Abstract
This study aimed to determine whether personality traits such as suspicion and empathy affect deception detection ability. We conducted an experiment based on the following two hypotheses: “People who are highly suspicious are likely better able to detect lies than those who are less suspicious” and “People who are highly empathetic are likely better able to detect lies than those who are less empathetic.” The 129 participants were shown videos of their turns to draw cards in the Old Lady card game. In the video, a woman randomly responded “yes” or “no” to the question, “Is this the Joker?” They had to answer whether they were “lying” or “not lying.” Thereafter, participants responded to a questionnaire measuring their suspicions and empathy (two factors: other-oriented reactions and perspective-taking). Multiple regression analysis revealed that, contrary to our hypothesis, personality traits such as suspicion and empathy do not affect deception detection ability. The reason that no significant results were obtained may be the need for an improved experimental method, such as the content and length of the false detection task used in the experiment.
