Will You Lie Even If I’ll Find Out? The Dark Triad, Deception, And Ex Post Transparency

Deception is an influential part of interpersonal behaviors. Deception appears to be related to personality features such as narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. These traits, collectively known as the Dark Triad, are hallmarked by self-centeredness, lack of empathy, and manipulativeness. Another factor that may influence deception is ex post transparency – that is, the likelihood that the deception will be discovered by the person being deceived. What is not known is whether the relationship between the Dark Triad and deception depends on the level of transparency. In my study, participants performed a task and were given the opportunity to send either truthful or deceptive information to a co-participant. Before the task began, I varied the level or transparency; the participants were told either that the co-participant would: not find out about any deception, would find out about any deception, or there would be a 50% chance the co-participant would find out about any deception. Finally, participants completed a measure of the Dark Triad. Results indicated that only Machiavellianism positively predicted deception. Contrary to my prediction, transparency was not found to influence rates of deception. Finally, the relationship between Machiavellianism and deception was not significantly influenced by the level of transparency.