The Fundamental Attribution Error in Detecting Deception: The Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf Effect

Abstract

Most people are unable to detect accurately when others are lying. Many explanations for this inability have been suggested but the cognitive heuristics involved in lie detection have received little attention. The present study offers evidence from two experiments, based on two different groups of observers, judging two different kinds of lies, presented in two different testing situations, that the fundamental attribution error significantly undermines the ability to detect honesty and deception accurately. Trait judgments of trustworthiness were highly correlated with state judgments of truthfulness, leading, as predicted, to positive correlations with honest detection accuracy and negative correlations with deception detection accuracy. More accurate lie detectors were significantly more likely than less accurate lie detectors to separate state and trait judgments of honesty. The effect of other biases, such as the halo effect and the truthfulness bias, also are examined. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.