Deception and Its Detection Under Synchronous

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Group Decis Negot (2010) 19:345366DOI 10.1007/s10726-009-9168-8

Deception and its Detection Under Synchronous

and Asynchronous Computer-MediatedCommunication

Judee K. Burgoon Fang Chen Douglas P.

Twitchell

Published online: 25 July 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Abstract As part of an ongoing research program investigating features of com-

puter-mediated communication (CMC) that affect deception and its detection, an

experiment was conducted to test the impact of synchronicity on communication pro-

cesses, credibility assessments, deception detection, and team performance. At issue

is whether various forms of CMC enable or deter successful deception. Synchronous

(real-time) CMC was hypothesized to foster more involvement and mutuality dur-

ing communication, more credibility for team members, and hence less detection ofdeception when it was present. Team performance was hypothesized to suffer under

deception due to deceivers capitalizing on synchronous communication to build their

credibility. Two-person teams conducted a decision-making task in real time (synchro-

nous) or over the course of several days (asynchronous). In half of the pairs, one party

was asked to be deceptive. The results indicated that participants in the synchronous

mode were more involved, perceived more mutuality, and viewed their partners in

a more favorable light, than participants in the asynchronous mode. Deceivers por-

trayed themselves as somewhat more credible than truthtellers. However, they were

not perceived as more persuasive than truth-tellers. Participants in the deceptive con-

J. K. Burgoon (B)

Center for the Management of Information, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

F. Chen

Department of Finance and Accounting, I.H. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba,

Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 5V4, Canadae-mail: [email protected]


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Deception and its Detection 347

Synchronicity refers to the timing of message exchange within a given time frame. In

FtF and CMC, when message exchange occurs in real time, it is referred to as synchro-

nous, or same-time, communication; when time lapses separate conversational turns,

it is referred to as asynchronous, or different-time, communication. Instant messaging,

text chat, MOOs, and MUDs are different forms of synchronous communication. Emailand electronic bulletin or message boards are forms of asynchronous communication.

Synchronous communication is considered more interactive than asynchronous

communication (Burgoon et al. 2002c). Interactive forms of communication are char-

acterized by, among other qualities, higher degrees of involvement, mutuality, per-

ceived similarity, identification, and interaction coordination than noninteractive forms

of communication. In the context of online conversation, involvement refers to

participants cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement in the interaction.

Involvement may be evident in the degree of participativeness and frequency of com-

munication or detachment and nonresponsiveness by interactants. Mutuality is anumbrella term for a constellation of perceptions related to feelings of connectedness,

receptivity, and mutual understanding that contribute to a sense of groupness or

relationship among participants. Mutuality occurs to the extent that individuals co-

orient to one another and expect sufficient similarities in experiences and language use

to make communication possible (Markova et al. 1995). Qualitatively greater degrees

of mutuality are what give rise to feelings of psychological connection and social

presence. Perceived similarity, or homophily, is an extension of the mutuality concept

insofar as there are some minimal perceptions of common ground. Similarity may also

capture feelings of shared values, background, beliefs, behavioral practices, and com-munication styles. Identification concerns the extent to which participants believe they

have sufficient knowledge of co-interactants to form well-defined rather than nebulous

identities for them. Interaction coordination concerns the extent to which participants

exhibit synchronized, meshed, and coherent message exchanges. Threaded message

exchanges (in which one persons messages are related to and tailored to anothers

messages) show higher coordination than unthreaded postings.

Communication media labeled as interactive carry that moniker because they are

thought to permit, restrict, or prohibit achievement of interactive communication pro-

cesses. That is, synchronous media afford (although they do not require) more mentaland behavioral engagement; more perceived connection, social presence, and common

ground; more awareness of the unique qualities of one anothers identities; and more

potential for smooth, synchronized interaction.

1.3 The Impact of Interactivity under Deceptive and Nondeceptive Circumstances

The degree of interactivity in the message exchange process should influence how

team members regard one another and how well they perform their tasks. For exam-

ple, the principle of interactivity from interpersonal deception theory holds that human

communication processes and outcomes vary systematically with the degree of interac-
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348 J. K. Burgoon et al.

asynchronous communication media, the questions is whether the medium has bene-

ficial or detrimental effects on team relations and performance; whether the medium

influences the truthfulness of the messages and information that are exchanged.

Implicit in most CMC research is an assumption that people are trustworthy, their

communication is truthful, and their discourse is cooperative (see Grice 1989).Yet there are many circumstances in which group members may intentionally give

misleading, faulty, and invalid information if they have hidden agendas, have vested

interests that differ from the group, or want to hide the fact that they lack knowledge

on certain topics. Research has indicated that as much as one-third of daily conver-

sations include deception in the forms of concealment, ambiguity, exaggeration, and

outright lies (Buller et al. 1996; Ekman 1996). Deception, then, is one of the threats to

successful computer-mediated collaborative work. If synchronous CMC enables those

with ulterior motives to manipulate others, introduce faulty information, and conceal

their hidden agendas, then synchronous media may be used nefariously to promotetrust, gain credibility, and sabotage team performance. This is the issue that framed

the current investigation and program of research in which it is embedded.

How synchronicity in communication relates to deception is open to two plausible

but competing speculations. One possibility is that high interactivity reduces the time

and opportunities for deceivers to monitor and modify their communication in response

to any signs of skepticism; telltale signs of deception should heighten team members

vigilance and their ability to detect invalid information accurately. An alternative pos-

sibility is that synchronous CMC fosters a truth biasa tendency to overestimate

truthfulness in anothers communication (McCornack and Parks 1986)born out ofthe sense of involvement and feelings of connection, camaraderie, and similarity that

are engendered. Deceivers may capitalize on the truth bias and perceived team soli-

darity to portray themselves as credible, to garner trust, to make it more difficult for

their team members to detect faulty information, to persuade nave team members to

accept bad arguments and evidence, and hence, to undermine decision-making (Buller

et al. 1996; Burgoon et al. 2002a).

At the opposite end of the interactivity spectrum, low interactivity associated with

asynchronous communication might engender less trust and weaker relationships that

paradoxically cause potential targets of deception to become more suspicious and thusto increase their accuracy in detecting deception. Or the time delays between message

transmissions might introduce a level of detachment and objectivity that facilitates

thoughtful deliberation by nondeceptive team members, again promoting higher qual-

ity decision-making. On the flip side, asynchronous communication might also give

deceivers enough time to reflect upon the current situation and to modify their commu-

nication accordingly, thus making deception detection more difficult and leaving the

decision-making process more vulnerable to misinformation and manipulation than

in synchronous interchanges.

Two previous studies by Burgoon et al. (2002c, 2003) inform this issue. The

first study (Burgoon et al. 2002c) investigated effects of synchronicity and proxim-

ity on group communication. Results showed that synchronous interaction produced
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modalities (FtF, audio-video, audio, and text) affect involvement, mutuality, trust, and

truth estimates in truthful and deceptive communication. Trust and truth estimates

were found to be positively correlated with involvement and mutuality in both truthful

and deceptive conditions. This implies that deceivers may capitalize on the involve-

ment and mutuality present in interactive communication modes to foster trust andimpressions of truthfulness.

The current experiment replicates and extends these previous studies by investigat-

ing whether synchronicity fosters interactivity in the form of involvement, mutuality,

and similarity. As well, it examines how synchronous and asynchronous commu-

nication affect credibility and team performance under deceptive and nondeceptive

conditions. Like the second study (Burgoon et al. 2003), the current experiment was

guided by interpersonal deception theory and the principle of interactivity, from which

it was derived.

1.4 Hypotheses and Research Questions

To recapitulate, synchronicity as a structural feature of new communication media

should influence the degree of interactivity exhibited in the communication process,

which in turn should affect credibility and team performance. Credibility is a multidi-

mensional construct that refers to social judgments regarding anothers ethos or believ-

ability (Buller et al. 1996; McCroskey et al. 1974). Among the dimensions that have

been associated with it are judgments related to character or trust, expertise or compe-

tence, sociability or likability, composure, extroversion or dominance, and persuasive-ness. Because McCroskey and Young (1981) argued that its two most central compo-

nents are trust and expertise, we opted for greater parsimony by creating two composite

groupings related to (1) socially oriented judgments (trust, composure and sociability),

hereafter referred to as trust for shorthand, and (2) task-oriented judgments (expertise,

dominance, and persuasion), hereafter referred to as persuasiveness. The performance

outcome of interest was decision quality. Figure 1 displays the input-process-output

model undergirding the hypotheses and research questions, elaborated next.

1.5 Effects of Synchronicity and Deceit on Interactivity

The first set of hypotheses and research questions tested the impact of communication

format and deception on interactivity. As regards synchronicity, the most distinctive

Synchronicity Deception

H1 H2R1 H4

R2

R4

R3

Credibility I:Trust

Credibility II:Persuasiveness
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difference between synchronous and asynchronous text-based CMC is the availabil-

ity of immediate feedback. Participants interacting synchronously, i.e., in real time,

can obtain immediate feedback from co-interactants and thus adjust their messages

accordingly. This temporal immediacy, as with other forms of immediacy, should fos-

ter greater interactivity in the form of greater involvement, mutuality, and similarity(Burgoon et al. 2002c; Walther et al. 2009). When participants communicate with one

another in real time, they jointly construct the conversation, regarding themselves and

their partners as integral entities in the exchange. They perceive that they have mutual

concerns and common understanding of the issues under discussion.

Burgoon et al. (2002c) tested the relationship between synchronicity and group pro-

cess in a study of distributed collaboration. Results supported the hypothesis that group

members working under a synchronous communication format exhibit more mutual-

ity, pleasantness, involvement, and task-oriented communication than those working

under a comparable asynchronous format. As hypothesized, such communication wasalso judged as more appropriate and expected. The current investigation aimed to rep-

licate this finding with a different communication format. In Burgoons study, group

size was four or five and communication occurred in a proximal, synchronous con-

dition via text chat, in a distributed, synchronous condition using speakerphones, or

distributed, asynchronous format using noninteractive text. In the current case, teams

consisted of distributed two-person groups (to allow manipulation of truth or deception

by one member) who communicated using synchronous or asynchronous text. The first

hypothesis predicted that synchronous media promote interactive communication.

H 1 Synchronous text-based interaction produces more perceived involvement, mutu-

ality, and similarity than asynchronous text-based interaction.

A second experiment (Burgoon et al. 2003) supported the hypothesis that deception

lowers perceptions of deceiver involvement, similarity, and understanding. However,

the study only investigated synchronous communication, leaving open to question

whether there is an interaction between deception and synchronicity in affecting com-

munication processes. Hence, we posed the following hypothesis and research ques-

tion.

H 2 Deceptive communication produces less perceived involvement, mutuality, and

similarity than truthful communication.

R 1 Does deception differentially affect involvement, mutuality, and similarity under

synchronous versus asynchronous communication?

1.6 Effects of Synchronicity and Interactivity on Outcomes

Human relationships are defined through communication practices (Watzlawick et

al. 1967). To the extent that virtual team members display emotional, cognitive, and


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hypothesis that involvement and mutuality measures were positively correlated with

trust and truth estimates. Other research has found that displays of involvement are

perceived to communicate intimacy, sociability, composure, and dominance (Burgoon

and Le Poire 1999; Le Poire et al. 2003). This hypothesis was expanded in the current

study to include a broader array of social judgments related to credibility.

H 3 Greater interactivity in the form of involvement, mutuality and similarity is asso-

ciated with more favorable judgments of team members credibility on social-oriented

judgments (trust, composure and sociability) and task-oriented judgments (expertise,

dominance, and persuasion).

The theory of synchronicity (Dennis and Valacich 1999) specifies that teamwork

may involve two communication processes: conveyance and convergence. Different

communication features affect these two processes differently. Two salient communi-

cation features are immediacy of feedback and parallelism. Parallelism refers to thenumber of simultaneous conversations that can exist effectively (Dennis and Valacich

1999). Communication environments that support high immediacy of feedback and

low parallelism facilitate the convergence process. Communication environments that

support low immediacy of feedback and high parallelism facilitate the conveyance pro-

cess. Usually people have different purposes for communication: sharing information,

making sense for certain situations, solving problems, and making decisions. Except

for sharing information about very simple facts, people need to engage both convey-

ance and convergence processes. Holding parallelism constant, either synchronous or

asynchronous communication can support conveyance at a somewhat identical levelof efficiency and effectiveness. However, it is much easier to accomplish convergent

processes in synchronous mode, since people have to clarify, discuss, and negotiate

to obtain agreement, and availability of immediate feedback facilitates clarification,

discussion, and negotiation. When there is no invalid information, and no deception,

people communicating in synchronous mode tend to obtain higher quality of decision

making than people who communicate in a comparable asynchronous mode. On the

other hand, when there is invalid information and deception, synchronous mode fos-

ters more involvement and perceived (though faulty) mutual understanding. Deceivers

may take advantage of these perceptions to portray themselves as credible, and trust-worthy. Resultant truth bias should detract from receivers ability to detect deception

accurately.

H 4 Higher interactivity in the form of involvement, mutuality, and similarity fosters

higher decision quality making when there is no reason to suspect invalid information,

deception, or ulterior motives, but impairs decision-making when deceit and invalid

information are introduced.

The input-process-output model guiding this investigation proposes that synchro-

nicity and deception exert indirect effects on social judgments and group performance

as mediated by the degree of interactivity in the communication process. But in addi-

tion to this indirect effect, synchronicity and deception conceivably may exert direct


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R 2 Does deception affect social judgments and decision quality directly?

R 3 Does synchronicity affect social judgments and decision quality directly?

R 4 Does deception have the same impact on decision quality under synchronous andasynchronous communication?

2 Method

2.1 Participants

Participants (N = 126; 80 males, 46 females) were undergraduate students enrolled

in a business course at a southwestern university who received extra class credit for

participating in a study of how people conduct decision-making tasks under different

communication formats. Participants were randomly assigned to pairs, to roles as Part-

ner A or B, and to synchronicity condition. Among those designated Partner A, half

were randomly enlisted as accomplices to engage in deception. Due to some attrition

and recording problems, cell sizes were not even distributed across conditions. There

were 19 pairs in the synchronous-deceptive condition, 18 pairs in the synchronous-

truthful condition, 13 pairs in the asynchronous-deceptive condition, and 13 pairs in

the asynchronous-truthful condition.

2.2 Experimental Procedures and Conditions

The experiment took place in a Communication Research Laboratory that consisted of

multiple interaction rooms. Each room was equipped with a large circular conference

table divided into quarter-rounds, with each quarter-round separated by a large sound-

proofed divider, to create four cubicles. Each cubicle was equipped with a mobile

computer station. Participants finished all experimental tasks online. Upon arrival,

participants were seated in a cubicle before a computer, where they completed con-

sent forms and received all task instructions, the task scenario, and pre-discussionquestionnaires.

Communication in the experiment was anonymous. Participants did not meet their

partners face-to-face and did not know who their partners were. They communicated

with their partners by text only. In the synchronous mode, participants discussed the

task by using Microsoft Netmeeting text chat, and the entire experiment took place in

the Communication Research Laboratory. Sessions ranged from 50 to 80 min to finish.

In the asynchronous mode, participants discussed the task by using an electronic mes-

sage board system developed by the Center for the Management of Information at the

University of Arizona. After participants completed the initial ranking, they logged

into the message board system. If they were the first partners who logged in the system,

they posted their initial rankings and some rationale for their rankings for their partners


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facets as being truthful, trustworthy, sincere, responsible, and reliable) and competence

(which includes such facets as expertise, experience, and intelligence) but may also

include dimensions such as sociability (likability, friendliness), and extroversion or

dominance (Burgoon et al. 2002c). Because dominance in turn has been shown to

consist of components related to interactional control, dynamism, persuasiveness, andrelaxation, and because dominance is closely associated with credibility (Burgoon et al.

1998), we chose to operationalize credibility broadly as including components of trust,

sociability, composure, expertise, conversational dominance, and persuasiveness. The

first three dimensions were combined to represent the more socially-oriented elements

of credibility, whereas the latter three represented the more task-relevant aspects of

credibility. These two composites were labeled as Credibility I (trust) and Credibility

II (persuasiveness). A principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation con-

firmed that with a two-factor solution, the three dimensions of trust, sociability, and

composure had their primary loadings on one factor and the dimensions of expertise,dominance, and persuasiveness had their primary loadings on the second factor, with

total variance accounted for at 78%. The reliabilities for the six separate dimensions

are shown in Table 1. Reliabilities for the two composite measures were .84 for each.

2.4 Manipulation Checks

To verify that deceivers were in fact deceptive, were motivated to fulfill their instruc-

tions to deceive, and felt successful in doing so, Partners A in deceptive conditionsrated on a 0 to 10 scale how truthful they were (where 0 = completely untruthful and

10 = completely truthful). They also rated on a 0 (not at all important) to 10 (very

important) scale how important it was to them to (1) give convincing answers and (2)

succeed at being believed. Lastly, they estimated their deception success with the item,

how successful were you in deceiving your partner about the true best decisions?

Partner Bs perceived suspicion of their partners truthfulness and motivation to detect

deceit was measured with five items, rated on 17 scales, that measured their level of

suspicion (e.g., I was suspicious of what my partner said) and motivation to detect

deceit (e.g., I watched carefully to see what my partner said). They also rated howtruthful they thought their partner was on a 010 scale.

2.5 Task Outcome Measures

Task performance was operationalized with two measures. Decision quality was com-

puted as the mean absolute discrepancy between participant ranking and correct rank-

ing. The smaller the score, the better the quality of decision. Decision change was

indicated by how much participants changed their rankings toward the correct ranking.

It was calculated as the change in the difference between (a) each persons pre-ranking

and partner pre-ranking and (b) each persons post-ranking and partner post-ranking.
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3 Results

3.1 Manipulation Checks

Although deceivers reported being slightly truthful (M = 5.70, where 5 is the mid-point), they were fairly motivated to succeed in convincing their partners (M= 6.93)

and being perceived as believable (M= 6.96). They also perceived themselves to have

successfully deceived their partners (M= 6.04). Deceived partners were generally not

suspicious of their partners communication truthfulness (M = 2.03) and rated their

partners as very truthful (M= 7.68). Synchronicity had no significant effect on deceiv-

ers motivation to deceive, F(1, 30) = 0.59, p = 0.45, nor on Partner Bs suspicion, F

(1, 29) = 2.93,p = 0.10. Thus, the deception induction was considered to be successful

and to have uniform effects across conditions.

3.2 Relationships of Synchronicity to Communication Processes

H1, that synchronicity fosters higher interactivity, was tested in a between-dyad mul-

tivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), with synchronicity as the independent var-

iable and the three interactivity measures as the dependent measures. Synchronicity

produced a significant multivariate effect, F(3, 120) = 3.36,p = 0.02, partial2 = 0.08.

Accompanying univariate analyses indicated that synchronous participants felt their

partners showed more mutuality, F (1, 122) = 5.50, p = 0.02, partial 2

=.04, andmore involvement, F (1, 122) = 9.95, p = 0.002, partial 2 = .07, than asynchronous

participants did; the effect for similarity was weaker, F(1, 122)= 1.85,p = 0.22, partial

2 = .02. The result can be interpreted that participants interacting synchronously felt

their team partners were more involved in the communication and evoked more mutu-

ality than did participants interacting asynchronously. Hypothesis 1 was supported.

H2 predicted that deceivers are perceived as less interactive than truthtellers. The

appropriate analysis required analyzing the communication of Partner A as judged by

Partner B. A 22 factorial MANOVA indicated that deception did not have an effect

on interactivity,F

(3, 57) = 1.27,p

= 0.29, partial

2=

0.

06. Only involvement showeda trend toward significance in the univariate analyses and in the opposite direction (of

deceivers showing more, not less, involvement). Thus, the results failed to support H2.

R1 posed the question of whether synchronicity differentially affects interactiv-

ity under deceptive and nondeceptive conditions. The same MANOVA as tested H2

failed to produce an interaction between synchronicity and deception on interactiv-

ity, F (3,57) = 0.69, p = 0.56, partial 2 = 0.03. Thus, deception did not moderate

synchronicity effects.

3.3 Relationships of Communication Processes to Outcomes


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Table 2 Correlations among interactivity and social judgment measures

Mutuality Involvement Similarity Trust Composure Sociability Expertise Persuasion Dominan

Mutuality 1.00

Involvement .69* 1.00Similarity .58* .55* 1.00

Trust .60* .72* .49* 1.00

Composure .65* .71* .38* .62* 1.00

Sociability .55* .62* .47* .64* .61* 1.00

Expertise .56* .69* .47* .61* .59* .49* 1.00

Persuasion .31* .46* .35* .38* .30* .24* .57* 1.00

Dominance .42* .70* .45* .49* .59* .55* .63* .57* 1.00

* p < 0.01, one-tailed

involvement, mutuality, and similarity are associated with being perceived as morecredible on both trust-related and persuasiveness elements.

H4 specified that in truthful conditions, the correlations among interactivity mea-

sures (i.e., involvement, mutuality, and similarity) and post-discussion decisions are

positive but in deceptive conditions are negative. The test was conducted by splitting

the file based on condition and then conducting the correlation analyses. Correlations

with decision quality were all nonsignificant. Correlations with decision change indi-

cated that in the truthful condition, the more perceived similarity, the more partners

changed their decisions toward the correct ranking, r(60) = .23, p = .04, one-tailed; in

the deception condition, there was a near-significant relationship between involvementand decision change such that those who were more involved changed less, r (60) =

.20, p =.06, one-tailed. Thus, H4 received at best modest support. When decep-

tion was not present, participants who felt similarity to their partners changed more

toward the best decision; when deception was present, greater involvement was neg-

atively related to change, suggesting that greater engagement with deceivers enabled

deceivers to deter partners from changing toward the best decision.

3.4 Relationships of Synchronicity and Deception to Outcomes

R2 through R4 investigated whether deception and synchronicity, separately or jointly,

affect outcomes directly. Results were analyzed three ways. First, we conducted a

MANOVA with deception and synchronicity as the independent variables and the two

credibility composites, as judged by Partner B, as the dependent measures. Next, we

conducted separate MANOVAs with the three Credibility I measures as the dependent

variables in the one analysis and the three Credibility II measures as the dependent

variables in the second analysis. Finally, the analyses on the composite measures were

repeated but as multivariate analyses of covariance to determine if covarying out the

effects of interactivity eliminated any effects. This final analysis was intended to deter-

mine if effects of synchronicity and deception on outcome measures were spurious


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Effects on Credibility and Persuasion(a)

(b)

AsynchronousSynchronous

Ratings

7.0

6.0

5.0

4.0

3.0

2.0

1.0

MEASURES

1 Trust

2 Composure

3 Sociability

4 Dominance

5 Expertise

6 Persuasiveness

3.94.1

4.4

4.8

4.3

4.64.7

5.4

4.8

5.3

4.8

5.2

Effects on Credibility and Persuasion

TruthDeception

Ratings

7.0

6.0

5.0

4.0

3.0

2.0

1.0

MEASURES

1 Trust

2 Composure

3 Sociability

4 Dominance

5 Expertise

6 Persuasiveness

4.2

3.8

4.64.7

4.2

4.7 4.7

5.4

4.8

5.3

4.8

5.1

Fig. 2 Effects ofa synchronicity and b deception on social judgments

on the trust composite, F (1, 58) = 4.56, p = 0.04, partial 2 = 0.07, and on the

persuasiveness composite, F (2,57) = 3.87, p = 0.01, partial 2 = 0.17. Univariate

analyses revealed that deceivers rather than truthtellers were judged as more credible

on trust-related judgments (M = 5.28) than were truthtellers (M = 4.76). Follow-up

analyses for the Credibility I dimensions revealed that differences were more evident


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4.65) than truthful team members (M= 4.24). Thus, deceivers successfully portrayed

themselves as more credible and persuasive, especially in terms of being sociable,

composed, and dominant.

The multivariate effect for synchronicity on the two composite measures was also

near-significant, F(2, 57) = 2.35, p = 0.10, partial 2 = 0.08, again with a significantunivariate effect on the trust composite, F(1,58)=4.10,p = 0.04, partial2 = 0.07, but

not the persuasiveness composite. These results only included Person B data. On the

assumption that even though responses from Person A accomplices would be biased as

regards deception effects, their data could still produce valid indications of the effects

of synchronicity, we repeated the analysis with Person A data added to the analysis of

synchronicity. A significant main effect emerged, F(3, 120) = 3.33, p = 0.02, partial

2 =.08 (see Fig. 2). Univariate analysis indicated that synchronous participants felt

more trust for their partners, F(1, 122) = 3.93, p = 0.05, partial 2 =.03, and viewed

their partners as more composed, F(1, 122) = 7.98, p = 0.006, partial 2 =.06, andsociable, F(1, 122) = 7.81, p = 0.006, partial 2 = .06 than asynchronous participants

did. Synchronicity did not affect the task-oriented credibility measures, F (3, 120) =

1.02, p = 0.39, partial 2 = 0.03.

When the three interactivity measures of involvement, mutuality, and similarity

were added as covariates to the analyses, the multivariate deception effect remained

significant in the analysis with Credibility I and Credibility II composites as the depen-

dent measures (p = .045), but neither univariate composite was significant. In the anal-

yses employing the individual credibility dimensions, none of the analyses remained

significant. Neither was the synchronicity effect significant when both Person A andPerson B data were included. These results indicate that deception and synchronicity

largely exert their influence on social judgments through communication processes

rather than directly.

To test effects on decision making, factorial analyses of variance were conducted

with synchronicity and deception as the independent variables and decision quality

or decision change among Partners B (i.e., those who were the nave subjects and

targets of any deception) as the dependent measures. Synchronicity did not affect

final decision quality, F(1,59) = 0.43, p = 0.52, partial 2 < 0.01, but deception did,

F(1, 59) = 4.47,

p= 0.04, partial

2=

0.

07. The interaction of deception and synchro-nicity was not significant, F(1, 59) = 0.001, p = 0.98, partial 2 < 0.01. Participants

with deceptive partners had poorer post-discussion decision quality (M= 3.75, SD =

0.74) than participants with truthful partners (M= 3.32, SD = 0.82) (see Fig. 3; smaller

value indicates better decision quality). Because the means for pre-discussion decision

quality suggested that participants in the deceptive condition may have started with

worse decision quality, further analysis was conducted to see whether the difference in

pre-discussion decision quality between the truthful and deceptive conditions was sig-

nificant. Results revealed that it was not, F(1, 59) = 2.23, p = 0.14, partial 2 = 0.04.

Deception, then, did result in worse decisions.

As for decision change, synchronicity had an impact, F (1, 59) = 5.13, p = 0.03,

partial 2 = 0.08. Synchronous Partners B changed their post-discussion decision for
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Effects on Decision Quality

AsynchronousSynchronous

DiscrepancyfromB

estDecision

4.0

3.0

2.0

1.0

0.0

DECEPTION

Deception

Truth

3.43.3

3.83.7

Fig. 3 Effects of synchronicity on decision quality

to deception, F(1, 59) = 0.30, p = 0.59, partial 2 < 0.01, although deceived partners

did have poorer post-discussion decisions (M= 3.75, SD = 0.74) than pre-discussion

decisions (M= 3.55, SD = 0.87). Thus, changes in decisions were adversely affected

by the asynchronous mode of communication, and may have registered a slightly

negative impact due to deception.

When the interactivity covariates were added to the decision quality analyses, theeffects of synchronicity and deception remained significant. These results indicate that

communication mode and deception influence task performance above and beyond the

effects rendered by the communication process.

4 Discussion

Working from the principle of interactivity, this experiment examined the general

postulate that features of communication interfaces affect degree of interactivity in

communication processes, and that interactivity in turn systematically affects suchcommunication outcomes as credibility and team performance. Interactivity in com-

munication processes was instantiated as involvement, mutuality, and similarity. Cred-

ibility was instantiated as socially oriented judgments related to trust (i.e., composure,

sociability, and trust), and task-oriented judgments related to persuasiveness (i.e.,

expertise, dominance, and persuasion). Team performance was instantiated as post-

discussion decision quality and decision change from pre-discussion to post-discussion

quality. Several though not all aspects of the proposed model were supported. We take

up the influence of the two exogenous variables of synchronicity and deception in turn.

4.1 Effects of Synchronicity


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Communicating in real time promoted a far greater sense of cognitive and behavioral

engagement, of common ground and understanding, and of that elusive yet powerful

sense of connection than did communicating at different times. For scholars, designers,

and users alike, results confirmed the fear that when separation in space is accompanied

by separation in time, social presence is indeed a casualty. Ties among team mem-bers weaken, and members experience greater detachment that may translate into less

tolerance of team members shortcomings.

Synchronicity also directly affected the trust-related aspects of credibility. Synchro-

nous participants felt more trust for their partners and viewed their partners as more

composed and sociable than asynchronous participants did. Curiously, synchronicity

did not have similar effects on the task-oriented credibility judgments of expertise,

dominance, and persuasiveness. Apparently, team members were able to achieve com-

parable credibility on those facets of judgments with or without real-time communi-

cation. It is important to note that once the interactivity measures were covaried fromthe analysis, the synchronicity effects disappeared. This disappearance indicates that

synchronicity had little if any direct effect on credibility, instead primarily exerting its

influence indirectly through the degree of interactivity that was generated.

By contrast, synchronicity did affect decision-making, above and beyond the effects

of interactivity. Those who interacted at different times changed their post-discussion

decision for worse quality as compared to synchronous partners, who stayed relatively

the same or improved slightly. Thus, synchronicity functioned largely as expected,

exerting influence on outcomes indirectly and directly. Indirect effects occurred via

the mediation of interactivity.The implications are clear: As with other aspects of media that enable or inhibit

interactivity, ability to interact in real time has direct consequences for how interac-

tions and their participants are perceived and for how work is performed. Asynchro-

nous forms of communication weaken the sense of engagement among participants.

They result in users having less trust for one another and viewing one another in a

less favorable light. Either due to less favorable social perceptions or in addition to

them, different-time communications also retard changes toward best decisions. Use

of asynchronous communication, then, bears risks. Feelings of detachment and dis-

interest may breed distrust, lack of confidence in information and people, and poorertask performance. Conversely, same-time communication may engender the sense of

presence and connection that is so essential to team cohesion and performance.

4.2 Effects of Interactivity

The third hypothesis tested the relationships among qualities of interactivity and cred-

ibility. As hypothesized, all relationships were significant. The more involvement,

mutuality, and similarity that team members felt with their task partners, the more

they perceived them as trustworthy, sociable, composed, expert, dominant, and per-

suasive. In short, interactivity fostered higher regard on social judgments related to


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forms of CMC. But synchronicity is not the only means of fostering interactive commu-

nication. As other investigations have shown, geographic proximity and richer media

(i.e., having access to full visual, auditory, tactile, proxemic, and environmental infor-

mation) can also foster involvement, mutuality, and perceived similarity. Inasmuch

as the correlational results showed that where there is interactivity, there is also per-ceived trust, sociability, composure, expertise, persuasiveness, and dominance, the

key to getting the best out of communication interfaces that historically generate

less interactivity is in finding other means to elevate engagement, connection, and

similarity. A variety of techniques are possible to achieve this aim, ranging from

engaging in get-acquainted activities when a new team is formulated; to exchanging

personal information that heightens awareness among team members of their individ-

uality, strengths, and requirements; to periodically building in time for socializing;

to insistence by leaders on frequent and predictable contacts among distributed team

members. Responsibilities for such interactivity-promoting activities may fall to teamleaders and supervisors or may be aided by technology, such as use of shared cal-

endaring and built-in reminders to ensure that communication remains frequent and

team members procedural or task concerns are addressed.

Instituting mechanisms to heighten interactivity of course assumes that interactivity

is desirable, that team members are interacting in good faith without hidden agendas,

ulterior motives, deception, and the like. If these assumptions dont hold, the picture

changes. The presence of deception is illustrative.

4.3 Effects of Deception

In the current experiment, contrary to the hypothesis, deception did not adversely affect

interactivity in this experiment. It thus failed to replicate previous results (Burgoon

et al. 2003), showing that deception lowered ratings of deceivers on involvement, felt

similarity and felt understanding. There was no interaction between synchronicity

and deception to impact interactivity. In other words, deception affected involvement,

mutuality, and similarity in a similar pattern under both synchronous and asynchro-

nous communication. Put another way, deceivers were as successful in achievinginteractivity as were truthtellers. Nave partners perceived that their partners were

more composed, more sociable, and more dominant in the deceptive condition than

the truthful condition. Deception also did not interact with synchronicity to affect

interactivity. Timeliness of communication neither impaired nor aided deceivers in

appearing involved and creating feelings of mutuality.

Where deception did have an adverse effect was on team performance, both directly

and indirectly through its influence on interactivity. Deceivers were actually judged

as more credible than truthtellers; they were especially successful in portraying them-

selves as sociable, composed, and dominant. Also as might be expected, teams in

which deception was present made poorer decisions than when deception was absent.

As for how deception worked vis a vis interactivity, when deception was not present,
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interactivity per se is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. When users come

together in a cooperative, good-faith manner, interactivity promotes positive commu-

nication and outcomes. When users have ulterior motives, interactivity can instead

amplify vulnerabilities to manipulation; it can sabotage rather than facilitate deci-

sion-making. It must be noted that these effects are not due strictly to interactivityheightening susceptibility. Deception continued to have a negative impact above and

beyond the effects of interactivity.

The implication is that motivated deceivers can effectively promote a credible image

when interacting via text, and can parlay their credibility into persuading others to make

faulty decisions, regardless of whether the communication mode is synchronous or

asynchronous. The combination of deception and synchronous communication may,

however, be the most dangerous because deceivers can create a pseudo-relationship

when interactivity is high and can capitalize on the truth bias that is more pronounced

under real-time conditions.This places users in a quandary about whether to choose synchronous or asynchro-

nous modes of communication when motives of others are not known. If the only

objective of communication is to maintain social relationships, synchronous commu-

nication is a better choice, since it fosters greater interactivity and more favorable

social judgments. When task performance is involved, the picture is more complex.

On the one hand, real-time communication should enable the kinds of ideal com-

munication that one hopes to achieve in task-related communication, and it confers

credibility on its users just by virtue of its use. It also gives those with ulterior

motives greater opportunity to gain feedback and allay any suspicions that mightarise. On the other hand, it also loses the dispassionate evaluation of information

that is indispensable when faulty information might be introduced into delibera-

tions, be it due to deception or mere incompetence. Put differently, asynchronous

communication creates a level of detachment that may be the best shield against

misinformation, manipulation, and misrepresentation. It enables users to resist bad

arguments and to engage in more thoughtful analysis. And yet, that same detach-

ment may also lead users to capitulate to the positions of more forceful partici-

pants. Given that deceivers in this investigation were more persuasive and credible

than their truth-telling counterparts, this concern is a very real one. Choices there-fore should be informed by assessment of the likely motives and expertise of

others.

One final conclusion to be drawn from this investigation is that mediated forms

of communication cannot all be grouped into a homogeneous class and contrasted

to face-to-face communication. Even within a text-based computer-mediated form of

communication, there are systematic differences in communication processes and out-

comes based solely on whether the communication is synchronous or asynchronous.

Equally important to its structural characteristics are the degree to which it promotes

or inhibits interactivity. It is hoped that future research will continue to decompose

communication modes into their constituent properties and delve into the interre-

lationships among properties of interfaces, resultant communication processes, and


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interactivity, and affect perceived social judgments and work performance. The tech-

nology should be flexible in terms of allowing users to select certain communication

features and configure these features in particular ways. For example, the electronic

message board could incorporate features of login scheduling and login reminding so

that users can set up a log in schedule; if a user does not log in on time, an emailreminder will be sent to the user automatically, or if there is new content in the mes-

sage board, an email can be automatically sent to the user for updating information.

This may increase users participation and likely the interactivity, favorable social

judgments and work performance.

5 Appendix

5.1 Desert Survival Task Post-Interaction Questionnaire

Below are a series of adjective pairs that are often used to evaluate members of groups.

Each is on a 17 scale, with 1 representing a high degree of the adjective on the left

and 7 representing a high degree of the adjective on the right. For example, 1 = very

friendly and 7 = very unfriendly

Using the adjective pairs below, please select the number that best reflects your

general impressions of YOUR PARTNER during the DISCUSSION OF THE TOP-

ICS. You may select 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7. If you are neutral or unsure, select a 4. Work

quickly, indicating your first response.

qa1 Very friendly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very unfriendly

qa2 Very trustworthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very untrustworthy

qa3 Very likable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not likable at all

qa4 Very deceptive 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very truthful

qa5 Very credible 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not at all credible

qa6 Very unsociable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very sociable

qa7 Very dishonest 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very honest

qa8 Very persuasive 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not at all persuasive

qa9 Very irresponsible 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very responsible

qa10 Very confident 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very unconfident

qa11 Very calm 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very tense

qa12 Lacking influence 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Influenced me a great deal

qa13 Very insightful 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very lacking in insight

qa14 Very experienced 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very inexperienced

qa15 Very sluggish 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very energetic

qa16 Very quiet 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very talkative

qa17 Very uncomposed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very composed

qa18 Very nervous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very relaxed

qa19 Affected my decisionsgreatly

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Did not affect mydecisions at all

qa20 Very inexpert 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very expert


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qa24 Very uncomfortable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very comfortable

qa25 Not willing to listen to me 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very willing to listen to me

qa26 Very similar to me 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very different from me

qa27 Highly involved 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not at all involvedqa28 Very distracted 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very attentive

qa29 Thinks like me a lot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Doesnt think like me at all

qa30 Very understanding 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not at all understanding

qa31 Very much like me 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very much unlike me

qa32 Very detached 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very engaged

qa33 Very bored 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very interested

qa34 Very open to my ideas 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very closed off to my ideas

qa35 Very cold 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very warm

qa36 Created closeness 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Created a sense of distance

qa37 Not at all accepting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very accepting

qa38 Promoted cooperation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Did not promote

cooperationbetween us

Mutuality = qa25,qa34,qa37,qa30,qa38

Involvement = qa33,qa32,qa28,qa35,qa36,qa27, qa22

Similarity = qa26,qa31,qa29

Trust =qa2, qa4, qa5, qa7, qa9

Composure = qa11, qa17, qa18, qa24

Sociability = qa1, qa3, qa6

Expert = qa13, qa14, qa20, qa21

Persuasiveness = qa8, qa12, qa19

Dominance = qa10, qa15, qa16, qa23

Deceivers Motivation to Deceive:

1. On a scale of 0 to 10, how important was it for you to give convincing answers

to your partner during the discussion about the best items to salvage and the best

course of action to survive in the desert?

Completely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 completely

unimportant important

2. On a scale of 0 to 10, how important was it for you to keep your partner formbecoming suspicious during the discussion?

Completely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Completely


3. On a scale of 0 to 10, how important was it for you to succeed in making Person

B believe you?

Completely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 completely


4. On a scale of 0 to 10, how truthful were you in representing you true rankings andreasons to your partner?


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