Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Boyle, Randall John
URN	etd-09212003-185111
Title	Dispersed Deception: An Examination of the Impacts of Computer Mediation, Proximinty, and Familiarity on Truth Bias
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy
Department	Management Information Systems, Department of
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Joey F. George Committee Chair Charles J. Kacmar Committee Member G. Stacy Sirmans Committee Member Katherine M. Chudoba Committee Member
Keywords	Computer-Mediated Communication
Date of Defense	2003-08-02
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract This research examines the impact of computer-mediated communication, distributed communication, and knowledge of prior baseline behavior on an individual’s propensity to believe what is being communicated. This study is focused on the impact of technology and individual experience on a person's ability to make veracity judgments. Contributions from this study include a greater awareness of the added susceptibility to deception when using computer-mediated communication. This study found that higher deception detection accuracy rates could be achieved if individuals had prior baseline knowledge of their partner's nominal behavior. This study also showed that more detection confidence can come from knowledge of a person's prior baseline behavior, being proximally located, the type of communication media used, and perceived relational closeness. Subjects with a high level of confidence in their ability to detect truthful/deceptive behavior were more reliant on the truth bias to make veracity judgments. Findings also show that self-report measures used to operationalize truth bias were good indicators of detection accuracy. This finding would seem to indicate that individuals are generally good judges of truthfulness/deceptiveness when they utilize a heuristic of truthfulness. However, this study did find systematic error when individuals relied on their assumption of truthfulness. Thus, consistent with other cognitive biases, a truthful heuristic does generally result in correct decisions, but also introduces some systematic error.
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