The Impact Of Emotion And Facial Width-to-Height Ratio On Deception Detection And Interpersonal Trust Among College Students

Fraud is a widespread social problem around the world that involves the use of deception to obtain something of value or to avoid an obligation.Fraud causes serious damage to individuals,society and the economy.Victims may face financial crises,reduced quality of life,and even physical and mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.For society,fraud undermines the foundation of social trust,making cooperation and interaction between people more difficult and increasing social insecurity.Since college students are more vulnerable to fraud due to their lack of financial knowledge and awareness of prevention,etc.,it is especially important to establish effective fraud prevention measures to reduce the occurrence of fraud among college students.Emotion and facial width-to-height ratio were found to play an important role in deception detection and interpersonal trust.First,deception is emotional,and the emotional state of the fraudster affects the ability of others to detect deception and also affects others’ trust.Second,facial widthto-height ratios were also found to be related to deception and trust,with those with smaller facial width-to-height ratios being more likely to be trusted,while those with larger facial width-to-height ratios were perceived as less trustworthy and more likely to engage in deceptive behavior.Deception and trust are closely related concepts,and how emotions and facial width-to-height ratios affect deception detection and interpersonal trust among Chinese college students remains to be explored.In addition,it is unclear what differences exist in facial characteristics and psychological traits between college students who are victims of fraud and those who are not.The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of emotion and facial width-to-height ratio on deception detection and interpersonal trust among college students,as well as to analyze the psychological factors and facial characteristics that contribute to college students’ fraud victimization.The results of the study not only contributed to an in-depth understanding of the effects of emotion and facial width-to-height ratio on deception detection and interpersonal trust among college students,but also revealed psychological and facial differences between victims and non-victims.These findings provide important directions for future research related to deception detection and provide a reference for developing effective strategies for identifying potentially fraud-prone individuals to better prevent college student fraud.A total of 102 college student subjects participated in this study,which was divided into three parts: in the first part,a deception game experiment was designed to simulate a fraud situation,in which participants were asked to identify honest and deceptive descriptions of deceivers in different emotional states;in the second part,facial width-to-height ratios were calculated for all participants to explore the effect of facial width-to-height ratios on participants’ ability to detect honest and deceptive descriptions;in the third part,fraud victimization experiences were used questionnaire and the Chinese version of the Interpersonal Reaction Pointer Scale to explore the psychological traits and facial characteristics of fraud-victimized college students.The main conclusions of the study are as follows:(1)The deceiver’s negative emotion negatively affects his or her deceptive behavior.When the deceiver was in a negative emotion,college students were better able to discriminate between their honest and deceptive behaviors.In contrast,when the deceiver was in a positive emotion,college students’ ability to discriminate was below the level of random guessing.(2)Positive emotions promote interpersonal trust among college students.When college students were in positive emotions,the honest descriptions they provided were more likely to be trusted by each other.(3)People with smaller facial width-to-height ratios were more likely to be trusted by others.(4)There may be a negative association between facial width-to-height ratio and deception detection ability,but this association is not strong and further research is needed to explore this relationship in depth.(5)Individuals with smaller facial width-to-height ratios and higher personal distress(PD)scores are more likely to be victims of fraud,implying a correlation between these factors and an individual’s risk of becoming a victim of fraud.