Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire: How Verbal Deception Cues Signal Deceptive Versus Honest Impression Management And Influence Interview Ratings, Lenke Roth, Ute-Christine Klehe, Gloria Willhardt

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

Impression management (IM), especially deceptive IM (faking), is a cause for concern in selection interviews. The current study combines findings on lie detection with signaling theory to address how candidates’ deceptive versus honest IM shows in verbal deception cues, which then relate to interview ratings of candidates’ interview performance. After completing a structured interview rated by two trained interviewers, 182 candidates reported their deceptive and honest IM. Verbal deception cues (plausibility, verbal uncertainty) were coded from video recordings. Results supported the hypotheses: Deceptive IM directly raised interviewer ratings (intended positive signal) but lowered the responses’ plausibility and enhanced verbal uncertainties …