Abstract
The study looks at a relationship between the deception detection and the tendency to stereotypical evaluations based on someone's appearance. This presumption is based on social stereotypes research (e.g.
Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, Longo, 1991), reporting a tendency to connect a person's outward with their characteristics and to expect people of a certain look to behave in a certain way. Respondents (n=197) working in police departments in the Czech Republic completed a lie detection task.
They evaluated veracity of the statements of various visual types of suspects in a set of 21 videos from a real investigation of a crime. The decision about truthfullness or deceitufullnes of the person on particular video was based on the nonverbal behavior.
Results confirm that respondents have a tendency to truth or lie bias based on their profession. In the evaluation of videos, stereotypes played a significant role.
The statements of suspects of a different ethnicity were considered deceitful more often than of others. The older suspects were considered more truthful than those of younger age.
Research might be beneficial for training in professions that are in need of deception detection techniques and for understanding the influence of stereotypes on our thoughts and evaluation of others.