dishonest among frat boys

This topic submitted by Joey Gomberg and Gus Misuraca (jgomberg@hotmail.com) at 1:39 am on 2/28/01. Additions were last made on Wednesday, April 11, 2001. Section: Myers.

Joey Gomberg and Gus Misuraca

Intro:

Our chapters focused on deception, self-deception, and aggression. We were particularly interested in deception in the form of exaggeration for the benefit of appearance, and therefore, social status. We were curious to see how exaggeration of one's one abilities in relation to one's peers in the interest of gaining social status could be observed and documented.

We have decided to study fraternity members. We recognize that this choice perpetuates existing stereotypes regarding the likelihood of such members to be more inclined to boasting and exaggeration of their abilities. At the same time, we thought the fraternity as a social institution would work well for us in the comparison of one individual against others in the same peer group. We want to test the accuracy of the fraternity member's representations of their physical abilities; both when they know their abilities will be tested afterwards and when they know their abilities won't be tested. Our hypothesis is that fraternity members will generally embellish on their abilities in relation to their peers, when they have the security of knowing that they won't be tested. However, we anticipate that if they know they will be tested and ranked among their peers afterwards, they will embellish less and possibly even under-represent their abilities.

We consider this to be relevant to everyone as an example of how we all represent ourselves and our abilities in the best possible light in order to maintain or further our social status. Wright states that the best liar is one who can make the least lying go the longest way (Wright 267). This is evidenced by our inclination to embellish our abilities or accomplishments when we are assured that our stories can't be challenged or disproved. It also accounts for a more cautious representation of our abilities when we know that we are going to have to back up what we say.

Relevance of our Research Question:

In our culture in particular we are taught that lying is almost universally wrong. This is interesting because lying is prevalent in not only other cultures, but also our own. In Leekam's article entitled "Believing and Deceiving: Steps to Becoming a Good Liar", studies have shown that "even two year olds are capable of deceiving" (54). Lying and Deception in Everyday Life authors Louis and Saarni agree that deception begins at a very young age and assert that "the fact that quite young children are capable of lying to avoid punishment suggests that the capacity is probably pan-cultural" (19). Therefore, this topic is both relevant to all of human kind and also presents itself in each of our individual experiences.

Given how universally we see deception practiced, we still must address the issue of how it is socially discouraged. This discouragement is what keeps us from out-right lying when we might be caught in the act. If we did not have this social pressure to be honest, we might be inclined to grossly distort the truth whenever the image we presented would be beneficial. This accounts for our hypothesis that the fraternity members would want to represent their abilities in the best light, but be cautious about doing so if there was a chance they could be caught in the deception.

Ceci, Stephen J. Cognitive and Social Factors in Early Deception. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers: Hillsdale, 1992.

Lewis, Michael and Carolyn Saarni. Lying and Deception in Everyday Life. The Guilford Press: New York, 1993.

Miller, Gerald and James Stiff. Deceptive Communication. Sage Publications: Newbury Park, 1993.

Pollack, William. Real Boys. Henry Holt and Company: New York, 1998.

Wright, Robert. The Moral Animal. Vintage Books: New York, 1994.

Materials and Methods:

Our experiment will involve selecting which fraternities we will work with. Once we have decided which fraternities we will be studying, we will get together with members of the fraternities to distribute a survey. The distribution of the survey will be very particular because we expect that each person's answers will vary depending on what they believe will be done with the results of his survey. The survey will ask them to rate their physical abilities, particularly reflexive abilities, in relation to their peers (the other members of the fraternity). All subjects will be given the survey. Half of these subjects will be told in advance, that their reflexive abilities will be tested after they have turned in their survey. The other half of the subjects will not be told of and not be given the test of the reflexive abilities. We will be sure to give a test of reflexes to those whom we have promised one, not to use the data, but to ensure that our hidden agenda of testing honesty is not discovered. We wouldn't want that affecting our data, after all.

Our survey will subtly hint that reflexive ability is a reflection of overall physical ability because we believe that a high level of physical ability can be equated with a higher social status, particularly among males in this age bracket. Therefore giving individuals who have the opportunity more cause to embellish their reflexive capacity. The basic point is to ask the individual to rate whether he is below average, average, or above average in comparison to the other members of the fraternity. This will be very easy to measure empirically because if a majority of males who won't be tested afterward rate their ability as above average, we can be assures that some of them are exaggerating. Some deception will have taken place. Furthermore, if a majority of those who will be tested after filling out their survey rate themselves as average or below average, we will know that they are being honest because of the threat of the test. Should a majority of those members of a fraternity who have knowledge of a reflex test following the survey still rate themselves as above average, it may be safe to assume that self-deception has taken place.

Timeline:
Week 8: submit proposal, come up with survey and reflex test
Week 9: determine which fraternities we will be working with and begin contacting them
Week 10: distribute a practice survey to our class (and possibly another western NS class) in order to ensure clarity
Week 11-13: carry out experiment
Week 14: figure out what the heck our results meanÉ (yay statview!)
Week 15-17: write final project paper

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