Investigating offenders’ abilities in the context of deception detection: Criminals are not better lie detectors

Are criminals better lie detectors? Investigating offenders’ abilities in the context of deception detection. Simon Schindler  Laura K. Wagner  Marc‐André Reinhard  Nico Ruhara  Stefan Pfattheicher  Joachim Nitschke. Applied Cognitive Psychology, October 24 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3755

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1320594785208598528

Summary: The present research examined lie detection abilities of a rarely investigated group, namely offenders. Results of the studies conducted thus far indicated a better performance of offenders compared to non‐offenders when discriminating between true and false messages. With two new studies, we aimed at replicating offenders’ superior abilities in the context of deception detection. Results of Study 1 (N = 76 males), in contrast, revealed that offenders were significantly worse at accurately classifying true and false messages compared to non‐offenders (students). Results of Study 2 (N = 175 males) revealed that offenders’ discrimination performance was not significantly different compared to non‐offenders (clinic staff). An internal meta‐analysis yielded no significant difference between offenders and non‐offenders, questioning the generalizability of previous findings.