The development of deception detection skill: A longitudinal study of same-sex friends

One member of each of 52 pairs of friends told trite and fabricated stories to a partner (the judge) who guessed whether each story was true. This procedure was followed when the friends had known each other for I month and again 5 months later. Across all of the pairs, accuracy at detecting deception did not improve overtime. However judges from the emotionally closer pairs did become more accurate tit 6 months than they had been at I month. The judges from the less-close pairs instead became less inclined to regard the stories as truthful, especially when they actually were truthful. Results of a second study ruled out the alternative interpretation that the closer friends told stories that were more obviously truthful or deceptive at 6 months than they had (it I month. On indirect measures of deception detection, all of the groups of judges could distinguish the truths from the lies.