Human lie-detection performance: Does random assignment vs. self-selection of liars and truth-tellers matter?

Deception research has been criticized for its common practice of randomly allocating senders to truth-telling and lying conditions. In this study, we directly compared receivers’ lie-detection accuracy when judging randomly assigned vs. self-selected truth-tellers and liars. In a trust-game setting, half of the senders (n = 16) were instructed to lie or tell the truth (random assignment), whereas the other half (n = 16) chose to lie or tell the truth of their own accord (self-selection). We hypothesized that receivers (N = 200) would discriminate more accurately between self-selected liars and truth-tellers when using a feeling-focused (vs. detail-focused) detection strategy, and discriminate more accurately between randomly assigned liars and truth-tellers when using a detail-focused (vs. feeling-focused) detection strategy. Accuracy rates did not vary as a function of veracity assignment or detection strategy, failing to support the claim that random assignment of liars and truth-tellers alters the detectability of deception.