The Deception-Media Double Standard: Third-Person Effects in Judgments about Deception across Media.

Most people believe that online deception is pervasive, and that it is facilitated by technological affordances such as reduced cues. However, most people also consider themselves honest and decent members of society. Given the wide adoption of communication technologies, how can these views be reconciled? This research uses a generalizable sample of US adults to identify a deception-media double standard, or a perception that other people lie more than oneself across four media: face-to-face, telephone, email and instant messenger. Results show that the gap between reports of own deception and perceptions of others' deception grew wider as the media provided fewer cues. A pattern of self-serving attributions regarding the role of technology in enabling deception was responsible for these perceptions. The findings support and advance the third-person framework of media effects, and offer a novel perspective on the phenomenon of online deception, that goes beyond mere production and detection patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]