Online deception
Abstract
Online deception takes many forms, ranging from overt e-mail spam to interpersonal lies in online dating profiles. Current research has focused on the ability to understand behavioral patterns of deception (e.g., frequency of lies, language cues) in order forecast how lies differ from truths in a variety of contexts. These efforts suggest that our interpersonal deceptions are strategic, but we do not always rely on them to accomplish self-presentation goals. In this review, we provide several examples of online deception and use two competing hypotheses to question whether online behavior reflects either an extended real-life or idealized version of the self. We propose that while deception is a salient interpersonal concern, our intuition that suggests we are a deception default species is worthy of reconsideration.