Training to detect what? The biasing effects of training on veracity judgments

Research has failed to show that training to detect deception substantially increases accuracy. Instead, training yields a stronger tendency to make judgments of deceptiveness. Normally, training programmes place a strong emphasis on deception and deception cues. This may lead observers to engage in a biased information seeking process wherein only deception cues are searched for, and any suggestion that the person is being truthful is neglected. Two experiments were conducted in which participants made veracity judgments before and after being ostensibly trained to (a) detect deception (traditional training group or TRAD-GR), (b) detect truthfulness (alternative training group or ALT-GR) or (c) not being trained (control group or CONT-GR). Deception judgments increased for the TRAD-GR, but decreased for the ALT-GR, and did not change for the CONT-GR. Judgmental confidence significantly increased in both training groups, but not in the CONT-GR. These results indicate that traditional training programmes to detect deception bias the trainees' judgments towards deception. An emphasis on truthfulness cues could compensate for this tendency, as well as for the professionals' inclination to judge other people's statements as deceptive. However, the poor diagnostic value of deception cues makes it difficult to design good training programmes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.