According to recent research, individuals can become more adept at recognizing deception if they are more in tune with their bodily signals.
Imagine clicking on an unexpected email from your bank, and something feels off. Your heart races. There’s an uneasy feeling in your stomach. Something doesn’t sit right.
Then you spot that the email address is undoubtedly fake, and the text is filled with spelling errors. Clearly, it’s a phishing scam, you think, as you delete it and keep a vigilant check on your bank account.
This “gut feeling” might be more significant than we previously believed. Research from psychologists at the University of Florida suggests that our bodies can assist us in detecting lies and fraud. The study revealed that older adults who were more attuned to their own heartbeat were better at identifying deceitful behavior and phishing emails.
“Observing these internal signals proves beneficial, and we think this is a skill we could develop in individuals to enhance their ability to spot scams, though more research is necessary,” stated Natalie Ebner, Ph.D., a psychology professor at UF and the senior author of the study.
This would be a substantial advantage, especially since older adults lose over $28 billion annually to financial scams targeting them.
To explore the impact of this gut feeling, researchers gathered over 100 adults divided into two age groups: young adults in their early twenties and an older group averaging 69 years old. Participants were asked to count their heartbeat without checking their pulse to measure their body awareness.
Subsequently, each person attempted to identify phishing emails taken from actual scam attempts. They also needed to discern liars shown in real news footage, featuring individuals pleading for the return of missing family members—some of these speakers were later convicted of murdering the missing individuals, exposing their previous lies.
“We examined two very different situations: one a straightforward email, and the other an emotionally charged video,” explained Ebner. “In both scenarios, we observed the same outcome: older adults gain from increased bodily awareness when detecting deception.”
Older adults who could accurately sense their own heartbeat performed 15% to 20% better at spotting lies and fraudulent emails. In contrast, improved bodily awareness did not enhance deception detection in younger adults, possibly because they relied more on cognitive abilities for the task.
Ebner worked alongside UF researchers Tian Lin, Ph.D., Didem Pehlivanoglu, Ph.D., and Pedro Valdes-Hernandez, Ph.D., as well as psychologists from other universities. Their findings were published on September 19 in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.
