What did Bond and DePaulo (2006) find about accuracy in deception detection?

• A. 54% of the time
• B. 70% of the time
• C. 40% of the time
• D. 60% of the time

Answer: (A)

Accuracy in deception detection tends to be modest; people aren’t very reliable at telling lies from truths. Bond and DePaulo (2006) synthesized many studies and found that, on average, people correctly identify deception about 54 percent of the time—just a small edge over chance. This shows that deception cues are weak and inconsistent, so even everyday observers aren’t much better than flipping a coin. The other numbers imply much higher or lower performance than this substantial body of evidence supports, so the 54% figure best captures the typical accuracy level reported.