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The acceptability ofdeception as a functionof perceivers' culture,deceiver's intention,and deceiver‐deceivedrelationshipJohn S. Seiter a , Jon Bruschke b & Chunsheng Baic

a Associate Professor of Speech Communication ,Utah State Universityb Associate Professor in Speech Communication ,California State University , Fullertonc Assistant Professor in Communication Studies ,California State University , Los AngelesPublished online: 06 Jun 2009.

To cite this article: John S. Seiter , Jon Bruschke & Chunsheng Bai (2002)The acceptability of deception as a function of perceivers' culture, deceiver'sintention, and deceiver‐deceived relationship, Western Journal of Communication,66:2, 158-180, DOI: 10.1080/10570310209374731

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Western Journal of Communication, 66(2) (Spring 2002), 158-180

The Acceptability of Deception as aFunction of Perceivers' Culture,Deceiver's Intention, and Deceiver-Deceived Relationship

John S. Seiter, Jon Bruschke, and Chunsheng Bai

This study explored the degree to which deception is perceived to be a socially acceptableform of communication. It was suspected that a liar's motivation for deceiving, a per-ceiver's cultural background, and the type of relationship between a liar and the targetof a lie (e.g., spouse, friend, stranger, etc.) would affect the perceived acceptability ofdeceptive messages. Students from China and the United States rated the degree towhich they perceived deceptive acts depicted in written scenarios as acceptable orunacceptable. Results indicated that 1) lies told for malicious or self-benefiting purposeswere perceived as less acceptable than mutually-benefiting lies and lies that benefitothers; and 2) culture and the type of relationship between liars and targets of liesinteracted with motive for lying to affect the perceived acceptability of deception. Theseresults, their implications, and avenues for future research are discussed.

A lthough maxims such as "Honesty is the best policy" suggest aculture that values veracity and frowns on deception, recent re-

search indicates that deception in interpersonal relationships is com-mon in the United States. Several studies indicate that, on average,people lie almost daily (Camden, Motley, & Wilson, 1984; DePaulo,Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996; Hample, 1980; Lippard,1988; Turner, Edgley, & Olmstead, 1975). Deception is not only ubiq-uitous, it has been conceptualized as a form of communication compe-tence (Camden et al., 1984; Knapp, Hart, & Dennis, 1974; Nyberg,

JOHN S. SEITER (Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1993) is Associate Professorof Speech Communication at Utah State University. JON BRUSCHKE (Ph.D., Univer-sity of Utah, 1994) is Associate Professor in Speech Communication at California StateUniversity, Fullerton. CHUNSHENG BAI (Ph.D., University of Southern California,1998) is Assistant Professor in Communication Studies at California State University,Los Angeles. This project was conducted with the support of a faculty research grantfrom Utah State University to John S. Seiter. The authors would like to thank DavidHenry and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions, and Jacey Skinner,Harold Kinzer, Debora Seiter, Sally Yang, Chuhui Wang, and Dan Wang for theirassistance with data collection and/or cross translation. A previous version of thismanuscript was presented at the annual meeting of the International CommunicationAssociation, Acapulco, June 2000.

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Spring 2002 159

1993), a tool that can be adaptive and essential for the survival andmaintenance of social relationships (see Kraus, 1981; Kraut, 1980;Millar & Tesser, 1988). Deception is perceived by many as the onlycommunication alternative available in some situations (Hample,1980) and may positively affect relational satisfaction (Cole, 2000).Such research raises important questions about the social implicationsof deception. Specifically, in what situations is deception perceived asacceptable? With that in mind, this study examines how communica-tors' motivations, relationships, and cultures contribute to perceptionsof deception's acceptability.

Review of Literature

Motives for LyingDespite work that conceptualizes deception as a potentially accept-

able form of communication (Turner et al., 1975), a large number ofscholars have argued that deception is a reprehensible act with harm-ful consequences (e.g., Bok, 1978; Kant, 1964; Sartre, 1956; Teasdale,1995). Perhaps that is why the lion's share of research on deception hasfocused on detecting it rather than on understanding its nature (Buller& Burgoon, 1994; Hample, 1980). Metts (1989), however, has arguedthat research should move beyond ideological disputes concerning theethics of deception and toward a systematic examination of its natureand functions; others support an amoral perspective (Buller & Bur-goon, 1994; DePaulo et al., 1996; Lippard, 1988; O'Hair & Cody, 1994;Gass & Seiter, 1999).

A handful of studies have addressed these concerns by examiningdifferent forms of deception and a number of different typologies havebeen offered, ranging vastly in scope and orientation. Goffman (1974),for example, discussed the motives underlying two forms of deceptionthat he labeled benign and exploitive fabrications. Turner et al. (1975)found that subjects reported lying in order to save face (of actor orother), guide the direction of social interaction, avoid conflict, achievepower, and control the level of intimacy in their relationships. Hample(1980) concluded that lies were told to more powerful others (employ-ers, parents, and teachers) in order to defend oneself, while Camden etal. (1984) found that subjects lied to satisfy their basic needs, manageaffiliation, and protect their self-esteem. Linskold and Walters (1983)developed a typology of lies that ranged from motivations that werealtruistic, individualistic, and exploitive. Metts (1989) categorized rea-sons for lying as being either partner-focused, teller-focused, relation-ship-focused, or issue-focused, and identified 15 more specific motiveswithin each of these categories. Similarly, O'Hair and Cody (1994) andDePaulo et al. (1996) categorized lies as self, other, and/or relationally-oriented and discussed a number of more specific motives within eachof these broad categories. Indeed, interpersonal deception theory

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160 Deception

(Buller & Burgoon, 1996) asserts that deceivers' behaviors shoulddiffer depending on whether the deception is enacted for instrumental,relational, or identity motivations. Finally, Lippard (1988) concludedthat subjects' sixteen different reasons for deceptive behavior could begrouped into eight primary categories which included deception to gainor protect resources, increase or decrease affiliation, protect self, pro-tect another, manipulate another, be humorous, and excuse oneself.Although consensus has not emerged around a single typology, theredoes appear to be a widespread belief that different lies are told fordifferent reasons, and that these differences are important. Further-more, two basic components seem common to most of these schemes.First, whether the lie is directed at the communicator or the otherseems relevant. Second, whether the lie is told for altruistic or mali-cious reasons appears to be important.

The Perceived Acceptability of LyingDespite arguments that research should examine the nature and

function of deception apart from ethical concerns, it is argued here thatthe study of deception can be advanced by examining deception's formsand functions together with deception's perceived acceptability. Inother words, a worthwhile extension of recent efforts to identify mo-tives for deception would be to investigate how acceptable peopleperceive different types of deception to be. In fact, we argue thatunderstanding people's perceptions regarding the acceptability ofvarious motivations for lying may be necessary to fully understand theways in which deception is enacted and detected. For instance, a liethat is perceived to be socially unacceptable might induce anxiety orguilt in a deceiver. Because guilt or anxiety may affect behaviors thatare displayed during deception (see Zuckerman, DePaulo, &Rosenthal, 1981), the perceived acceptability of a lie might influencehow it is told and detected.

However, despite calls for research designed to explore how peoplemake moralistic judgments (O'Hair & Cody, 1994), few studies haveinvestigated the degree to which individuals perceive different types oflies to be morally acceptable or reprehensible. Maier and Lavrakas(1976), for example, found that subjects rated lies that caused therecipient to lose some resource as more reprehensible than lies that didnot. Hopper and Bell (1984) found that benign lies were evaluatedmore favorably than exploitive lies. Linskold and Walters (1983) foundthat lies which were altruistically motivated were perceived to be lessreprehensible than those which were selfishly motivated, and selfishlymotivated lies were perceived to be less reprehensible than exploitiveones. This study seeks to replicate and extend these findings by linkingwork on the motivations for deception with assessments of the accept-ability of deception. Combining acceptability with the two componentsof motivation identified above, it is hypothesized that:

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Hypothesis 1: Lies told for malicious or self-benefiting purposes will beperceived as less acceptable than mutually-benefiting lies and lies thatbenefit others.

The Acceptability of Deception Across CulturesThe notion that culture determines moral judgments is not new

(Montaigne, 1952) and Condon and Yousef (1975) noted that severalcultures place great value in skillful deception. Empirical evidence alsosuggests that perceptions of deception may be learned and culturallybased (Aune & Waters, 1994; Yeung, Levine, & Nishiyama, 1999). Forexample, Lefebvre (1982) compared the moral reasoning of people fromthe former Soviet Union to people from the United States, and arguedthat while the former believe that a compromise of good and evil isgood, the latter believe that such a compromise is evil. Although suchstudies are valuable in their own right, most have examined a limitednumber of motivations for lying, were based on data that was notspecific to deception (i.e., Lefebvre presented subjects with moral di-lemmas not exclusively involving deception), and offered only onecross-cultural comparison (i.e., U.S. to Soviet Union).

Despite the limited base of empirical knowledge, there are theoret-ical reasons to suspect that differences in the perceived acceptability ofdeception might vary across cultures. First, Hofstede (1980, 1982)argued that one of the most basic ways in which cultures differ is intheir degree of collectivism versus individualism. While members fromindividualistic cultures tend to seek private goals and put their per-sonal interests above group interests, members from collectivistic cul-tures put the interests of the group over those of the individual(Gudykunst & Kim, 1997). As such, it is possible members from indi-vidualistic cultures would find behavior (including deception) thatsought to promote self-interest as more acceptable than would mem-bers of collectivistic cultures. Similarly, it is possible that membersfrom collectivistic cultures would perceive lies which have the purposeof benefiting another or benefiting both self and other as more accept-able than would members from individualistic cultures.

Second, Gudykunst and Kim (1997) argued that people from theU.S. have an instrumental orientation while those from China have anexpressive orientation. For those individuals with an instrumentalorientation deception may be seen as a means to achieve a personalgoal and they may not find deception for personal benefit as reprehen-sible as an individual with an expressive orientation might. Becauseindividuals with an expressive orientation see interaction as an end initself, they may value interpersonal relationships and find deceptionenacted with the intention to benefit another as more acceptable thanthose from instrumental cultures.

Third, according to Ting-Toomey (1988), members of individualisticcultures are primarily interested in saving face for themselves rather

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162 Deception

than others, while individuals from collectivist cultures are interestedin preserving both self- and other-face in relationships. Members ofChinese cultures may tend to use deception to avoid conflict (thusbenefiting both themselves and others by maintaining harmony), andto save face for others (Robinson, 1996). For example, Murray (1988)asserted:

Within Chinese conversational style is a tendency to respond in termsof expectations, goals, even models rather than with mundane facts.Courtesy prompts good answers, not just technically accurate ones, andone strains to assume what should be, is, or at least soon will be. (p. 93)

Because of their tendency to shade the truth in order to avoid conflictor save face, it is likely that members of collectivistic cultures wouldsee such forms of deception as acceptable.

Finally, because collectivistic cultures achieve privacy psychologi-cally rather than with physical barriers (Gudykunst & Kim, 1997),people from such cultures may find deception that enables them tomaintain privacy more acceptable. Gudykunst and Kim (1997) alsoreported that people from collectivistic cultures use evasive communi-cation to signal the need for privacy.

Because scholars have argued that differences between Western andAsian cultures are the greatest when comparing major cultures (Sam-ovar & Porter, 1988), the specific cultures to be examined in this studywill be North American and Chinese. It is hypothesized, then that:

Hypothesis 2: People from China will find lies told to benefit another,affiliate, protect self, manage impressions, avoid conflict, and maintainprivacy as more acceptable than will people from the U.S., and peoplefrom the U.S. will perceive lies told to benefit the self as more acceptablethan will people from China.

The Acceptability of Deception in Relationships

Although extant theory suggests that the nature of relationshipsshould influence the enactment and perception of deception (see Buller& Burgoon, 1996), to our knowledge, only one published study hasexamined whether the relationship between liars and targets of liesaffects the degree to which a lie is perceived as acceptable. Specifically,Maier and Lavrakas (1976) found that lies told to friends were rated asmore reprehensible than lies told to associates or strangers. Moreover,related research is inconsistent, with some studies indicating thatdeception is more frequent in personal relationships than impersonalones (Hample, 1980; Lippard, 1988; Millar & Tesser, 1988), and otherstudies showing just the opposite (DePaulo & Kashy, 1998). Giventhese inconsistencies and the small amount of research upon which toform hypotheses, we ask the following research question:

RQ: Does the nature of the relationship between deceivers and thosebeing deceived affect perceptions of the acceptability of deception?

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Method

ParticipantsThe participants for this study were 106 (51 male, 52 female) Amer-

ican students from communication classes at a large university in theUnited States and 103 (51 male, 51 female, one unreported) Chinesestudents from sociology classes at a large university in the People'sRepublic of China. American students received extra credit and Chi-nese students were paid money for participating.

MaterialsA survey was developed by creating a set of scenarios involving

different motivations for lying that could be evaluated later by re-search participants. Our goal was to include a group of motivationsthat was manageable in size but that also represented a broad range ofmotivations. We included the two major themes evident in prior re-search: whether the lie was altruistic or malicious, and whether the liewas intended to benefit the self or the other. Although the motivationsselected do not represent a complete list of all the possible motivationsindicated in prior literature, we attempted to balance the need toprovide enough gradation to capture the richness of actual deceptionwithout creating a typology so massive as to be un-interpretable. Thesetwo factors were incorporated into a single continuum, ranging frommalicious lies told to harm the other to altruistic lies told to benefit theother. Based on previously developed typologies of motivations fordeception, nine different motivation categories were selected for inclu-sion in this study (see Appendix). Each scenario involves an encounterin which one person lies to another for a specific reason. Each motiva-tion was crossed with one of six different relationship types, and thusscenarios described a liar deceiving either a parent, teacher, stranger,friend, boss, or spouse. We stress that this typology was utilized forheuristic purposes, and is not offered as a finished or conclusivescheme.

Following construction of the scenarios, two Chinese graduate stu-dents checked the scenarios to determine whether they were sensiblein the Chinese culture. Six were not and were rewritten until found tobe realistic. Afterward, as verification that the scenarios representedthe primary motive that they were intended to represent, someoneknown to the researchers read each of the scenarios and categorizedthem into nine piles, each pile representing one motivation. Sevenscenarios were not accurately categorized and were rewritten to betterrepresent the intended motivation. Afterward, two undergraduate stu-dents completed the same task (i.e., categorizing scenarios into piles).Analysis revealed that the students' agreement regarding categorieswas high (Cohen's Kappa = .96).

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164 Deception

Finally, one Chinese graduate student translated the scenarios intoChinese, and another translated them back into English to make surethat the meaning of the scenarios had not changed during translation.Back translation continued until two versions of the scenarios, one inEnglish and the other in Chinese, were complete.

ProceduresThe survey contained 54 different scenarios that crossed nine dif-

ferent types of lying Motive with six different types of Relationship.Respondents read the scenarios and, among other things, used 9-point,Likert-type scales to rate the degree to which they perceived deceptiveacts depicted in the scenarios as acceptable (1 = extremely unaccept-able/bad, 9 = extremely acceptable/good).

Of course, the large number of items introduced the possibility ofrespondent fatigue that could produce an order effect. The order of theitems was not varied for different respondents, and thus it was notpossible to conduct a pure test of an order effect that was not con-founded with the other manipulations of the study. However, ad hocanalyses of the data provide some evidence that respondent fatigueduring data collection did not systematically alter the results. First,the data were broken into quartiles according to their order of appear-ance in the survey. Each quartile contained items from several differ-ent manipulations. The means seemed to vary across the quartiles(4.56, 3.73, 4.34, and 4.04, respectively) and did not seem to linearlyincrease or decrease as the length of time to complete the surveyincreased. Neither did the standard deviations seem to increase ordecrease in a systematic way across the quartiles (in order, 1.06, 1.22,1.19, 1.31). Second, although the number of items was fairly large, thedescription of each scenario was very brief. The examples provided inthe Appendix are verbatim accounts of the scenarios in the survey.Finally, the survey took approximately one hour to complete. Whilesomewhat lengthy, this figure falls within the range of normal profes-sional standards.

Results

The data were analyzed in a 6 (Relationship) by 9 (Motive) by 2(Culture) design and analyzed with the SPSS 10.0 General LinearModel procedure with repeated measures factors. Relationship andMotive were within-subjects factors and Culture was a between-sub-jects factor. Significance was present for both Box's test of equality ofcovariance matrices (M[1485,128660] = 3516.24, F = 1.72, p < .001)and Mauchly's test of sphericity (for Relationship, W[14] = .84, p <.001; for Motive W[35] = .11, p < .001; for the interaction WU532.02]= 0,p < .001). SPSS applies Epsilon adjustments to subsequent tests

when sphericity assumptions are violated. All results reported below

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assume Greenhouse-Geisser adjustments to the degrees of freedom.Significance was obtained for every term in the model, including Re-lationship (F[4.68, 968.4] = 43.78, p < .001, eta2 = .012'), Motive(F[655.15, 931.6] = 655.15, p < .001, eta2 = .37), the Relationship byCulture interaction (F[4.7, 968.4] = 21.84, p < .001, eta2 = .006), theMotive by Culture interaction (F[4.5, 931.7] = 3.16, p < .01, eta2 =.002), the Relationship by Motive interaction (F[29.2, 6047.5] = 66.26,p < .001, eta2 = .11), and the three-way interaction between Rela-tionship and Motive and Culture (F[29.2, 6047.5] = 12.24, p < .001,eta2 = .02). Significance was also obtained for the single between-subjects factor of Culture (F[l, 207] = 38.91, p < .001, eta2 = .001); ingeneral, the Chinese sample found lying to be more acceptable than theUnited States sample. The means for all conditions are reported inTable 1.

Repeated deviation contrasts were utilized to further analyze thedifferences; this sort of contrast compares each level with the grandmean for all levels up to the degrees of freedom. The advantage of thiscontrast is that it requires no ordinal ranking of the categories; thedrawback is that one level for each variable remains untested. Theabsence of the ordination requirement makes the interaction resultsmuch more interpretable, and made the deviation contrast the mostuseful choice in this context.

In terms of motivations, it was most acceptable to lie for reasons ofAffiliation, followed (in order) by Benefit Other, Privacy, Avoid Con-flict, Protect Self, Impression Management, Benefit Self WithoutHarming Other, Benefit Self and Harming Other, and Malice. Signif-icant differences existed between every single type of motivation; theresults are contained in Table 2. In terms of relationships, it was mostacceptable to lie to a Spouse, followed by (in order) a Stranger, Friend,Parent, Teacher, and Boss. All differences were statistically significantat the .05 level. Because of the small amount of variance accounted forby relationship type, however, further tests were not pursued.

For the Relationship by Motive interaction, significant differenceswere obtained for the vast majority of comparisons and the results arecontained in Table 3. The eta2 terms appear low, but several approach1% of the variance accounted for and one individual term accounts for2%. Given the large number of factors and possible interactions, forindividual cells to account for as much as 2% of the variance actuallyrepresents a fairly substantial contribution. In general, the largesteta2 scores are obtained for privacy. Parent and spouse relationshipsalso demonstrate a number of unexpected scores.

Tests of individual terms of the three-way interaction are presentedin Table 4. No individual term accounted for more than .002% of thevariance. Again, given the large number of possible comparisons in a

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166 Deception

TABLE 1Means for the Acceptability of Deception by Motive,

Culture, and Relationship

Condition

AffiliationUSChina

Benefit OtherUSChina

PrivacyUSChina

Avoid ConflictUSChina

Protect SelfUSChina

Impression ManagementUSChina

Benefit self/no harm otherUSChina

Benefit self/harm otherUSChina

MaliciousUSChina

TotalsUSChina

Spouse

6.77.5

6.07.3

3.45.6

4.87.2

2.13.9

3.65.6

2.93.5

2.63.8

1.64.3

33.748.641.0

Strngr

6.97.2

6.17.8

6.16.4

3.44.7

4.53.6

3.33.5

3.33.7

1.82.8

1.62.5

37.142.339.7

Relationship"

Friend

6.16.3

4.85.3

7.36.8

4.75.2

3.24.6

3.84.3

2.64.0

1.52.0

1.82.6

35.541.138.3

Parent

6.35.7

6.68.0

3.33.0

4.95.2

2.95.3

2.32.9

2.53.5

2.83.7

2.32.9

32.839.135.9

Teach

5.86.5

4.35.3

7.07.5

4.85.7

2.72.1

3.52.3

2.23.8

1.52.3

1.52.2

33.238.735.9

Boss

4.66.1

5.24.5

5.06.5

3.55.0

4.25.5

1.82.9

2.33.0

1.62.8

1.32.2

29.438.633.9

Total

37.836.439.335.633.038.333.932.135.829.526.033.022.219.624.920.318.322.418.715.821.614.511.717.412.28.9

15.6

aStrngr. is an abbreviation for Stranger. Teach, is an abbreviation for Teacher.

3-way interaction of this size, such a result is not surprising, and theinteraction did account for 2% of the variance overall.

Discussion

Interpreting the ResultsThe most obvious pattern in these findings is that two dynamics—

Motive and the Relationship by Motive interaction—account for 47points of the 52.3% of the variance explained. The Relationship byCulture interaction accounted for a very small percentage of the vari-ance, and the same situation obtained for the Motivation by Culture

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TABLE 2Test of Within-Subjects Contrasts for Motive

Contrast

AffiliationBenefit OtherPrivacyAvoid ConflictProtect SelfImpression ManagementBenefit Self/No Harm OtherBenefit Self Harm OtherMalice

df

1,2071,2071,2071,2071,2071,2071,2071,207

not

F

940.22864.87626.62

79.58106.5557.98

397.53923.43

tested

P <

.001

.001

.001

.001

.001

.001

.001

.001

eta2

.01

.009

.007

.0006

.0001

.0004

.003

.009

Partial eta2

.820

.807

.752

.278

.340

.219

.658

.817

interaction. The three-way interaction between Relationship, Motive,and Culture also accounted for a relatively small 2% of the variance,but its effect size was roughly three times larger than the other twointeractions combined. There are many strategies that can be pursuedin the interpretation of data, especially where the number of cells islarge (54 in this design) and all terms are statistically significant.Given the pattern of results, we seek to focus on those factors thataccount for the greatest variance—the main effect for Motive and howit interacts with Relationship—and then explore how the interactioneffects of lower magnitude but statistical significance change the over-all pattern of results produced by the two most powerful results. Ourdiscussion of the three-way interaction will therefore focus on waysthat the addition of Culture changes the overall pattern suggested bythe Motive by Relationship interaction.

Overwhelmingly, the factor that most determines the acceptabilityof deception is Motive. The results are not difficult to understand; aquick glance at the ordering of means in Table 1 (all of which aresignificantly different from one another as shown in Table 2) revealsthat as the motivation for deception becomes less focused on self andmore altruistic, the deception is rated as more acceptable, and as thedeception becomes more self-serving and malicious it is rated as lessacceptable. The size of the effect was striking; of the roughly 52% ofvariance accounted for the model, 37% was due to Motive. Hypothesis1 is thus supported.

Motive interacted with Relationship to explain another 11% of thevariance. In other words, although the motivation for the deception isthe single most crucial element in determining a deception's accept-ability, different motivations are more and less acceptable across dif-ferent relationships. Matching the differences in Table 3 with themeans reported in Table 1, the following patterns are evident. Thissection will not attempt to account for all 31 differences observed, butwill instead attempt to understand those differences in interpretable

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168 Deception

TABLE 3Within-Subjects contrasts for the Relationship

by Motive Interactions

Relationship contrast Motive contrast P < eta2

Spouse

Stranger

Friend

Parent

Teacher

AffiliationBenefit OtherPrivacyAvoid ConflictProtect SelfImpression ManagementBenefit SelfTNo Harm OtherBenefit SelfTHarm OtherAffiliationBenefit OtherPrivacyAvoid ConflictProtect SelfImpression ManagementBenefit Self/No Harm OtherBenefit Self/Harm OtherAffiliationBenefit OtherPrivacyAvoid ConflictProtect SelfImpression ManagementBenefit Self/No Harm OtherBenefit Self/Harm OtherAffiliationBenefit OtherPrivacyAvoid ConflictProtect SelfImpression ManagementBenefit SelfTNo Harm OtherBenefit Self/Harm OtherAffiliationBenefit OtherPrivacyAvoid ConflictProtect SelfImpression ManagementBenefit SelCNo Harm OtherBenefit Self/Harm Other

20.8612.22

244.35100.0694.7114.389.18

20.2038.9967.6113.4870.143.17

36.532.81

21.365.71

103.35212.07

9.573.221.411.03

126.961.07

315.57413.54

28.4643.36

103.29.46

107.61.017

86.69399.00

73.96105.15

5.93.123

21.28

.001

.002

.001

.001

.001

.001

.004

.001

.001

.001

.001

.001

.08

.001

.10

.001

.02

.001

.001

.003

.08

.24

.32

.001

.302

.001

.001

.001

.001

.001

.50

.001

.90

.001

.001

.001

.001

.02

.726

.001

.0004

.0003

.007

.003

.003

.0003

.0003

.0004

.0008

.002

.0004

.002

.001

.0005

.0001

.003

.005

.0002

—

.002

.008

.02

.001

.001

.001

.003

.003

.009

.002

.003

.0002

.0004

Note. All tests have 29.215, 6047.473 df after Greenhouse-Geisser adjustments.

patterns that focus on the magnitude of the effects. For parents, it isrelatively more acceptable to offer deceptions to benefit the other andrelatively less acceptable to deceive for privacy reasons. It is never veryacceptable to deceive to benefit the self while harming the other, butrelative to other relationships, such deceptions are deemed more ac-

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TABLE 4Within-Subjects Contrasts for the Culture by Motive

by Relationship Interaction

Relationship contrast Motive contrast P <

Spouse

Stranger

Friend

Parent

Teacher

AffiliationBenefit OtherPrivacyAvoid ConflictProtect SelfImpression ManagementBenefit SelfTNo Harm OtherBenefit Self/Harm OtherAffiliationBenefit OtherPrivacyAvoid ConflictProtect SelfImpression ManagementBenefit Self/No Harm OtherBenefit Self/Harm OtherAffiliationBenefit OtherPrivacyAvoid ConflictProtect SelfImpression ManagementBenefit Self/No Harm OtherBenefit SelffHarm OtherAffiliationBenefit OtherPrivacyAvoid ConflictProtect SelfImpression ManagementBenefit Self/No Harm OtherBenefit Self/Harm OtherAffiliationBenefit OtherPrivacyAvoid ConflictProtect SelfImpression ManagementBenefit Self/No Harm OtherBenefit Self/Harm Other

8.174.40

13.686.35

.136.07

35.6411.18

.12831.91

.024.93

40.861.272.215.60

.01

.4223.74

2.7813.43

.0117.88

1.8816.3015.3612.25

7.6065.58

.093

.99

.859.884.79

.92

.4642.6915.1525.54

.612

.005

.037

.001

.012

.716

.015

.001

.001

.721

.001

.880

.028

.001

.262

.139

.019

.926

.520

.001

.097

.001

.907

.001

.172

.001

.001

.001

.006

.001

.761

.321

.358

.002

.030

.338

.500

.001

.001

.001

.435

Note. All tests have 29.215, 6047.473 df after Greenhouse-Geisser sphericity adjust-ments. No individual term obtained an eta2 score of greater than .002. Eta2 scores areomitted.

ceptable when directed at parents. For spouses, deceptions to attainprivacy are strikingly unacceptable, while deceptions to avoid conflictare markedly acceptable. For strangers, it is very acceptable to deceive

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for privacy reasons. The same is true for friends; deception to maintainprivacy is rated as relatively acceptable. Finally, for bosses, deceptionto protect oneself is very acceptable, so much so that it is virtuallyidentical to deception that benefits the other.

The final process that deserves attention and interpretation is the3-way interaction between Relationship, Motive, and Culture. To reit-erate, this discussion will focus on those situations where the interac-tion pattern alters what would be expected from the main effect forMotive and its interaction with Relationship. The effect of the three-way interaction was relatively small—the effect size for Motive and theMotive by Relationship interaction combined is more than 20 timeslarger—but in particular situations Culture did seem to have a pro-found influence. Keeping in mind that the general pattern is for Chi-nese respondents to view deception as more acceptable across allRelationship types, we believe that the following patterns or trends aresuggested in the data, (a) For Parent relationships, the U.S. samplerated deception for affiliation more highly even than the Chinesesample, while the Chinese ratings of acceptability to benefit the otherand protect the self were especially high, (b) For Teacher relationships,U.S. respondents rate deception as more acceptable than Chineserespondents if it is to protect the self or for impression managementreasons, although neither culture views either rationale as very ac-ceptable. The Chinese respondents see it as strikingly more acceptableto deceive to benefit the self without harming the other, (c) ForStranger relationships, U.S. respondents view deception to Protect Selfas much more favorable than Chinese respondents. Chinese respon-dents found deception to benefit the other as especially acceptable,(d) For Friendship relationships, U.S. respondents view deceptionfor Privacy as more acceptable than Chinese respondents, whileChinese respondents view deception to protect the self as strikinglyacceptable, (e) For Spouse relationships, the Chinese sample vieweddeception as surprisingly acceptable for privacy and for the threeleast-highly rated motivations, benefit self without harming the other,benefit self while harming the other, and malice, (f) Although nofollow-up test was conducted for the Boss relationship, it is notablethat the U.S. sample rated deception to benefit the other as moreacceptable than the Chinese sample, while the Chinese sample rateddeception as more acceptable for every other motivation. Of thesepatterns, the most striking are those involving the spousal relation-ship, where Chinese respondents view deception as starkly more ac-ceptable across the board.

The overall pattern of results, therefore, suggests that the mainfactor determining a deception's acceptability is the motivation for thedeception. Not all motivations will be equally acceptable in all rela-tionships, however. In parental relationships, for example, privacymotivations seem especially unacceptable, while affiliation motiva-

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tions are very acceptable. Finally, individuals in different cultures willconsider the acceptability of deception differently. The influence ofculture, however, seems to manifest itself for specific motivations andspecific relationships. In other words, it is not true that differentcultures have vastly different conceptions of deception's acceptability,and that those vast differences are fine-tuned by the specific type ofdeception (although there is a general tendency for Chinese respon-dents to view deception as more acceptable across the board). Rather,it is the case that the motives determine a deception's acceptabilityacross the board, and cultural differences fine-tune the sorts of decep-tions that are more and less acceptable within each motivation.

Connecting Results to Theory and HypothesesAlthough various philosophers and scholars have focused on the

morality and acceptability of deception, little research has examinedhow the average person perceives deceptive communication. Thisstudy represents the most ambitious attempt to date to study theperception of deception's acceptability across cultures. This study alsoextends what is currently known about the effects of two other impor-tant factors: communicators' motives for telling lies and the relation-ship between liars and targets of deception. The results of this studyhave important implications for those who study deceptive communi-cation.

First, the motive was the most dominant factor in determining adeception's acceptability, accounting for roughly three and a half timesmore variance than any other factor. These results are consistent withresearch indicating that lies which are told for selfish or exploitivereasons are perceived as more reprehensible than those which are not(Hopper & Bell, 1984; Linskold & Walters, 1983; Maier & Lavrakas,1976). Despite some cultures' tendency to frown on deception, thisstudy indicates that not all lies are evaluated negatively. Our partic-ipants rated several lies as quite acceptable. In fact, lies told to affili-ate, benefit others, and protect privacy received high acceptabilityratings. Like some scholars (e.g., Buller & Burgoon, 1994), the averageperson may also consider some acts of deception to be a form ofcompetent communication.

It should be an advantage to deception researchers to understandthat not all motivations for deception are perceived equally. For in-stance, the fact that some lies are perceived as acceptable mightexplain why previous research has found that deception is so common(Camden et al., 1984; DePaulo et al., 1996; Hample, 1980; Lippard,1988; Turner et al., 1975). A question still remains, however, regardingwhether acceptable lies are the most common. For instance, whileMetts and Hippensteele (1987) found that socially approved lies (e.g.,other-benefiting lies) are used more often than self-benefiting lies,Hample (1980) found just the opposite. Thus, more research is needed

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to explore the relation between motivation for lying and likelihood oftelling a lie.

In addition, several scholars have argued for the need to examinemotivation as it relates to the enactment and detection of deception.This is especially important in light of the results of this study. Un-fortunately, as Buller and Burgoon (1994) noted, most research up tothis point has been confined to examining a deceiver's motivation tosucceed (e.g., by offering a prize to the most successful deceiver) ratherthan on motivations like the ones examined in this study. As Linskoldand Walters (1983) have noted, motives might affect a person's abilityto lie successfully. Buller and Burgoon (1996) have argued that differ-ent motivations may lead to different levels of detection apprehension,and, in turn, different levels of success. We suspect that the motivesour participants rated as less acceptable, compared to those lies thatwere rated as more acceptable, might lead to more apprehension, morenonverbal leakage, and less success. Thus, the current failure to iden-tify a reliable set of cues that differentiates liars from truthtellers(Feeley & Young 1998; McCornack, 1997) may be due to a failure todistinguish between different motivations for lying. In other words,encoding reprehensible lies may lead to more arousal and might there-fore be enacted differently. By identifying different perceptions regard-ing the acceptability of deception, this study represents an importantstep in examining issues related to the overall process of deception.Future research needs to examine how such perceptions affect how liesare told and detected.

With regard to our research question, the second major finding, interms of variance accounted for, was the interaction between therelationship and the motive for deception. Deceptions to maintainprivacy, benefit the other, and manage impressions seem especiallysensitive to the relationship variable. That is, the acceptability of adeception designed to protect one's privacy depends on whom thedeception is directed towards. Given that studies of the acceptability ofdeception in different relationships are so rare—we know of only onestudy to turn attention to the issue, and that study is now a quarter ofa century old (i.e., Maier & Lavrakas, 1976)—the present resultssuggest that relationship is a crucial area of future research. In par-ticular, future research should examine which dimensions of relation-ships contribute to perceptions of the acceptability of deception. The-orizing to date has focused on intimacy, but even a cursory glance atTable 1 reveals that the relationships studied here do not align alongan intimacy dimension. For example, strangers—the least intimaterelationship type studied—are found between spouses and friends, twoof the most intimate relationship types studied. The results here areprobably best viewed as exploratory in terms of determining whichdeceptions are most and least acceptable in given relationships, butthe theoretically powerful point the results do support is that relation-

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ship and motive interact with one another, and theories that considereach factor in isolation may be incomplete.

The final major topic of this study was culture, and an initialpuzzlement evident in the results is how important—in terms of sta-tistical measures of magnitude—the culture variable was. The overalleta2 score for culture was tiny, roughly one tenth of one percent.However, the partial eta2, with a denominator built solely on between-groups variance, was a much more respectable .16. Recently, thequestion of whether eta2 or partial eta2 is more appropriate has gainedsome attention. For example, Levine and Hullett (2000) have arguedagainst the use of the partial measure. We are also informed by Hays(1991, p. 369), who reminds us that any eta2 is purely descriptive, hasno inferential meaning, and is always relative to the data set of aparticular study. In the present case, had our study solely focused onculture, the eta2 (not simply the partial eta2) would have been .16. Byadding several other factors, we added variance to our data set, result-ing in a much larger denominator error term and thus a much smallereffect size for culture. Notice that the variance culture accounted fordid not change, but the magnitude of the statistic varied widely basedon what it was compared to. As Levine and Hullett warn, there areerrors to be made by mistakenly concluding that individual variablescontribute more than they actually do, but there is also a danger thatsmall eta2 scores might lead to the mistaken conclusion that a mean-ingful factor is unimportant. We believe that the most important thingto do is to remember that eta2 is never inferential, and take the stancethat eloquent designs ought not lead away from common-sense conclu-sions that are evident in the data. We believe that the most meaningfulinterpretation of the data herein is that, while culture does not exertan overpowering influence, it does manifest itself in particular situa-tions. These results, we believe, suggest a more nuanced role forculture in future theorizing.

In addition to the general question of the strength of culture'sinfluence, there exists the question of the direction and texture of therelationship. Hypothesis 2 regarding culture and perceptions of decep-tion was only partially supported. As expected, Chinese respondentsfound lies to benefit others, affiliate, protect privacy, avoid conflict,manage impressions, and protect self as more acceptable than U.S.respondents did; contrary to expectations, U.S. respondents, comparedto Chinese respondents, did not find self-benefiting lies to be moreacceptable. Instead, the data show a modest but undeniable pattern ofhigher acceptability ratings for Chinese respondents across the board.Although this finding supports Lefebvre's (1982) notion that moralisticjudgments appear to be learned and vary across cultures, it seemscontrary to what we might expect of individualistic and collectivisticcultures. Cody, Lee, and Choa (1990), for example, argued that incollectivistic cultures engaging in deception to benefit the self contra-

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diets fundamental cultural values. How, then, might our findings beexplained? One possibility could be that ethical judgements tend to bemore absolute in individualistic cultures (see Creighton, 1990), andthus distinctions between motives for lying were regarded unimpor-tant to our U.S. sample, depressing acceptability ratings across theboard.2

A second explanation is that people from China may have a nar-rower view of what constitutes deception than do people from the U.S.For example, Yeung et al. (1999) found that, compared to people fromthe U.S., those from Hong Kong had a higher threshold of tolerance forviolations of conversational maxims (i.e., people from the U.S interpretmore types of messages as deceptive than do people from Hong Kong).If this is the case, then messages used as stimulus materials in thisstudy may not have been perceived as deceptive by Chinese partici-pants, and hence were not rated as unacceptable.

Finally, perhaps Chinese culture emphasizes values that may takeprecedence over direct, explicit communication, leading members of itsculture to view deception as less reprehensible than people from theU.S. view it. This explanation is consistent with past literature onChinese culture. For example, Gao and Ting-Toomey (1998) note thatpeople from China are brought up to gu quart daju (take the interestsof the whole into account), which, in turn, leads them to value externalexpectations or social norms over internal wishes or personal integrity.In other words, to Chinese, "providing the appropriate information atthe appropriate time and context with the appropriate persons is moreimportant than honest and truthful communication" (Gao & Ting-Toomey, 1998, p. 64). This explanation is also consistent with theoret-ical work on individualistic and coUectivistic cultures suggesting thatAsian cultures may not value directness as much as the U.S. culture.For example, Hall and Whyte (1979) argued:

In the United States we put a premium on direct expression. The 'good' American issupposed to say what [s/]he means and to mean what [s/]he says. In some othercultures they are more concerned with the emotional context of the situation versusthe meaning of particular words. This leads them to give an agreeable or pleasantanswer to a question when a literal, factual answer might be unpleasant orembarrassing, (p. 298)

In other words, "acceptability of deception" should not be viewed pejo-ratively through a western lens to mean that Chinese are more im-moral, but instead should be taken to mean that a Chinese worldviewplaces other values more highly than western cultures

In addition to its main effect, culture entered into the pattern ofresults via the interaction effect between relationship-type, culture,and motivation. Again, these results are mostly exploratory, and themost important conclusion is that culture does matter and its influenceis most evident in very specific circumstances. Our discussion focuseson those instances where interaction effects altered what might be

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predicted from the main effects. For example, the Chinese respondentsviewed it as almost three times more acceptable to deceive a spouse formalice than did the U.S. respondents. And although the Chineserespondents generally viewed deception as more acceptable across theboard, it would be an error to conclude that in Chinese culture it ismore acceptable to deceive teachers to manage the impression of one-self, as in these results, it is roughly 66% more acceptable in U.S.culture. The important conclusion is that culture makes an importantdifference, but that difference emerges very powerfully for some de-ceptions in some relationships and does not emerge at all in othersituations.

Without attempting post-facto explanations for each significantterm in the interaction, in these final paragraphs, we list these inter-actions along with possible explanations that could be examined infuture studies. First, people from the U.S. were particularly acceptingof lies told to a parent in order to affiliate with him or her. Perhapsthere may be more of an acceptance of a generation gap in the U.S.,where younger people expect to be somewhat deceptive in order to getalong with their parents. Second, people from the U.S. were especiallyaccepting of lies told to a teacher in order to protect self or promote afavorable impression of self. Perhaps, people from China hold teachersin higher esteem or accept their authority as more legitimate and areless willing to view deception in such relationships as acceptable.Alternatively, Chinese respondents may view the fundamental pur-pose of education as self-improvement, in which case one should wel-come criticism. U.S. respondents may view education as a means to theend of social promotion, in which case impressing the authority figureis more important than improving the self. Third, people from the U.S.were especially accepting of lies told to strangers in order to protectself. Perhaps people from the U.S., who are warned "not to talk tostrangers," may perceive strangers as more threatening than do peoplefrom China. In a more collectivistic culture, there may be more accep-tance of others who are not necessarily friends but are part of the sameculture group. Fourth, people from the U.S. were especially acceptingof lies told to bosses in order to benefit the other. Perhaps people fromChina, where status differences are emphasized and respected, mightbelieve it would be unlikely for someone of such high status to needhelp from someone of a lower status and that it might be insulting tomake the offer. Finally, people from China were especially accepting ofmalicious lies told to spouses. This finding is so surprising we wonderif there was something about the wording of the stimulus messages inthis study that produced the result. Otherwise, it may be that in aculture where divorce is less predominant (and perhaps more stigma-tized), a person is more likely to end up married to someone he or shedislikes. As a result, malice may be viewed as a fairly reasonableresponse to an unpleasant relationship. Another possibility is that,

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relative to U.S. culture, Chinese culture might view conflict withinmarriages as more normal and heated exchanges as part of the mar-riage game.

Clearly, these interactions illustrate that researchers must be cau-tious when attempting to make simple generalizations about the pro-cess of deception. As illustrated here, multiple variables may combineto influence people's perceptions of deceptive acts.

Limitations and Future ResearchAs noted earlier, this study represents the most ambitious attempt

to date exploring variables influencing the perceptions of the accept-ability of deceptive communication. Past literature hints at other vari-ables that could also be of concern. For example, research by Hopperand Bell (1984) and Knapp and Comadena (1979) indicates that a liethat is premeditated may be less acceptable than one that is not.Future research should examine this possibility and those alreadydiscussed while correcting for limitations mentioned earlier (e.g., thepossibility of fatigue and order effects). We believe that such researchis necessary for a richer and fuller understanding of the process ofdeception. Indeed, as we have already mentioned, an understanding offactors that affect how acceptable deception is perceived to be is nec-essary to understand fully the nature of deception and its detection.

The gain of the present design is that it has observed a number ofimportant variables and their interactions with one another. However,all research involves tradeoffs (Hays, 1991) and the costs of thebreadth of this design are in its depth; independent variables havebeen manipulated with single messages and dependent variables havebeen examined with single items. In regard to the former issue, Jack-son (1992) has persuasively argued that single-message designs intro-duce case-category confounds and the possibility that the insufficiencyof data may be concealed. To some extent, concealed insufficiency canbe addressed by laying the shortcomings bare, and we endorse Jack-son's conclusion that generalization should be limited in any single-item design. We caution against generalizing from the messages usedhere to the broader categories we hope they represent, and futureresearch should account for the possibilities of message-specific ef-fects. In the spirit of Jackson's suggestions, we offer the data containedhere as evidence for our conclusions and nothing more. Given the caretaken to prepare the scenarios and the success in reliably sorting thescenario messages, there is some reason to believe that the messagesutilized here do constitute the "exemplars" Jackson recommends, andthus the findings presented here might constitute useful, though notconclusive, evidence. The case-category confound remains problematic,however, and future research should strive to incorporate multiple-message designs. In addition, future research should seek to utilizemeasures of acceptability that utilize scales rather than single items.

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The results obtained here suggest that the concepts explored havemuch to offer, and refined measures and designs may provide addi-tional insight into these important areas of inquiry.

NOTES1It has recently been noted that SPSS reports partial eta2 on GLM printouts that

are often mistakenly reported as simple eta2 scores, with the result that varianceaccounted for can be vastly overestimated (Levine & Hullett, 2000). As suggested byLevine & Hullett, all eta2 scores reported here have been re-calculated and whereveran eta2 score represents a partial eta2 it is noted in the text.

2One might also argue our results regarding self-benefiting lies could be due todifferences in emotions that accompany deception across cultures. For instance,Benedict (1948) applied the terms "guilt culture" and "shame culture" to describedifferences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures respectively. Shamecultures, she argued, rely on external sanctions of control, while guilt cultures rely oninternal sanctions of control. If this were the case, one could argue that shamecultures find deception wrong only when it is detected. We, however, like Creighton(1990), find fault with the nature of this distinction. As Creighton (1990) noted,although the shame and guilt distinction can be use.ful if conceptualized in a differentway, the internal/external sanction criterion can not be used to distinguish theseemotions since at some point in the developmental process both are internalized. Inshort, since all of our participants were college students and presumably would haveinternalized either guilt or shame responses, it is not only unreasonable to argue thatChinese would consider deception wrong only if detected, we believe it would lead toinvalid value judgments regarding the superiority of one culture over another.Instead, by arguing in this study that some deception may be acceptable, we supportthe notion of cultural relativism which argues that every culture should beappreciated for its own cultural configuration, that cultures should not be judgedaccording to another culture's values, and that value judgments regarding a cultureshould be postponed until enough information is gathered to understand the otherculture (see Creighton, 1990; Gudykunst & Kim, 1997).

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Appendix

Motivations for Deception with Example Scenarios

Motivation for Lying Example Scenario

Benefit other Tina's husband has been working out every morning fora week. He asks Tina if she can notice a change.Since she wants him to feel good, she tells him helooks like he has lost weight, even though she reallycannot see any change.

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180 Deception

Appendix—Continued

Motivation for Lying Example Scenario

Affiliate with other

Avoid invasion of privacy

Avoid conflict

Appear better(Impression Mgt.)

Protect self

Benefit self while notharming other

Benefit self whileharming other

Harm other maliciously

Although he has plenty of sugar, Sam would like tomeet his new neighbors. In order to strike up aconversation with them, he goes next door and asksthem if he can borrow a cup of sugar because he is allout of it.

Although Sam and his wife are having problems withtheir sex life, when his best friend asks him about hissex life, Sam lies and says it's fine because he doesn'tthink it's any of the friend's business.

Once again, Sara forgot to deposit her payroll check intothe bank. When her husband, Val asks her if shedeposited the check, she tells him she did in order toavoid a conflict.

On the bus ride to work, Sam sits next to an attractivewoman and strikes up a conversation with her.Although he works as a janitor, in order to impressher he tells her that he owns his own business.

Sam overslept and missed an exam in his History class.Later, when the teacher asks Sam why he missed theexam, Sam tells him that his Grandmother died sothat he won't get in trouble.

At the end of the year, Sara's teacher says that she haslost her records and forgot what grades studentsreceived on their papers. Although Sara received a"C" on her paper, to get a better grade in the class,she lies and says she received a "B." Since the teacherdoes not grade on a "curve," Sara knows the otherstudents will not be hurt by her lie.

Tim needs some money to buy something. Although hisbest friend Kevin paid Tim the $20 he borrowed amonth ago, Tim lies and tells Kevin that he did notget the money, because he knows Kevin will believehim.

Sam is walking down the street in a bad mood when astranger pulls up in a car and tells Sam that she islost and also late for a very important appointment.Although Sam knows directions for where thestranger wants to go, he points her in the oppositedirection.

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