Teaching the Truth About Lies to Psychology Students

To teach the importance of deception in everyday social life, an in-class activity called the Speed Lying Task was given in an introductory social psychology class. In class, two major research findings were replicated: Individuals detected deception at levels no better than expected by chance and lie detection confidence was unrelated to lie detection accuracy. Using a pretest–posttest design, the activity led to significant increases in deception knowledge, and the activity was seen as helpful, engaging, and interesting to the students. This study supports using students as both research subjects and research consumers in the classroom to teach classical concepts in social psychology.