An Investigation of the Lie-Telling Personality Type Within Different Social Contexts

The present work aimed to further develop and refine the nomological net of personality traits predicting deception within the specific context of romantic relationships, as well as within the academic context. The main findings are that the already established correlation between Honesty-Humility and general deceptive behavior also reliable emerged for relationship-based dishonesty and academic cheating; however, against general deception research, when examining the specific context of romantic relationships, the association between people’s personal belief in a just world and deception was not evident. As own research and the review of relevant literature about the predictive value of more classical Big Five traits and Dark Triad traits revealed, Honesty-Humility is the key predictor for relationship-based dishonesty and academic cheating, as all other traits (also including personal belief in a just world and learning goals) do not add an incremental value that goes beyond the Honesty-Humility factor. Thus, the importance of such a six-dimensional personality models such as the HEXACO model, which includes a distinct honesty-related personality trait, is highlighted in a significant way for research on the lie-telling personality type. Beyond, my dissertation hopefully emerges as a good example showing that context-specific testing with a broad array of underlying methodological procedures but also purposefully chosen operationalizations of the relevant constructs is necessary to ensure the generalizability of the findings to the corresponding context. To all researchers who will deal with the lie-telling personality type in future research I remain with the following: It’s the honest personality, stupid!