Data from: Culture moderates changes in linguistic self-presentation and detail provision when deceiving others

Change in our language when deceiving is attributable to differences in
the affective and cognitive experience of lying compared to truth telling,
yet these experiences are also subject to substantial individual
differences. On the basis of previous evidence of cultural differences in
self-construal and remembering, we predicted and found evidence for
cultural differences in the extent to which truths and lies contained self
(versus other) references and perceptual (versus social) details.
Participants (N = 320) of Black African, South Asian, White European and
White British ethnicity completed a catch-the-liar task in which they
provided genuine and fabricated statements about either their past
experiences or an opinion and counter-opinion. Across the four groups we
observed a trend for using more/fewer first-person pronouns and fewer/more
third-person pronouns when lying, and a trend for including more/fewer
perceptual details and fewer/more social details when lying. Contrary to
predicted cultural differences in emotion expression, all participants
showed more positive affect and less negative affect when lying. Our
findings show that liars deceive in ways that are congruent with their
cultural values and norms, and that this may result in opposing changes in
behaviour.