Coping by deceiving: Developing LYin self-perceived self-deception scales and exploring their links to interpersonal...

Self-deception is complex and poses significant challenges for its measurement. The present study developed two measurement tools and explored the associations between self-perceived self-deception and various forms of other-deception. Study 1 (N = 2018) developed and validated the LYin Self-Perceived Self-Deception Tendency Questionnaire (LYin SDT) and LYin Self-Deception Awareness Scale (LYin SDA) to capture accessible self-deceptive responding tendency and subjectively experienced self-deception. The new scales were found to be related to denial coping and showed incremental validity in predicting the avoidance of threatening information and post-threat reflection, respectively. Studies 2-4 investigated how the two scales relate to interpersonal deceptive tendencies. Findings from Studies 2 (N = 301) and 3 (N = 305) showed that participants with higher LYin SDT exhibited greater self-serving dishonesty, including both explicit lies and omissions of truth. Study 4 (N = 300) applied self-relevant and interpersonal scenarios, where participants either processed information privately or decided what to disclose to others. Higher LYin SDT was related to more self-deceptive responses in self-relevant scenarios, as well as maintenance and disengagement coping tendencies in both scenarios. Together, these findings validate the two scales as effective tools for assessing self-perceived self-deception and elucidate the distinct deceiving and coping correlates.