Suspicious Receivers’ Goals and Behaviors 2
“Are you lying to me?” Suspicious Receivers’ Interaction Goals and
Strategic Behaviors within Dating Relationship
A growing number of deception 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, Kim, & Ramesh, 1992). Although researchers have begun to acknowledge the
central role of suspicion in deceptive communication, the scope of suspicion literature is yet very
limited. The previous studies in suspicion literature are oriented to two main directions: the
impact of suspicion on (a) the receiver’s deception detection accuracy and (b) the interactional
patterns of deceptive communication.
The studies on a suspicious receiver’s deception detection accuracy examined how one
or the combination of the following factors affect the receiver’s deception detection accuracy: the
presence of suspicion (Toris & DePaulo, 1985; Stiff et al., 1992), the level of suspicion
(McCornack & Levine, 1990b), the receiver’s probing (Buller et al., 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 of pragmatics, it was found that a suspicious receiver
strategically controls the expression of his or her suspicion, while nonstrategically leaking the
uneasiness of suspicion (Buller & Burgoon, 1996; Buller et al., 1991; Burgoon et al., 1995;
1996).
Although the previous suspicion studies enhanced our knowledge on the impact of
suspicion on a receiver’s deception detection accuracy and shed better insights on the interplay
between the receiver’s suspicion and the pragmatics of deceptive communication, our
Convention