Lindsay Reynolds
Madeline E. Smith
ABSTRACT
In an always-connected world, managing one's unavailability for interaction with others can be as important and difficult as coordinating mutual availability. Prior studies have identified the butler lie, a linguistic strategy commonly used to manage unavailability, and examined message-level data to examine how message senders' use of butler lies varies across media and situations. This study is the first to examine how butler lies are perceived by those who receive them. Pairs of student participants provided messages sent to each other in real conversations and indicated whether these messages were deceptive or not. These messages were then passed to the partner, who indicated perceived deception and provided an explanation. Results suggest that participants expect butler lies regularly although not as often as they are actually produced, and participants are not very accurate in identifying butler lies. Moreover, detailed analysis of messages and explanations suggests that butler lies play a relational role that is expected by both parties in a dialog.
- Aoki, P., & Woodruff, A. (2005). Making space for stories: ambiguity in the design of personal communication systems. Proc. ACM CHI, 181--190. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Birnholtz, J., Dixon, G., & Hancock, J. (2012). Distance, ambiguity and appropriation: Structures affording impression management in a collocated organization. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 1028--1035. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Birnholtz, J., Guillory, J., Hancock, J. T., & Bazarova, N. (2010). "on my way": Deceptive Texting and Interpersonal Awareness Narratives. Proc. ACM CSCW, 1--4. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Boehner, K., & Hancock, J. T. (2006). Advancing ambiguity. Proc. ACM CHI, 103--107. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bond, C. F. and DePaulo, B., M. (2006). Accuracy of Deception Judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10 (3), 214--234.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Chen, B. X. (2011). Always on: how the iPhone unlocked the anything - anytime - anywhere future - and locked us in. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- DePaulo, B. M., Kashy, D. A., Kirkendol, S. E., Wyer, M. M., and Epstein, J. A., (1996). Lying in Everyday Life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(5), 979--995.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Fielder, K. and Walka, I. (1993). Training Lie Detectors to Use Nonverbal Cues Instead of Global Heuristics. Human Communication Research, 20(2), 199--223.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Frank, M. G. & Ekman, P. (1997). The ability to detect deceit generalizes across different types of high stake lies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1429--1439.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Grinter, R., & Eldridge, M. (2003). Wan2tlk?: Everyday Text Messaging. Proc. ACM CHI, 441--448. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hancock, J. T., Birnholtz, J., Bazarova, N., Guillory, J., Perlin, J., & Amos, B. (2009). Butler lies: awareness, deception and design. Proc. ACM CHI, 517--526. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hancock, J., Thom-Santelli, J., and Ritchie, T. (2004). Deception and design: the impact of communication technology on lying behavior. Proc. ACM CHI, 129--134. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Häkkilä, J., and Chatfield, C. (2005). 'It's like if you opened someone else's letter' - User Perceived Privacy and Social Practices with SMS Communication, Proc. ACM MobileHCI, 219--222. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Leonardi, P. M., Treem, J. W., & Jackson, M. H. (2010). The Connectivity Paradox: Using Technology to Both Decrease and Increase Perceptions of Distance in Distributed Work Arrangements. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 38(1), 85--105.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Levine, T. R., Park, H. S., & McCornack, S. A. (1999). Accuracy in detecting truths and lies: Documenting the "veracity effect." Communication Monographs, 66, 125--144.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Levine, T. R., Kim, R. K., Park, H. S., & Hughes, M. (2006). Deception detection accuracy is a predictable linear function of message veracity base-rate: A formal test of Park and Levine's probability model. Communication Monographs, 73, 243--260.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Ma, F., Xu, F., Heyman, G. D., & Lee, K. (2011). Chinese children's evaluations of white lies: Weighing the consequences for recipients. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108, 308--321.Google ScholarCross Ref
- McCornack, S. A., & Parks, M. R. (1986). Deception detection and relationship development: The other side of trust. In M. L. McLaughlin (Ed.), Communication yearbook 9 (pp. 377--389). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
- Miller, G. R., Mongeau, P. A., & Sleight, C. (1986). Fudging with Friends and Lying to Lovers: Deceptive Communication in Personal Relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 3, 495--512.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Perry, M., O'Hara, K., Sellen, A., Brown, B., & Harper, R. (2001). Dealing with mobility: understanding access anytime, anywhere. ACM TOCHI, 8, 323--347. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Read, S. (1992). Constructing accounts: the role of explanatory coherence. Explaining the self to others. M. L. McLaughlin, M. J. Cody and S. Read. Hillsdale, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: 3--19.Google Scholar
- Reynolds, L., Gillette, S., Marder, J., Miles, Z., Vodenski, P., Weintraub, A., et al. (2011). Contact stratification and deception. Proc. ACM CSCW, 221--224. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Salovaara, A., Lindqvist, A., Hasu, T., Häkkilä, J. (2011). The Phone Rings but the User Doesn't Answer: Unavailability in Mobile Communication. Proc. ACM MobileHCI, 503--512. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Serota, K. B., Levine, T. R., and Boster, F. J. (2010). The Prevalence of Lying in America: Three Studies of Self-Reported Lies. Human Communication Research, 36(1), 2--25.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Smith, A. (2011). Americans and Text Messaging. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.Google Scholar
- SPSS Technical Report. Linear Mixed Modeling. http://www.spss.ch/upload/1107355943_LinearMixedEffectsModelling.pdf.Google Scholar
- Tang, J. C. (2007). Approaching and leave-taking: Negotiating contact in computer-mediated communication. ACM TOCHI. 14 (1), Article 5. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Vanden Abeele, M., & Roe, K. (2008). White cyberlies: The use of deceptive instant messaging statuses as a social norm. Presented at Conference of the International Communication Association.Google Scholar
- Vrij, A. (2008). Detecting lies and deceit: pitfalls and opportunities. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
- Waidd, W. M., Orne , M. T. (1981). Cognitive, Social, and Personality Processes in the Physiological Detection of Deception, In: Leonard Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Academic Press, 14, 61--106.Google Scholar
- Weilenmann, A. (2003). "I can't talk now, I'm in a fitting room": formulating availability and location in mobile-phone conversations. Environment and Planning A, 35, 1589--1605.Google ScholarCross Ref
Index Terms
- Butler lies from both sides: actions and perceptions of unavailability management in texting
Recommendations
Is This How We (All) Do It?: Butler Lies and Ambiguity Through a Broader Lens
CHI '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsThe ubiquity of mobile devices has resulted in more opportunities to interact with more people than ever before. Given a finite capacity for interaction with others, people commonly manage their availability by limiting others' access to them. Prior ...
Butler lies: awareness, deception and design
CHI '09: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsInstant messaging (IM) is a common and popular way for co-workers, friends, and family to stay in touch, but its"always-on properties can sometimes lead people to feel overexposed or too readily available to others for conversation. This, in turn, may ...
Punctuation in text messages may convey abruptness. Period
In contrast with face-to-face conversations, text messages lack extra-linguistic cues such as tone of voice and gestures. We explore the hypothesis that textisms, such as irregular punctuation, are used to fill this role. We extend the work of Gunraj, ...
Comments