An Open Invitation To Be Deceptive

The rest of us weigh such factors as who we’re talking to and the situation in which we’re interacting as we make decisions regarding how to behave and what to say. A blind date is in some ways only a pressurized version of a circumstance we face all the time. While we may not always be explicitly attempting to woo or impress another person, our encounters with others inevitably involve revealing and concealing, emphasizing and downplaying. At some point, we may find ourselves stepping from shading and selection over into distorting and invention. On a blind date, such temptations can be especially strong. Cosmetic deceit is a way of answering these insecurities. Further, the stakes on a blind date can be, well, blindingly high. In this context, the urge to impress may easily trump the commitment to honesty. The initially inexplicable deceit of my student regarding his invented bike trip thus becomes more explicable. My student wanted to impress his date and ended up enhancing his attributes by concocting an athletic adventure. Certainly, he was not alone in his behavior. Studies have found that cosmetic deceit occurs in a range of romantic contexts.

Lighten Up

In other words, did people change tactics according to whether they were wooing someone more or less attractive? The researchers told the study participants that the profiled individuals would be selecting one participant to go on a date with based on a survey they would fill out. The researchers then analyzed the surveys the participants completed to see how they had presented themselves to what they believed to be potential romantic partners. The participants were not entirely honest in the surveys. What is telling, though, is that the participants lied more in the surveys directed to the more attractive individuals. In other words, the greater the attraction, the greater the deception. The nature of the deception Rowatt and his colleagues identified is also instructive. The participants often lied in order to appear more similar to the profiled individual. As opposed to embracing the motto that opposites attract, participants fabricated resemblances to their romantic targets. Playing up similarities is a conventional tactic in winning the affection of another person. We’ve all been told to focus on what we have in common when meeting someone new. Cosmetic deceit offers a way to build the bridge of common interests and personality traits, even when it may not exist. When people want to woo an attractive potential mate, Rowatt and his colleagues’ study suggests, they lie to present themselves as just like him or her.

Breaking Point

Cosmetic deceit, then, can serve a variety of functions in the romantic realm. It can be used to build up a suitor’s credentials in stereotypically desirable categories, such as achievement, ambition, or status. Further, it can be used in a more psychologically subtle way, to achieve a kind of matching with the romantic target. It should be noted, as well, that these uses are far from mutually exclusive. Indeed, the tweaking of a biography and the fabrication of similarities can overlap in complex ways. For example, as women become increasingly financially successful earlier in life, there is a growing trend among young women to actually pretend to earn less than they really do, so as not to threaten the egos of potential male partners. Cosmetic deceit can be used to make yourself seem a little less accomplished, then, when you think it might benefit you or appeal to your date. The functions of cosmetic deceit are hardly limited to romantic situations, of course. Indeed, they are not limited even to social contexts. The pressures to fit particular criteria can be institutional. Getting and keeping a job necessarily entails matching personal skills and abilities with the specific needs of an employer. And just as people use cosmetic deceit to impress an attractive potential mate with false attributes, so too do they use it to woo potential bosses with degrees they never earned and past experiences they never had.

Keep Talking

Jones counseled teens to stop trying to embody the theoretical ideal in the mind of an Ivy League admissions officer and focus more on being themselves. Yet however valid Jones’s message was, it only rang with irony when application of indiscretions of her own came to light. The public seemed fascinated by a tale of such glaring fraud at such a renowned educational institution. Yet the fact is that Jones’s behavior was far from extraordinary. The practice of embellishing a résumé is fairly common. Padding a résumé to a small degree is so common that it often falls into the category of minor crimes dismissed as things everybody does. In this context, job applicants may even feel at a disadvantage if they don’t stretch the truth on their résumé, creating another impetus for deceit. Job interviews, another fundamental element of the job application process, provide an even greater opportunity to lie. Interviews are conducted orally, so they leave no verifiable record of what occurred. Many people see this as an open invitation to be deceptive. Since statements cannot be vetted later, the checks against exaggerating accomplishments or taking false credit are that much weaker. If we consider the psychological dynamics of applying or interviewing for a job, perhaps all this cosmetic deceit should not surprise us. In many ways, the factors that induce people to engage in cosmetic deceit on a blind date are the same ones that tempt them to lie when seeking a job. The evaluative intensity of a blind date is paralleled in a job interview. The entire purpose of the interaction is scrutiny, as an interviewer evaluates the candidate on a range of criteria, from business skills to personality. Decisions about what to say and what to conceal take on great importance. As it plays out in the context of job seeking generally, cosmetic deceit is often very specific and very concrete. Employers make clear what they are looking for in a new hire. Perceived gaps in who we are can be masked through lies.