SUSPICIOUS RECEIVERS' INTERACTION GOALS AND STRATEGIC BEHAVIORS WITHIN DATING RELATIONSHIPS A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIRMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN SPEECH AUGUST 2004 By In DukKim Thesis Committee: Min-Sun Kim, Chairperson Krystyna S. Aune William F. Sharkey iii © Copyright 2004 by In DukKim IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Min-Sun Kim for her mentorship and guidance. Throughout the program, she has been both a great advisor and a wonderful mentor who always understood me and encouraged me. Without her mother-like support and beliefin me, I would not be where I am today. I would also like to thank Dr. Bill Sharkey from whose class I gained the idea ofthis thesis. I very much appreciate his patient guidance throughout the process. His expertise in content analysis salvaged me from the big chaos ofdata analysis. Dr. Krystyna Aune is also someone who I deeply appreciate. Her constructive comments about my thesis were truly invaluable. I would also like to acknowledge my fellow graduate students, Kathleen Doss and Michelle Jemey-Davis, for their continuous help and support. This thesis project wouldn't have been completed without their help in coding. Lastly, I would like to thank my parents and friends for their endless support and love. v ABSTRACT The study ofsuspicion in previous research has primarily focused on the impact of suspicion on deception detection accuracy or the pragmatics ofsuspicious receivers. The premise ofthe present study is that cognitive aspects ofsuspicious receivers must be accounted for to further understand their active participation in deceptive communication. The present study attempts to identify suspicious receivers' interaction goals and strategic behaviors and to find links between the goals and behaviors. The influence ofsituational and affective factors on suspicious receivers' goals and behaviors are also investigated. Data were collected from one hundred and eighty two undergraduate students within dating relationships. The results revealed four interaction goals and nine behavior categories ofsuspicious receivers in dating relationship. Some qualitative differences between the goals were found in terms oftheir association with behavioral strategies. Also, outcome involvement, relational commitment, and emotional intensity were found to have important influences on suspicious receivers' behaviors. Implications for future suspicion research are discussed as well as the study's limitations. VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments iv Abstract v List ofTables vii Chapter I: Introduction 1 Suspicion in Deceptive Communication 3 Suspicious Receivers' Interaction Goals 8 Suspicious Receivers' Strategic Behaviors 16 Goal - Behavior Relationships 22 Factors Influencing the Dynamics ofSuspicion Display 24 Chapter II: Methods 30 Participants 30 Instrumentation 31 Coding 34 Chapter III. Results 37 Preliminary Analysis 37 Suspicious Receivers' Interaction Goals 40 Suspicious Receivers' Strategic Behaviors 42 Goal - Behavior Relationships 43 Influences ofPsychological and Affective Factors 44 Chapter IV. Discussions 48 Suspicious Receivers' Interaction Goals 48 Suspicious Receivers' Strategic Behaviors 50 Goal- Behavior Relationships 52 Influences ofPsychological and Affective Factors 53 Conclusion 55 Footnotes 58 References 59 Appendix A 73 Appendix B 74 Appendix C 75 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Types ofSuspicion-Arousing Events 66 Table 2. Types ofSuspicion-Arousing Events and the Experience ofUncertainty 68 Table 3. Means and Standard Deviations ofthe Variables 69 Table 4. Correlation Coefficients ofthe Variables 70 Table 5. Conditional Proportions ofBehaviors in Relation to Goals 71 Table 6. ANOVA Results regarding the Associations between Psychological and Affective Factors and Suspicious Receivers' Strategic Behaviors 72 1 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION Many deception researchers acknowledge that deception is one ofthe everyday communication strategies commonly adopted for various purposes (e.g., impression management and relational maintenance) (Buller & Burgoon, 1994; DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendo1, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996; McComack, 1992). In DePaulo et aI.'s (1996) diary studies, participants reported telling a lie in every three to five social interactions, meaning that communicators engage in deceptive behavior in at least 20 percent ofthe daily interaction. Despite the ubiquity ofdeception, it is repeatedly reported that receivers ofthe deceptive message often fail to detect the deception (Levine, Park, & McComack, 1999; McComack & Parks, 1986; Stiff, Kim, & Ramesh, 1992). Between strangers, the lack of knowledge about the sender's idiosyncratic behavioral features is deemed to hamper the accurate detection ofthe sender's deceptive demeanor (Miller, Mongeau, & Sleight, 1986). On the other hand, it was found that interactants in a developed relationship (i.e., friends and intimates) are not significantly better than strangers in assessing the dishonesty oftheir partner, although they have baseline knowledge oftheir partners' idiosyncratic behaviors. It was argued that people hold a judgmental heuristic (i.e., truth­ bias) that predisposes them to believe others' truthfulness rather than to evaluate or to cognitively scrutinize the complex stimuli (McComack & Parks, 1986; Stiffet aI., 1992). This generalized beliefofthe partner's honesty was demonstrated to have substantial power over people's deception detection accuracy, which lowered the accuracy rate significantly below chance levels (Levine et aI., 1999). However, not always does the truth-bias interfere with an individual's deception detection. There are instances in which receivers' predisposition toward truth-bias is 2 offset and the finer grained cognitive processing ofthe senders' behavior is initiated. A growing number ofdeception studies have pointed out that suspicion reduces the receivers' reliance on the truth-bias and motivates the receivers to assess the veracity of the messages from the senders (Buller, Strzyzewski, & Comstock, 1991; Burgoon, Buller, Dillman, & Walther, 1995; Burgoon, Buller, Ebesu, White, & Rockwell, 1996; McCornack & Levine, 1990b; Stiff et aI., 1992). The previous studies in suspicion literature are oriented in two main directions: the impact ofsuspicion on (a) the receiver's deception detection accuracy and (b) the interactional patterns ofdeceptive communication. The studies on a suspicious receiver's deception detection accuracy examined how one or the combination ofthe following factors affect the receiver's deception detection accuracy: the presence ofsuspicion (Tons & DePaulo, 1985; Stiffet aI., 1992), the level ofsuspicion (McCornack & Levine, 1990b), the receiver's probing (Buller et aI., 1991), the relationship between interactants (McCornack & Parks, 1986). Overall, suspicion has been found to be a significant factor to decrease the receiver's truth-bias and, when in its moderate level, increase the deception detection accuracy. In terms ofpragmatics, it was found that a suspicious receiver strategically controls the expression ofhis or her suspicion, while nonstrategically leaking the uneasiness ofsuspicion (Buller & Burgoon, 1996; Buller et aI., 1991; Burgoon et aI., 1995, 1996). Although the previous suspicion studies enhanced our knowledge ofthe impact ofsuspicion on a receiver's deception detection accuracy and shed better insights into the interplay between the receiver's suspicion and the pragmatics ofdeceptive communication, our understanding ofsuspicion is still incomplete. One ofthe missing pieces in the puzzle ofsuspicion is the suspicious receiver's cognitions. Little is known 3 about the cognitive mechanisms underlying the receiver's strategic suspicion displays. Also, previous suspicion studies failed to fully explain what it takes for the receivers to be better able to detect deception. It is a receiver's cognition that links his or her aroused suspicion to the behavior. Thus, there is a significant need for communication researchers to examine the role ofa suspicious receiver's cognition in deceptive communication. The present study aims to explore the suspicious receiver's cognition and its relation to his or her behavior within dating relationships. The principal question is what the receiver's interaction goals and behaviors are and how the goals are associated with strategic behaviors. In addition, the impact ofthree antecedents (i.e., outcome involvement, relationship commitment, and emotional intensity) on a suspicious receiver's goals and behaviors is also examined. In the following sections, the previous suspicion literature is reviewed and the findings from relevant research areas are applied to the context ofsuspicion. Through this exploratory analysis, suspicious receivers' primary interaction goals and the various types ofstrategic behaviors enacted to achieve the goals are identified, and the relationship between the goals and the behaviors are examined. Finally, how outcome involvement, relational commitment, and emotional intensity relate to the goals and the behaviors are investigated. Suspicion in Deceptive Communication Individuals hold strong expectations about communication with others (Burgoon & Walther, 1990; Grice, 1989). The expectations function as mental guidelines, which direct people to make decisions with less cognitive effort (Hubbell, Mitchell, & Gee, 2001; Stiff et aI., 1992). One such expectation is the beliefthat persons will be truthful in