Deceit, Delusion, and Detection

Who tells lies? Why do people tell lies and when are they deemed acceptable? Written from a social psychology perspective on the use of language, this is a fascinating examination of these and related questions.

Illustrating the book with a diversity of institutional and interpersonal contexts, W Peter Robinson explores ways in which people develop their skills of deception and also discusses the feasibility and art of lie detection. He reveals the cultural biases inherent in various modes and interpretations of lying, focusing in particular on the Western world and its values.

Who tells lies? Where, when, and how? Why do people tell lies, and when are they deemed acceptable? Deceit, Delusion, and Detection is a remarkable book that examines these questions across a variety of institutional and interpersonal contexts. Author W. Peter Robinson explores ways in which people develop their skills of deception and discusses the feasibility and art of lie detection. This volume reveals the cultural biases inherent in varying modes and interpretations of lying, paying special attention to the Western world and its values. Looking at lying from a social psychological perspective, Robinson analyzes it in terms of language and language usage. This book is accessible enough for the general public yet scholarly enough for academia. Deceit, Delusion, and Detection is particularly geared toward advanced students in communication studies and cognate areas such as social psychology, linguistics, or media studies. "Deceit, Delusion, and Detection is appropriate for graduate and postgraduate researchers in social psychology, sociology, and political science. . . . Several of the chapters . . . stand on their own as reviews of the research literature on the development of deception, on lying in face-to-face interaction, and on the history and effectiveness of the polygraph. . . . I have learned much from studying the collage W. Peter Robinson creates in Deceit, Delusion, and Detection." --Marsha D. Walton in Journal of Language and Social Psychology