Sorry, Etta James. It turns out trust is relative.
A recent study has found that gender plays an integral role in people’s perceived level of trust. Researcher Marilyn Boltz and her team published a paper in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology that looked at how gender and speech patterns affect our opinion of how trustworthy a person is.
“We found that people perceive women to lie less than men and that they perceive men and women to tell different kinds of lies,” said Boltz.
The study had participants listen to a preprepared conversation between “Jim” and “Claire,” who have ostensibly been dating for some time. They were then asked to determine whether the couple’s responses were authentic or not.
A sample exchange would go something like this:
Jim: Were you happy with the steak?
Claire: Yeah, it was really good. Was it your own recipe for the marinade?
Jim: Yeah, it was. It’s one I’ve been trying to perfect over the years.
The results found that perceived trust was highly dependent on the timing of speech. If either Jim or Claire took longer than normal to respond, it caused suspicions to arise. (The same held true for responses that were answered too quickly.)
But the notable part of the results was that people expect men and women to lie differently. Women are called out for “other-lies”—that is, lies for the sake of others. (See: Claire’s compliment about the steak above.)
In contrast, men were under more suspect for “self-lies” or lies that benefit the liar. For instance, Jim’s claim that the recipe is something he’s been “trying to perfect for years.”
The percentage of participants who believed Claire was telling the truth tanked from a high of 86 percent to a low of 16 percent when she responded late and spoke quickly while telling a potential other-lie. Jim’s believers dropped from a high of 77 percent to a low of 14 percent when he told a potential self-lie in the same style.
We’re most suspicious, Boltz explains, when men might be indulging their self-serving side.
Now just to be clear: this doesn’t mean that women or men are more likely to lie in these ways. It simply means that the vast majority of people expect them to. After all, doesn’t it make sense that our ideas of femininity and masculinity govern our expectations and unconscious trust?
We as species are socially trained to narrow in on certain habits in certain genders. Here’s Daniel Madonia, a “deception expert” and head of the company NeuroVelocity:
The skills are both conscious and unconscious. Consciously we can learn some tips and tricks for what might be signs of lying, while unconsciously we rely on our instincts and learn to hone them.
But researchers warn that this could be a very bad idea, unless you know the person you’re speaking to quite well. And even then it’s a bit of a crapshoot.
Here’s Boltz again on the matter:
You can train people to some extent, but still it’s very difficult to have a human lie detector, just because there are so many factors that can influence one’s behavior. In general, you find that people are not very good at detecting deception.
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The Scotsman, EDWARD BLACK, December 9th, 2004
NINETEEN out of 20 women admit lying to their partners or husbands, a survey on attitudes to truth and relationships has found.
Eighty-three per cent owned up to telling “big, life-changing lies”, with 13 per cent saying they did so frequently.
Half said that if they became pregnant by another man but wanted to stay with their partner, they would lie about the baby’s real father.
Forty-two per cent would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, no matter the wishes of their partner.
And an alarming 31 per cent said they would not tell a future partner if they had a sexual disease: this rises to 65 per cent among single women.
In the poll of 5,000 women for That’s Life! magazine, 45 per cent said they told “little white lies” most days. The favourite untruth was “of course you don’t look fat”, with “these shoes were only 10″ in second place.
Jo Checkley, the editor of That’s Life! , said that while many women now lied to avoid hurting their partner’s feelings, covering up the truth about a baby could have far more damaging consequences.
She said: “Modern women just can’t stop lying, but they do it to stop hurting other people’s feelings. It could be argued that these little white lies simply make the world go round a little more smoothly. But to tell a man a baby is his when it’s not, or to deliberately get pregnant when your partner doesn’t want a baby, is playing Russian roulette with other people’s lives.”
The National Scruples and Lies Survey 2004 found plenty of untruths were told over the Christmas period. A total of 78 per cent said they would pass off a second-hand gift as a brand new present, while half have lied about a Christmas card being “lost in the post”.
Women will also lie to save people’s feelings, with only 27 per cent saying they would tell a man if he was hopeless in bed (although a third would tell their friends all about it).
Just over half would flatter a man if he asked them about his looks and only 46 per cent would give the “brutal truth”. However, 61 per cent of women would want their partners to be “brutally honest” if they asked them “do I look fat?” or “do you think my best friend’s attractive?”
Elsewhere, 54 per cent admitted stealing sweets or chocolates; 23 per cent would “sneak a bottle or two” home if they were invited to a party by a well-off friend; 49 per cent would “kiss and tell” to the media for 25,000 if they had a one-night stand with a celebrity; and 38 per cent say they would marry purely for money.
Nearly half said they had faked orgasms and 55 per cent admitted claiming they were tired, had a headache, or felt ill to “get out of lovemaking”.
Nineteen per cent of women with a long-term partner said they had cheated on him, while 30 per cent of all women have had an affair with a married man. Sixty-eight per cent said they did not trust their partner.
As far as trustworthy personalities are concerned, the woman with “the most honest face” was Fern Britton, the This Morning host. She was followed by the singer Kerry Katona (formerly McFadden), Sharon Osbourne of The X Factor and the Queen.
The “most honest male face” jointly went to Ant and Dec, the presenters of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!, with Prince William second.
The results come in the wake of the controversy surrounding David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, and his former lover, the publisher Kimberly Quinn. They had a child, but she kept details of the affair secret from her husband Stephen, even taking her son to Corfu for a week’s holiday to bond with him this year.
Mr Quinn accepted his wife’s story, but she had covered up the fact she was accompanied by Mr Blunkett.
The survey questioned 5,000 women, average age 38, across Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Think men are the unfaithful sex? A study shows WOMEN are the biggest cheats – they’re just better at lying about it
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1211104/Think-men-unfaithful-sex-A-study-shows-WOMEN-biggest-cheats–theyre-just-better-lying-it.html#ixzz0Ty4fcwNw