“Duping Delight” and Who’s Likely to Lie? (October 25, 2014)

People who get a kick out of lying are said to have “duping delight.” Randy Boyle (Longwood University) studies human deception at the Longwood Center for Cyber Security. He has devised a questionnaire that measures a person’s propensity to lie. Also: Each year there are many food recall or contamination alerts, but not everyone heeds the warnings. Christopher Brady (Virginia State University) looks at the psychological factors that determine which of us will act on the alerts. And: A researcher (Andrew Neilson, Virginia Tech) has found that certain flavanols in cocoa can reduce weight gain. His study identified one particular compound in cocoa prevented laboratory mice from gaining excess weight when fed a high-fat diet.

Later in the show: The trade in human beings—for sex and labor—is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world today, and it’s happening just below the surface of our everyday lives. Author Corban Addison (University of Virginia Law School 2004) confronts human trafficking in his novel A Walk Across the Sun. Also featured: Since World War II, the American “H2” program has brought hundreds of thousands of Jamaican men to the United States to do difficult and dangerous work for some of the nation’s largest agricultural corporations. Cindy Hahamovitch (College of William and Mary) tells the story of these workers in her book No Man’s Land.