A Sociological History of Lie Detection

Ctmrhusf San Franeista "OtntnitW The Hidden Truth: A Sociological History of Lie D etection Susanne Weber, MSc London School of Economics and Political Science Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the Ph.D. in Sociology 1 UMI Number: U61BB79 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U613379 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 TJfeses F m z txary ot Potncai 114523 i I, Susanne Weber, hereby confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Signed: Susanne Weber Abstract Drawing on Foucault and the sociology of science and technology, this thesis traces the curious attempt that has been made over the last century to capture one of the most elusive social acts - the lie. This endeavour was made possible by the emergence of the human sciences, whose guiding belief was that the subject’s inner life could be made apparent by means of physiological measurements and therefore be controlled. My thesis follows the development of the ‘embodiment’ o f the lie within early and recent psychology as a means of detecdng the subject’s guilt. It examines the disconnection of lie detection from its academic origins and its re-positioning within criminal investigation which engenders the development of polygraphy as a separate profession. In this, it elaborates on the special roles played by instruments in lie detection practices — the ‘lie detector’ and the ‘polygraph’ - and analyses changing epistemological aims and models of ‘scientific’ expertise. In accounting for its contested status, the latter analysis is connected to an evaluation of the continuous exclusion of lie detection as scientific evidence from the courts. The thesis examines the changing functions of the polygraph examination in systems of social control as their logic moves from reform to increased containment and control: from a confessional technique mediating the efficient processing of a delinquent population from the 1920s, to a disciplinary technique controlling employee behaviour from the 1930s. In recent years it has become a ‘truth facilitator’ in the management and containment of the monstrous individual: the sex offender. In a broader consideration of the power/knowledge mechanism of lie detection, the thesis applies Foucault’s notion of grotesque knowledge, arguing that the ensemble of the lie detector/polygraph and psychological expert/interrogator is Ubuesque as it implements an absolute power in the ‘diagnosis’ of the lie, which is disqualified at the moment of its verification through confession. The thesis demonstrates how Foucauldian analyses and the sociology of science can be fruitfully combined to comprehensively explain both the dynamics of contested expert knowledges and the ways in which psychological techniques operate in shaping the subject. Having traced the emergence of the lie as an object of knowledge and intervention, the thesis concludes by providing directions in an historically informed sociology of the lie. 3 Acknowledgments The process of completing this thesis has seemed to be the longest of journeys. Through its many ups and downs that have not only been challenging to myself but also to the world that surrounded me I have had the privilege of being accompanied by the kindest, most patient and encouraging of people. I would like to thank Jim Ottaway, Matthias Benzer, Hannah Abdullah, and Sam Iya for their engagement with and comments on my work over the years. Within the LSE, I would like to thank Dr. Don Slater for his valuable comments during the process of upgrading, his institutional support in developing my career and moving the thesis towards completion. I would like to thank Prof. Bridget Hutter for the opportunity of working for her as a research assistant, and her advice and support in securing my current position. I would like express my deep gratitude to Dr. Christine Hauskeller for her support and generosity in giving me the opportunity to finish this thesis while holding a position at the University of Exeter. I would like to thank Dr. Katrin Gehring, Jean Harrington and Dr. Dana Wilson-Kovacs, my new colleagues at the University of Exeter, for their warm support. I owe the greatest respect to my supervisor, Dr. Nigel Dodd, for giving me the opportunity to develop my intellectual interests and providing continuous guidance over the years. I would like to thank him for his immense support and his kind encouragement. I cannot express the gratitude that I feel towards my friends and family in Munich and England for their untiring encouragement and care, their understanding, their relentlessness and humour: I would like to thank my father-parents and my mother-parents for their trust in my abilities and for supporting and encouraging me throughout this long process. I would like to thank Sue Redgrave for always keeping an open door and an open ear, putting me up and putting up with me during the summer of 2006. I would like to thank Sebastian Myrus, for all his support and his warm and strict friendship, Beate von Hahn, for her emotional care in facing my demons, Thomas Sierk, for his long friendship and lending me the lawyer’s analytical brain, Salvatore Bruno and Michel Watzinger, for making me feel at home and providing me with delicious food while finishing, Bjoern Siegel, for having brightened up my days at the library and his patience and time in pushing me to write, and Mariam Yousaf, my longest friend for her warmth, generosity and deep friendship. I would like to thank Attila Szanto for his valuable comments on drafts and his personal insight. I would like to thank Matthew Carey for his friendship and care in Cambridge — unfortunately I could not quite beat him to the finish line. I would like to thank Gwyneth Hawkins, with whom I started this journey and who has provided unconditional support throughout this process. It has been one of the most rewarding of experiences to find such a deep friend and inspiring peer. Additionally I would like to thank Julie Stoll, Reinhild Kreis, Birgit Behrenhardt, Veronika Zollitsch, Oliver Brauer, Matthias Meier and my family in the United States with whom I was able to stay during my archival work in Berkeley and South Carolina in 2002 and 2005. My research was partly funded by the Daimler-Benz Foundation through a 22-month scholarship. 4 List of Contents 1. Introduction 9 2. M ethodology 22 2.1 SCOT — The Social Construction of Technology 2.2 The Mangle of Practice 2.3 Actor-Network-Theory and Bruno Latour 2.4 Lie Detection, Criminal Justice and Science 2.5 The Lie Detector and the Polygraph 2.6 Sources 3. The Lie as an Object of Knowledge 45 3.1 Measurability 3.2 The Deceptive Will 3.3 The Emotional Body 3.4 The Reduction of the Lie 3.5 Fear in Deception 3.6 The Truthful Body and the Lying Subject 3.7 Lying as Complex 3.8 Conclusion 4. Disentangling the Polygraph, the Lie Detector and Lie Detection 81 4.1 The Development of the Polygraph 4.2 The Emergence of the Lie Detector 4.3 There is no such Thing as a Lie Detector 4.5 Conclusion 5. Lie Detection as Science 108 5.1 The Frye Decision 5.2 The Credulous Jury and the Lie Detector as Witness, Judge and Jury 5.3 Disinterested Science and the Discretionary Expert 5.4 Larson and Keeler 5.5 Two Models of Expertise 5.6 Conclusion 5 6. Lie Detection as Grotesque Knowledge 144 6.1 Grotesque Knowledge 6.2 Lie Detection as ‘Switch-Point’ Between Psychological Knowledge and Criminal Interrogation 6.3 Lie Detection as Confessional Technique 6.4 Moral Technology 6.5 Conclusion 7. The Truth Facilitator and the Neuro-Circuitry of Deception 167 7.1 The Spread of Polygraphy 7.2 The Detection of Guilty Knowledge 7.3 The Movement of the Lie from the Body to the Brain 7.4 “Lie, my Friends” 8. C onclusion 192 8.1 Lie Detection as Knowledge Practice 8.2 Grotesque Knowledge and Symmetry 8.3 Polygraphy as Tool in the ‘Political Technology of the Body’ and Historiography in the Sociology of Science and Technology 8.4 Preliminary Directions for an Historical Sociology of the Lie 9. A ppendix A 216 10. Bibliography 221 6 List of Tables and Figures Tables Table 1: Results of a Word Association Test 52 Table 2: List of Questions Posed in a Lie Detection Examination 65 Figures Figure 1: ‘Lying Curve’ and Truth Curve’ 61 Figure 2: Read-Out Produced During the Lie Detection Examination 66 Figure 3: Spatial Set-Up of the Lie Detection Examination 72 Figure 4: Picture of Keeler Polygraph (Model 302) 93 7 List of Abbreviations for Archival Sources Cited in the Thesis: Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, ILL: LGP = Leon Green Papers Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: AVP = August Vollmer Papers CKP = Charles Keeler Papers BPDR = Berkeley Police Department Records JLP = John A. Larson Papers LKP = Leonarde Keeler Papers Dr. William J. Yankee Library, Department of Defence Polygraph Institute, Fort Jackson, SC: LKC = Leonarde Keeler Collection 8 Chapter 1 Introduction Writing on the liar, Montaigne stated acidly: ‘If a lie, like truth, had only one face we could be on better terms, for certainty would be the reverse of what the liar said.

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