Deception

Deception is the deliberate use of uninformative, untruthful, irrelevant, or vague language for the purpose of misleading others. Deception takes many forms. People may be overly vague in what they say, trying to “veil” the truth. They may dodge a question or change the topic to avoid embarrassing or problematic disclosures. The most common form of deception is concealment: leaving important and relevant information out of messages (McCornack, 2008). Table 5.3 explains other types of deception, including avoidance, lying, and being vague.

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Changing the topic to avoid revealing troublesome information Responding with partial truth—but leaving out important information Presenting a message that is entirely false Answering questions with ambiguous language, designed to hide the truth
Example: A coworker asks if you’ve heard anything about layoffs, and you shift the topic to sports (“Speaking of layoffs, did you hear about the baseball strike?”) to avoid telling him that he’s going to be fired. Example: Your dentist asks if you’ve been flossing and you say, “Yes, I have”—but you conceal the fact that you’ve only flossed twice in the last month. Example: You give an informative speech telling your class about “your summer working on a ranch,” but the whole story is made up, based on a post you saw on Reddit. Example: Your friend asks your opinion about a new dress that she obviously loves, and you say, “It’s so unique!” to hide the fact that you think it looks horrible on her.
Table 5.3: TABLE 5.3 TYPES OF DECEPTION

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Deception is especially commonplace online. People can easily hide and distort information in chat or e-mail messages, and recipients of messages have little opportunity to check accuracy. Some people provide false information about their backgrounds, professions, appearances, and gender online to amuse themselves, to form relationships unavailable to them offline, or to take advantage of others through online scams (Rainey, 2000). However, most people provide accurate information on social networking sites like Tumblr or Instagram because close friends will hold them accountable for what they post (Back et al., 2010).

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Whether it’s face-to-face or online, deception is unethical, impractical, and destructive. It exploits the message recipients’ belief that speakers are communicating cooperatively by tricking them into thinking that the messages are informative, honest, relevant, and clear (McCornack, 2008). Deception is unethical because it denies others information they may need to make personal or professional decisions, and it demonstrates disrespect (LaFollette & Graham, 1986). Deception is impractical because a lie typically leads to more lies (McCornack, 2008). Even something as simple as telling a friend that you like his new jacket when you don’t can get you into trouble. From then on, when you’re with your friend, you would have to remember to always praise the jacket rather than criticize it. Otherwise, he will discover your lie. Finally, deception is destructive; when discovered, it has unpleasant personal and professional consequences (McCornack & Levine, 1990), such as conflicts among friends or romantic partners, loss of trust from an audience, or even dismissal from a job.