A Qualitative Study of Truthful, Deceptive, and Mixed Interactions in a Daily Diary Paradigm

Communication is the cornerstone of socialization. In their daily life, people share their feelings, opinions, or plans. These details can indicate the sender’s true intentions or be strategically distorted, depending on the specific conversational goals. Most research on daily communication is quantitative, with few studies examining what is being said across contexts in a qualitative approach. Additionally, research on deception tends to treat truth and lies as two separate, dichotomous yet heterogeneous categories. However, emerging data on embedded deception show that most of the time, people mix truthful and deceptive information in the message, with very rare instances of completely deceptive interactions. The current qualitative study is a partial replication and extension of the seminal DePaulo et al.’s (1996) study, aiming to provide an up-to-date look at individuals' communication patterns in daily life. Using a daily diary method, 30 participants were asked to record details about their social interactions over 2 weeks. We classified 1,307 responses based on their content and referent. Additionally, in contrast with previous research, we organized these reports as truthful, deceptive, or instances in which both truthful and deceptive details were provided. Our thematic analysis revealed that truthful and deceptive interactions contained references to feelings, actions, and explanations. They are most often related to the sender of the message, as well as objects, events, and places. We discuss the findings in relation to the available literature on daily deception.