Eitan Elaad

Eitan Elaad is a Professor of Psychology at Ariel University in Israel, where his research focuses on the psychology of lying, physiological detection of deception (polygraph), biases in decision making, and false confessions. Earlier in his career, he served as a research officer in the Scientific Interrogation Unit of the Israel National Police, received his PhD in Psychology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1988, and his research interests included psychophysiological detection of concealed knowledge, the social psychology of deception, and decision-making processes.

Elaad is recognized as one of the world's leading researchers on the Concealed Information Test (CIT), also known as the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT). His landmark 2003 meta-analysis with Gershon Ben-Shakhar, based on 169 conditions from 80 laboratory studies, found an overall average effect size of 1.55 for the GKT, with mock-crime studies producing the highest average effect size (2.09). His field studies have been particularly influential—reviewing 15 mock crime studies, he found average detection rates of 80.6% for guilty examinees and 95.9% for the innocent. Beyond meta-analytic work, Elaad has made significant contributions to understanding countermeasures, examiner bias effects, and the role of motivation in polygraph testing. His research has examined how an examiner's awareness of crime-relevant information influences the outcomes of the GKT, and explored both mental and behavioral countermeasures that examinees might employ to defeat detection.

With over 3,200 citations, Elaad stands among the most influential scholars in polygraph science. His sustained collaboration with Gershon Ben-Shakhar of Hebrew University has produced some of the field's most rigorous empirical and theoretical work on the CIT. Elaad has published extensively in top-tier journals including the Journal of Applied Psychology, Psychophysiology, and the International Journal of Psychophysiology. His career spans both applied forensic work with the Israel National Police and academic research, giving him unique insight into both laboratory validity and real-world field applications. He has also contributed chapters to major handbooks on deception detection, including work on personality and demographic correlates of self-assessed lying abilities.

While polygraph research forms the core of his work, Elaad's broader research program extends into the psychology of deception more generally, including studies on lying behavior in everyday contexts, the effects of personality traits on deception ability, and cognitive biases in judicial and investigative decision-making. His recent work has explored innovative topics such as how face masks worn during the COVID-19 pandemic affect lying behavior, and connections between narcissism, rational thinking, and deceptive success.