Digital Deception Part Two

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 24th Apr 2023

Unfortunately, deception rarely takes the form of blatant or outright lies, which could be detected by basic fact checking etc. Also, because we – along with professionals in forensic settings, and law enforcement – process information through the lens of a truth bias, we are not very good at detecting deception. It also appears that those working in law enforcement, as “professional” lie catchers are little better than college students at detecting deception. In short, we are often no better than “chance” at detecting deceit. We may tell ourselves otherwise, and that we know certain “tells”, such as liars avoiding...Click To Read More

Digital Deception Part One

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 17th Apr 2023

Research estimates that people on average tell one to two lies every day (Hancock et al., 2004). Usually these acts of deception are seen by the individual engaged in them as being trivial in nature and of little harm or consequence, such as telling someone they are looking well, have lost weight etc. With the growth of the virtual world, including chat rooms, dating sites, and social media, there are “new” arenas and environments where deception can occur, and for a variety of reasons e.g., a study by Utz (2005), found that women in chat rooms, engaged in deception for...Click To Read More

Labelling Theory (Part Two)

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 10th Apr 2023

This is the second of two articles looking at labelling theory (the first can be accessed by clicking here). Labelling theory is a model that comes from Social Interactionism, where crime and deviancy is defined not by the action itself, but society’s reaction to it e.g., spray painting your name on a wall, doesn’t become a crime or deviant behavior until someone labels it as “vandalism”, and the person(s) who engage in the act as “vandals”. In this article I want to look at who decides these labels, and how labelling plays a part in the process of “moral panics”. Although...Click To Read More

Labelling Theory (Part One)

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 3rd Apr 2023

Children get ascribed labels all the time e.g., some kids are identified as “good”, others “bad”, whilst others may get labelled as “troublemakers” and/or “bullies” etc. Growing up, our parents may have told us to not play with, and stay away from certain other children, on the basis that when you hang out with bad people there’s a greater risk that you will engage in risks you might otherwise not take etc. These labels, influence how we view people. For some of us, being told that another child was a “troublemaker”, may have elicited feelings of fear, and made us...Click To Read More