t i o n e d 4.18 a d d i t i
o n a l things a b o u t
it t h a t t h e y liked t h a t they h a d n o t a l r e a d y
listed, c o m p a r e d to
only 1.33 new things t h a t they disliked; in contrast, the n u m
b e r
o f new liked a n d disliked aspects t h a t p a r t i c i p a n t s
generated
when the p a i n t i n g was disliked h a r d l y differed (2.34
and 2.75),

F ( I , 82) = 114.39,p < .O01,MSE = 4.33.
Stonewalling was i n d i c a t e d b y the m a i n effect for
liking for
the p a i n t i n g for the measures o f explicit evaluation, F (
1, 82)
= 30.37, p < .001, M S E = 0.09, and total n u m b e r o f
aspects
mentioned, F ( 1, 82) = 7.87, p = .007, M S E = 4.09. These re -
sults showed t h a t p a r t i c i p a n t s n o t only h a d a h a
r d t i m e telling
the t r u t h a b o u t the disliked paintings, b u t they also h a
d a h a r d
t i m e saying anything at all. W h e n p a r t i c i p a n t s
disliked a p a i n t -
ing, they were less likely to m a k e any explicit evaluation
(whether positive or negative) t h a n when they liked it ( M s
=
0.28 and 0.41 for disliked and liked paintings, respectively).
Participants also m e n t i o n e d fewer things t h a t t h e y
liked o r dis-
liked when they disliked a p a i n t i n g ( M = 4.23) t h a n
when they
liked it ( M = 4.64).
Not-special and special paintings. Professed affect in-
teracted significantly with investment, and in the p r e d i c t e d
di-
rection, for all t h r e e measures. As shown in Table 5, when
the
paintings were special to the a r t students ( c o m p a r e d to
when
they were n o t ) , the p a r t i c i p a n t s were relatively m o r
e likely to
say t h a t they liked t h e m a n d relatively less likely to say
t h a t they

disliked them, F ( 1 , 82) = 7.83, p = .006, M S E = 0.13. Sim-
Table 4
Participants" Verbal Strategies Used in Discussing
the Disliked and Liked Paintings
Participants' liking for the paintings
Verbal strategy Disliked Liked Difference
Explicit evaluation a
Liked 0.08 0.81 0.73****
Disliked 0.48 0.00 -0.48****
Total aspects mentioned
Liked 3.84 6.67 2.83****
Disliked 4.62 2 . 6 1 -2.01"***
New aspects mentioned
Liked 2.34 4.18 1.84****
Disliked 2.75 !.33 - 1.42****
a Proportion of participants who explicitly said that
liked the paintings.
**** p -< .001.
they liked or dis-
Table 5
Participants" Verbal Strategies Used in Discussing the
Not-Special and Special Paintings
Artists' investment
Verbal strategy Not special Special Difference

Explicit evaluation a
Liked 0.41" 0.48 0.07**
Disliked 0.28 0 . 2 1 -0.07**
Total aspects mentioned
Liked 5.02 5.49 0.47**
Disliked 3.92 3.30 -0.62***
New aspects mentioned
Liked 3.09 3.42 0.33*
Disliked 2.20 1.88 -0.32
Note. The special paintings were the ones in which the m i s t s
were
invested.
a Proportion of participants who explicitly said that they liked
or dis-
liked the paintings.
* p < . 1 0 . * * p < . 0 5 . ***p<.01.
ilarly, when the paintings were special, c o m p a r e d to when
they
were not, the p a r t i c i p a n t s m e n t i o n e d relatively m
o r e things t h a t
they liked a b o u t t h e m a n d relatively fewer things t h a t
they dis-
liked, F ( 1 , 82) = 13.14, p < .001, M S E = 4.22. Similarly,
the
p a r t i c i p a n t s thought o f relatively m o r e new things
to like a b o u t
the special paintings t h a n a b o u t the not-special ones, and
rela-
tively fewer things to dislike, F ( 1, 82) = 5.70, p < .05, M S E
=
3.55. Thus, the ways in which the p a r t i c i p a n t s discussed
the

special versus the not-special paintings paralleled the ways they
discussed the liked versus disliked paintings. It is i m p o r t a n
t t o
n o t e t h a t the interactions o f professed affect with
investment
were n o t qualified b y p a r t i c i p a n t s ' liking for the p a
i n t i n g
(except for one higher order interaction involving instructions,
discussed n e x t ) . T h a t means, for example, t h a t p a r t i
c i p a n t s
used their strategy o f mentioning m a n y m o r e liked t h a n
disliked
aspects ( o f the special p a i n t i n g s ) j u s t as m u c h
when discussing
the paintings they disliked as the paintings t h e y liked.
Honesty and politeness. A m a i n effect o f instructions on ex-
plicit evaluations i n d i c a t e d t h a t the m o r e polite the
p a r t i c i p a n t s
were i n s t r u c t e d to be, the less likely they were to offer
any ex-
plicit evaluation at all, F ( 2 , 82) = 3.30, p < .05, M S E =
0.10.
The means for the honest, no-instructions, a n d polite condi-
tions were 0.38, 0.35, and 0.30, respectively. The instructional
m a n i p u l a t i o n also m o d e r a t e d the way the p a r t i
c i p a n t s explicitly
evaluated the paintings t h a t were or were n o t special to the
a r t
students. There was a significant interaction among the instruc-
tional m a n i p u l a t i o n , investment, liking for the
painting, and
professed affect, F ( 2 , 82) = 4.84, p = .01 (see Table 6 ) . I f
par-
ticipants were being completely honest, then they would explic-
itly say t h a t they disliked the paintings t h a t t h e y

actually d i d
dislike and t h a t t h e y liked the paintings t h a t they
actually d i d
like. T h a t is, the n u m b e r s in the m i d d l e two c o l u
m n s o f Table 6
would all be exactly 1.00. But n o n e o f t h e m were. T h e
n u m b e r s
were fairly high for the liked paintings; when p a r t i c i p a n t
s really
d i d like the paintings, between 69% a n d 91% o f t h e m
explicitly
said t h a t they did. A n d virtually n o n e o f t h e m ever
said t h a t
Table 6
Effects o f Instructions, Participants" Liking for the Paintings,
and Artists" Investment on Participants" Explicit Evaluations
Disliked paintings Liked paintings
Professed Professed Professed Professed
Instructions liking disliking liking disliking
Honest
Not special .09 .56 .81 .03
Special .03 .62 .91 .00
Difference - . 0 6 .06 .10 - . 0 3
No instructions
Not special .00 .64 .83 .00
Special .16 .40 .79 .00
Difference .16** -.24**** - . 0 4 .00

Polite
Not special .03 .47 .69 .00
Special .16 .22 .81 .00
Difference .13* -.25**** .12* .00
Note. The special paintings were the ones in which the artists
were
invested. Entries are proportions of participants who explicitly
said that
they liked or disliked the paintings.
* p < . 1 0 . * * p ~ . 0 5 . ****p~.001.
t h e y disliked a n y o f those paintings. Neither the artists'
invest-
m e n t in the paintings n o r the instructions the p a r t i c i p
a n t s h a d
been given m a d e m u c h o f a difference. But when p a r t i
c i p a n t s
disliked the paintings, t h e y often r e f r a i n e d from saying
so ex-
plicitly, a n d b o t h the instructions a n d the artists' i n v e s
t m e n t
m a t t e r e d t o them.
As shown in Table 6, p a r t i c i p a n t s strayed farthest from
the
t r u t h when they disliked a p a i n t i n g t h a t was special
to the artist
and they were trying to be polite a b o u t it. W h e n i n s t r u
c t e d to
be honest, 62% o f the p a r t i c i p a n t s explicitly
acknowledged that
t h e y disliked the p a i n t i n g t h a t was special to the
artist; a m o n g
the u n i n s t r u c t e d p a r t i c i p a n t s , only 4(~o d i d

so, a n d a m o n g
those p a r t i c i p a n t s urged to be polite, only 22% d i d so.
(All
differences among these t h r e e n u m b e r s were significant
[ p s <
.01 o r smaller] .) In the n o - i n s t r u c t i o n s a n d polite
conditions,
16% o f the p a r t i c i p a n t s told o u t r i g h t lies: T h e y
explicitly said
t h a t they liked the p a i n t i n g t h a t they h a d a l r e a d
y i n d i c a t e d in
writing t h a t they hated. ( I n the honest condition, 3% o f
the p a r -
ticipants d i d this.)
It is also informative to c o m p a r e the relative percentages o
f
p a r t i c i p a n t s who explicitly said t h a t they liked and
disliked the
detested special paintings in each condition. I n the honest con-
dition, 59% m o r e o f the p a r t i c i p a n t s said t h a t t h
e y disliked t h a n
liked the p a i n t i n g t h a t t h e y d i d in fact dislike. I n
the n o - i n s t r u c -
tions condition the difference was 24%, and in the polite condi -
tion it was only 6%.
P a r t i c i p a n t s ' explicit evaluations o f the disliked
paintings
t h a t were not special to the artists showed t h a t p a r t i c i
p a n t s used
the p r e d i c t e d strategy o f evaluation b y implication.
Participants
were s o m e w h a t less likely t o say explicitly t h a t t h e y
disliked the
disliked paintings when they were i n s t r u c t e d t o b e

polite t h a n
when they were i n s t r u c t e d to be honest, b u t this d r o p
from
honest to polite was far less p r e c i p i t o u s when the
paintings were
n o t special to the artist (56 to 47) t h a n when they were
special
(62 to 2 2 ) . The converse o c c u r r e d for explicit
statements o f
l i k i n g - - t h e o u t r i g h t lies. Participants in the polite
condition
( a n d the no-instructions c o n d i t i o n ) told polite lies a b
o u t the
paintings they disliked t h a t were special to the a r t student:
16%
o f t h e m said t h a t they liked those paintings, c o m p a r e
d t o 3% in
the honest condition. In contrast, when the disliked paintings
were not special to the artist, 3% o f the participants in the
polite
condition ( a n d n o n e in the no-instructions condition )
explicitly
said t h a t they liked them, c o m p a r e d to 9% in the honest
condition.
In sum, then, when p a r t i c i p a n t s were t r a p p e d in the
challeng-
ing situation o f trying t o b e polite a b o u t work they
disliked t h a t
was special to the artists with w h o m they were interacting,
they
m a n i p u l a t e d b o t h their evaluation o f the work in
which the a r t -
ists were invested and their evaluation o f the other artwork in
which the artists had no investment. T h e y refrained from say-

ing explicitly t h a t t h e y disliked the paintings t h a t were
special
to the artists. A t the same time, they were much less r e s t r a
i n e d
when it c a m e to c o n d e m n i n g the paintings t h a t were
n o t
special. 3
D i s c u s s i o n
A L o o k i n g Glass or a Reversible Figure?
Decades o f research relevant to the reflected appraisal p r o -
cess have indicated t h a t o u r perceptions o f others' views o
f us
are n o t strongly related to their actual views and t h a t o u r
self-
perceptions a r e m o r e highly related to o u r perceptions o f
o t h -
ers' appraisals t h a n to t h e i r actual appraisals (Felson,
1992).
We began with two possible explanations for the p o o r fit be-
tween actual and perceived appraisals. First, people may n o t
be
open and honest in c o m m u n i c a t i n g their appraisals.
Second, we
may misperceive those appraisals.
The present study strongly s u p p o r t e d the first
explanation.
T h e p a r t i c i p a n t s r e f r a i n e d from saying how they
really d i d feel
a b o u t the paintings, especially when t h e y disliked them.
By it-
self, this finding is h a r d l y new. F r o m the literatures on
perfor-

mance appraisals (Fisher, 1979; Larson, 1984, 1986, 1989), the
M U M effect (Tesser & Rosen, 1975 ), and lying in everyday
life
( D e P a u l o , Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996; see
also
Folkes, 1982), as well as the literatures t h a t followed m o r e
di-
rectly from the s y m b o l i c interactionist t r a d i t i o n
(Blumberg,
3 An example of a truthful answer to the question "What do you
think
of it?" was given by a participant discussing a disliked painting
that was
one of the artist's favorites: "It's ugly. It's just ugly." An
example of a
truthful message about a liked painting that was one of the
artist's fa-
vorites was: "I liked it. This was, this was my second favorite of
the
group. Urn, it was the, the detail that was put into, uh, some of
the, you
know, the, the nuances in color, the way the black is done. And
urn, and
it was, uh, yeah, I really liked it overall." An example of an
answer that
was coded as a lie (i.e., the participant claimed to like a
disliked
painting) was given by a participant discussing a painting that
was the
artist's own work: "I like this one:' All participants had more to
say
about each painting when asked additional questions, but these
were
their complete answers to the artist's first question ("What do
you think

of it?"). Over the entire course of the discussion of each
painting, par-
ticipants spoke an average of 217 words.
LYING AND CARING 7 1 3
1972; Felson, 1992; Swarm, Stein-Seroussi, & McNulty, 1992),
we already knew that there are formidable barriers to the direct
communication o f appraisals--especially negative ones---to the
persons they concern. W h a t our work has shown that is n e w
is (a) the powerful impact on appraisals o f the target person's
personal investment in the object o f the appraisals, ( b ) the
difficulty o f eliciting totally honest evaluations, and (c) the
value o f the defensibility postulate in predicting the verbal
strat-
egies people use in dodging the truth. Perhaps even more im-
portant, our findings suggest that ( d ) when we look to others
for
their appraisals, what we see is neither a looking glass nor a
hopelessly distorted image, but a reversible figure.
Truth and investment. A m o n g the m a n y motives that have
been postulated t o account for the reluctance to convey nega-
tive evaluations, concern with the target person's feelings is
per-
haps the one that is most consistently cited and supported. I f
the target person's feelings are most important, then the more
the target person cares about the object o f evaluation, the less
likely that person should be to hear a truthful appraisal, espe-
cially when the truth would hurt. This is so, we predicted, even
though the instrumental value o f honest appraisals should also
increase with the target person's personal investment. O u r
study
was the first to manipulate target persons' personal investment,

and our findings were strongly supportive o f our predictions.
Across virtually every measure, communications were more
dishonest when the target persons cared about the objects o f
the
appraisals than when they did not.
I s the truth ever told to those who care? We predicted that,
when left to their own devices, people are practitioners o f po-
liteness (P. Brown & Levinson, 1987). We are the first t o test
people's strategic use o f polite dissembling by directly
instruct-
ing some o f the participants to behave as politeness theory
pre-
dicks they would and then comparing their behavior to that o f
participants given no special instructions. We thought that the
uninstructed participants would convey appraisals o f the paint-
ings the art students cared about that were just as distorted and
dishonest as those conveyed by the participants who were ex-
plicitly instructed to be polite and avoid hurting the art stu-
dent's feelings. According to the judges' perceptions, this is
what
usually happened. The participants' reports, however, were of-
ten at odds with our prediction. The self-reports o f the unin-
structed participants were usually more similar to those o f the
participants urged to be honest than to those urged t o be
polite.
We are inclined to trust the judges' perceptions. The partici -
pants in the uninstructed condition may have been motivated
t o describe themselves as honest. (The polite participants, in
contrast, had an excuse for being dishonest--they were follow-
ing instructions.) The judges had no investment in perceiving
the participants as either honest or dishonest, and they made
their ratings without any awareness o f the participants' instruc-
tional conditions. We also trust the judges' perceptions more
because they were more in line with the results o f our

objective
measures o f what the participants actually said. The results
were clearest for our measure o f outright lies about the
disliked
special paintings. The percentage o f participants who
explicitly
said that they liked the paintings that they had already told us
that they detested was identical in the no-instructions and the
polite conditions ( 16%); in the honest condition it was lower
(3%). The same pattern is evident in the percentage o f partici-
pants who refrained from saying explicitly that they disliked the
detested paintings when they were special compared to when
they were n o t special. In the honest condition, this
withholding
o f an explicit negative evaluation was equally likely for the
spe-
cial as for the not-special paintings, b u t in the uninstructed
and
the polite conditions participants were significantly more likely
to refrain from saying that they disliked the detested painting
when it was special than when it was not. Furthermore, the mag-
nitude o f this difference between the special and not-special
paintings was virtually identical for the uninstructed and polite
participants (Table 6).
In that the participants who were urged to be honest told vir-
tually n o lies about the special paintings they disliked, and
were
no more likely to withhold their explicit negative evaluations
o f the special paintings than o f the not-special ones, were
they
evenhanded in their discussions o f the special and not-special
paintings in every other way, too? I f so, that would indicate
that
there is an easy way to elicit totally honest feedback--urge oth-

ers to tell the truth and give them a compelling reason for doing
so (e.g., it is only by hearing totally honest reactions that art
students can learn how others really do perceive particular
paintings). According to the participants' self-reports, they usu-
ally were evenhanded. The one important exception occurred
when they were describing the paintings they disliked; in that
condition they admitted that they were significantly less honest
about the special paintings than the not-special ones (Table 3).
The judges, too, thought that the honest participants were usu-
ally just as honest when discussing the special paintings as they
were when discussing the not-special ones. But again, there was
an important exception. The judges thought that the honest par -
ticipants exaggerated their liking more when they were discuss-
ing the special paintings than the not-special ones (see Table 2).
Another condition in which it may have been possible for all
participants to be just as honest about the special paintings as
the not-special ones was when they liked the paintings. Accord-
ins to their self-reports, participants were in fact evenhanded in
their discussions o f the special and not-special paintings when
they liked the paintings. O n n o measure did they report
signifi-
cantly less truthfulness. The judges, however, did think there
were some differences. For example, they thought that the par -
ticipants were trying to convey significantly more liking, and
that they were exaggerating their liking more, for the paintings
they liked that were special to the artists than for the liked
paint-
ings that were not special (see Table 1 ). The objective
measures
o f what the participants really did say lend support to the
judges' views. The strategy o f amassing positive evidence
pref-
erentially for the special paintings (relative to the not-special
ones) was just as evident when the participants liked the paint-
ings as when they disliked them. In this study, then, there was

essentially n o condition under which art students who cared
about the paintings heard totally honest feedback about them.
The defensibility postulate. When participants give a paint-
ing one o f the lowest possible ratings on the liking scale and
then
tell the art student that they like that painting, it is hard for
them to defend that statement as truthful. For that reason, our
defensibility postulate predicted that outright lies would occur
infrequently, as in fact they did. But they also occurred exactly
when we expected them t o - - w h e n the participants were
dis-
cussing paintings they disliked that were special to the art stu-
dent, and especially when they were given n o special instruc-
tions or were instructed to be polite.
The strategy o f amassing misleadingly positive evidence when
one's true opinion is negative is one that was noted in passing
nearly four decades ago in a study o f the self-restraint o f
friends
(Mayer, 1957). In the present context, participants practiced
this strategy by mentioning m a n y aspects o f the special
paint-
ings that they really did like while mentioning relatively few as -
pects that they actually disliked. The resulting communications
are highly defensible in that the positive qualities that the par -
ticipants mentioned were ones that they really did like. Al-
though participants were n o t equally forthcoming about the
qualities they disliked, they did n o t deny disliking those
quali-
ties (which would not be defensible); they simply refrained

from mentioning them.
The mentioning o f new positive qualities that were not ini-
tially listed is a riskier strategy, but one that perhaps can work
if
participants convince themselves that they really do like these
newly discovered aspects that they simply had not noticed pre-
viously. Credibility is added if the participants also notice some
new aspects o f the paintings that they dislike, though our pre-
diction is that they will discover fewer o f these new disliked
as-
pects than liked aspects when the paintings are special. The re -
suits supported that prediction, too.
We believe that future research will show that the strategy o f
amassing misleading evidence is widely used. Most objects o f
e v a l u a t i o n - - f o r example, personalities, appearances, j
o b per-
formances, paintings, and journal articles--are complex stim-
uli that routinely elicit both positive and negative reactions. It
is
a fairly simple matter, then, when put on the spot to voice one's
opinion, to reel off one positive c o m m e n t after another.
Also as predicted by the defensibility postulate, participants
used the very clever strategy o f evaluation by implication. By
explicitly stating their disliking for the paintings created by
other artists, while refraining from stating their disli king for the
art student's own work, they implied a favorable social compar -
ison. They appeared to like the art student's own work more
than the other artists' work. They never exactly said that, how -
ever, so their communications can be defended as truthful.
I n contexts in which it is possible for evaluators simply to
avoid communicating their appraisals, we think that they will
often do just that. I n the performance appraisal literature, for

example, it has been noted that supervisors sometimes delay
giving negative feedback (Larson, 1989). Even when complete
avoidance is no longer possible, evaluators still manage to con-
vey less than the whole truth. For example, both supervisors
(Larson, 1986) and football coaches (Felson, 1981 ) hedge by
conveying specific appraisals rather than global ones. I n the
present research, we found that participants stonewalled by
offering fewer explicitly evaluative comments and mentioning
fewer aspects o f the paintings that they liked or disliked w hen
they were discussing paintings they disliked than ones they
liked.
The reversible figure. O u r results suggest an unanticipated
answer to the question o f why our perceptions o f others' ap-
praisals are n o t strongly related to others' actual appraisals:
Par-
ticipants described the paintings in ways that allowed the art
students a choice as to what to hear and what to believe.
When discussing disliked paintings that the artists cared
about, participants exaggerated their liking, withheld explicit
expressions o f disliking, and even told some outright lies. This
gave the art students the opportunity to think that the partici -
pants really did like those paintings. But the participants also
dropped some blatant hints as to their relative degrees o f
liking
for the different paintings that the artists cared about. For ex-
ample, they did not even try to convey as much liking for the
paintings they disliked as for the ones they liked. They rated the
disliked special paintings a 2 on the 9-point scale at the begin-
ning o f the study, and they tried to convey a rating o f 4 to the
art students. Although this was substantially higher than the lik-
ing they really did feel, it was still significantly lower than the
degree o f liking they tried to convey for the special paintings
they really did l i k e - - a 7.

ETHICS & BEHAVIOR, 23(1), 67–70Copyright © 2013 Taylor & F

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to ETHICS & BEHAVIOR, 23(1), 67–70Copyright © 2013 Taylor & F

Similar to ETHICS & BEHAVIOR, 23(1), 67–70Copyright © 2013 Taylor & F (20)

More from BetseyCalderon89

More from BetseyCalderon89 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

ETHICS & BEHAVIOR, 23(1), 67–70Copyright © 2013 Taylor & F