Pardon Me, Your Pronoun is Showing

In deception detection, omitting pronouns is an indicator of a deceptive statement.

Backstory

Our state law requires residential property assessments that include external measuring of property and inquiry of  number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Each summer a local municipality hires college kids to walk the neighborhood to measure, ask questions if the home owner is present, or leave a notice for voluntary completion if no one answers the door.

All homeowners are also sent a letter approximately two weeks in advance notifying them to expect the employees who will be wearing uniforms and ID badges.

Got it? State law, advance notice, external only, summer job for college kids.

Unhappy Residents

To be expected, some home owners aren’t happy about this and feel the need to take it out on the students who knock on their door.

The co-eds have been instructed to remain professional at all times, give the owner the contact information of those above their paygrade if they have concerns, and avoid confrontation at all costs.

They’re also instructed not to enter any locked gates. And really, what 19 year old do you know who would want to create more work for themselves by attempting to jump a gate/fence when they could simply annotate, “gate locked”, and move on to the next house?

Enter Social Media

I don’t think I need to say too much about “beer goggles”, or more like digital goggles, that accompany some social media posts. Suffice it to say, it happens. It seems to be easy for some people to say things online that they would not say to a person’s face.

Below is a response from a woman on a community Facebook group – as it relates to the very subject above, property assessments.  After her statement is my deception analysis of it.

“Didn’t get a letter and found two young men in my fenced in back yard that was locked…was pretty irritated. I will be reporting it to the township though. My husband was not happy. We have a pool. These were kids in my back yard. It was a locked fence… I don’t care what law it is. We never received a letter either. You don’t jump someone’s fence.”

Missing Pronouns

There are many things you can learn by closely looking at the pronouns used, or not used, by the subject. Pronouns give us responsibility. Sometimes people do not want to take responsibility for their actions or ownership of the statement they made.

A missing “I” indicates there is tension and a lack of commitment to their statement. The person may not have done what he wants you to believe he has done. Consider the following statement.

“Woke up at 6:00. Took a shower. Made coffee and checked Facebook. At 8:30, drove to work.”

In this statement, the writer never used the pronoun “I.” He has not told you who woke up or who took a shower. You cannot believe he did these things because he has not told you that he did them. There is a good chance he is making up the story.

Deception Analysis

Now let’s look at the homeowner’s statement again:

“Didn’t get a letter and found two young men in my fenced in back yard that was locked…was pretty irritated. I will be reporting it to the township though. My husband was not happy. We have a pool. These were kids in my back yard. It was a locked fence… I don’t care what law it is. We never received a letter either. You don’t jump someone’s fence.”

Lack of Pronouns

Clearly she uses pronouns: “I will be reporting, My husband, We have, my back yard, I don’t care, We never received …”.

But – notice where the pronouns are missing: “Didn’t get a letter and found two young men in my fenced in back yard that was locked…was pretty irritated.”

Who didn’t get a letter? Who found two young men? What was locked? Who was irritated?

She also said, “You don’t jump someone’s fence.” This shows lack of commitment to her statement. A more credible statement would have been “I would not jump a fence.” Or “Those young men should not have jumped my fence (if, indeed, she witnessed that happening).

Never Doesn’t Mean No

“We never received a letter either.”

Sometimes a denial only sounds like a denial. The use of “Never”, in place of “No”, is often used in deceptive statements. The only time “never” would be a credible denial is if she was asked “Have you ever …?”

However, if the qualifier was never asked, and a true denial is not used, it’s a deceptive statement.  A credible statement would have been “We did not receive a letter.”

Truth

She may call the township. Her husband may not have been happy. I suspect they do have a pool and there were kids in the back yard. Those are all credible statements.

Conclusion

Contrary to what she would like the community members to believe, the gate was not locked, although she may have thought it was. The two young men did not jump fence. She may not have seen or read the notification letter, but one was sent to her. I have ground truth (credible evidence) on that.