Expert witnesses and scholars sometimes disagree on whether suggestibility and compliance are related to people's tendency to falsely confess. Hence, the principal aim of this review was to amass the available evidence on the link between suggestibility and compliance and false confessions. We reviewed experimental data in which false confessions were experimentally evoked and suggestibility and compliance were measured. Furthermore, we reviewed field data of potential false confessions and their relationship with suggestibility and compliance. These diverse databases converge to the same conclusion. We unequivocally found that high levels of suggestibility (and to a lesser extent compliance) were associated with an increased vulnerability to falsely confess. Suggestibility measurements might be informative for expert witnesses who must evaluate the false confession potential in legal cases.
Purpose. Forensic interviewers often face witnesses who are unwilling to cooperate with the investigation. In this experimental study, we examined the extent to which cooperativeness instructions affect information disclosure in a witness investigative interview.Methods. One hundred and thirty-six participants watched a recorded mock-crime and were interviewed twice as mock-witnesses. They were randomly assigned to one of four conditions instructing different levels of cooperativeness: Control (no instructions), Cooperation, No Cooperation, and No Cooperation plus Cooperation. The cooperativeness instructions aimed to influence how participants' perceived the costs and benefits of cooperation. We predicted that Cooperation and No Cooperation instructions would increase and decrease information disclosure and accuracy, respectively.Results. We found decreased information disclosure and, to a lesser extent, accuracy in the No Cooperation and No Cooperation plus Cooperation conditions. In a second interview, the shift of instructions from No Cooperation to Cooperation led to a limited increase of information disclosure at no cost of accuracy. Cooperativeness instructions partially influenced the communication strategies participants used to disclose or withhold information. Conclusions.Our results demonstrate the detrimental effects of uncooperativeness on information disclosure and, to a lesser extent, the accuracy of witness statements. We discuss the implications of a lack of witness cooperation and the importance of gaining witness cooperation to facilitate information disclosure in investigative interviews.Witnesses can provide crucial information in a criminal investigation, which later can serve as evidence in court (Fisher, Milne, & Bull, 2011). In an investigative interview,This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.