Psychopathy, arousal and the detection of deception

This study investigated the detection of deception in a mock-crime paradigm. Thirty-two male Algoma University students completed anxiety, psychopathy, and propensity to lie scales. One half the subjects were randomly assigned to a "guilty" condition in which they were instructed by a co-experimenter to take an envelope containing $20 from the experimenter's jacket pocket and retain it. The remaining subjects, assigned to an "innocent" condition, were instructed to remove the envelope containing $20 from the jacket pocket and hand it to the co-experimenter. The subjects were then administered a polygraph test using the Control Question Technique, wherein their physiological responses were recorded within each of the conditions, half of the subjects were instructed to respond truthfully about the money when asked on the test, and half were instructed to be deceptive. The results and their implications will be discussed.