You can’t con a conman: the perception of deceptive actions performed by the self and others

ABSTRACT

Understanding the actions of others is important for predicting whether their intentions are honest or deceitful. Common-coding theory [Prinz, W. (1997). Perception and action planning. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 9(2), 129-154. https://doi.org/10.1080/713752551] suggests that the capability to produce a deceptive action could influence the ability to perceive the same action (and vice versa), but can an actor easily fool themselves? The aim of this study was to investigate whether individuals are better able to anticipate the outcome of their own deceptive actions than when others anticipate those same actions. Eighteen skilled rugby players were filmed performing deceptive (side-step) and non-deceptive actions. Eight equally skilled rugby players anticipated the outcomes of the filmed actions (i.e., viewing deceptive actions generated by others) and, six-months after filming, the original group of eighteen rugby players anticipated the action outcome of their own deceptive actions (i.e., viewing self-generated deceptive actions). Results revealed that players were no better at anticipating the outcomes of their own actions than others were. Instead, the response behaviour of the individuals viewing their own actions was indistinguishable from that of others viewing the same actions. In contrast with what might be expected based on common-coding theory, these findings suggest that the typical advantage of self-observation might be negated when the observer has acquired considerable amounts of visual experience in that observation task.

KEYWORDS:

• Deception
• self-other
• perception
• anticipation
• sport

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Raw data were generated at Department of Human Movement Science at the Nelson Mandela University. Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

Additional information

Funding

The main author was supported by the National Research Foundation Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Desmond Tutu Doctoral Scholarship.