Deceptive CEOs and CFOs, identified in the research as those needing to file subsequent restatements, were in some respects found to have a lot in common. Both were found to use "more references to general knowledge" including phrases like "you know" and "everybody knows," fewer "non-extreme positive emotion words (love, nice, accept) and fewer references to shareholder value" than their presumably more honest colleagues.

But there are also differences.

Deceptive "CEOs use more extreme positive emotion words (fantastic, great, definitely) and fewer anxiety words" than CFOs, who tend to go for "more negation words and for the most description deception criterion they use more extreme negative emotion words (absurd, adverse, awful) and swear words (swear, screw, hell)."

In addition, deceptive narratives of CFOs were found to contain fewer self-references, fewer third person personal pronouns and fewer impersonal pronouns. "The prior literature suggests that the use of first-person singular pronouns implies an individual's ownership of a statement, whereas liars try to dissociate themselves from their words," the paper notes.