Emotion regulation during deception: an EEG study of imprisoned fraudsters
| Published date | 03 May 2016 |
| Pages | 76-88 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCP-02-2016-0005 |
| Date | 03 May 2016 |
| Author | Lars Krokoszinski,Daniela Hosser |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Criminal psychology |
Emotion regulation during deception:
an EEG study of imprisoned fraudsters
Lars Krokoszinski and Daniela Hosser
Lars Krokoszinski and Daniela
Hosser are both based at the
Department of Developmental,
Personality and Forensic
Psychology, Technical
University of Braunschweig,
Braunschweig, Germany.
Abstract
Purpose –The social interaction between a deceiver and the deceived opponent is a determining factor for
deception that involves emotions. Hence, besides a great amount of cognitive control, a successfullie also
requires the regulation of emotions, especially when deceiving somebody face-to-face. The purpose of this
paper is to investigate emotion regulation processes in an interpersonal lying experiment and aimed to
examine whether fraudsters have well-functioning emotion regulation strategies or show a lack of emotional
processes when deceiving face-to-face.
Design/methodology/approach –Imprisoned fraudsters (n ¼11), imprisoned violent offenders (n ¼10)
and non-offenders (n ¼11) spontaneously deceived an interrogator in a face-to-face situation while the
deceivers’EEG was recorded.
Findings –The results showed that a decrease of alpha activity in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC)
predicted a higher frequency of deceptive responses as well as less guilt about deceiving the interrogator.
These findings suggest a pivotal role of the left dlPFC in emotion regulation during deception for fraudsters,
violent offenders and non-offenders. Unlike violent offenders, fraudsters did not show differences in alpha
activity of the dlPFC between truthful and deceptive responses, suggesting that fraudsters are better at
emotion regulation while deceiving their opponents.
Originality/value –This study emphasizes the recruitment of emotion regulation processes during
deception. The results give first insight into the emotional processes underlying deception in fraudsters.
Keywords Emotion regulation, EEG, Deception, Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, Fraudsters,
Interpersonal lying setting
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Deception, defined as the intentional attempt to mislead others, is a challenging task. Especially
in interpersonal settings, telling a lie requires a great deal of cognitive control (Johnson et al.,
2005; Spence et al., 2004). The liar has to come to the deliberate decision to lie, inhibit the truthful
response, generate a credible and consistent false response, memorize it and manage the
cognitive conflict between the true and the false answer (Botvinick et al., 2001; Nuñez et al.,
2005; Spence et al., 2008). Yet, the deceptive act cannot be reduced to these cognitive
processes only, and recent neuroimaging studies consider the social interaction as another
important determinant for deception (Abe et al., 2007; Baumgartner et al., 2009; Carrión et al.,
2010; Sip et al., 2012). The social aspect of deception emphasizes the role of emotional
processes and the requirement for emotion regulation while deceiving somebody (Abe et al.,
2007; Baumgartner et al., 2009; Sip et al., 2013). Accordingly, successful liars have to suppress
their true emotions and control for emotional expression while monitoring the emotions
of the cheated person so as to adapt their response and fake emotions if necessary.
Furthermore, they have to cope with feelings of guilt about lying or fear of getting caught lying
Received 17 February 2016
Revised 6 March 2016
Accepted 9 March 2016
PAG E 76
j
JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
j
VOL. 6 NO. 2 2016, pp. 76-88, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2009-3829 DOI 10.1108/JCP-02-2016-0005
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