Social skills,distorted perception and being suspect: Studies in impression formation and the ability to deceive

Conclusion This paper dealt with the relation between social skills and a) making a suspicious impression, b) the ability to deceive. The results suggest that observers typically entertain perceptual distortion: introverted and socially anxious persons automatically impress them as less credible while extroverts establish more credibility. Introverts and socially anxious people are more likely to be designated as suspect in the sense of Article 27 of theCod of Penal Procedure-their extroverted and non-anxious counterparts run less risk on this point. The results further show that social skills are related to the ability to hide the truth. The introverted and socially anxious are poor liars. In sum, we may conclude that the likelihood of criminal stigmatization is appreciably greater if one's behavior is introverted or socially anxious because they impress others as suspicious (they run the risk of being apprehended more readily and they will more quickly succumb under questioning). Eysenck's theory (1984) states that crimes are more strongly correlated with extroversion. This means that extroverts have a double advantage. The double handicap for introverted and socially anxious persons could be undone if detection officers would pay somewhat greater attention to the extroverted and socially non-anxious. In addition, we would recommend that training programs for police officers include material on impression formation and impression management as aspects of social skills.