3 - Kassin: the social psychology of false confessions: compliance, internalisation and confabulation

Question 1

What are the 3 types of false confessions?

Answer 1

-> confabulation: creating detailed but false memories to fit the accusation

-> compliance: subject confesses only to escape and aversive interrogation secure and promised benefit, or avoid threats

-> internalised: subjects starts to believe they are actually guilty

Question 2

What is the hypothesis/motivation behind this research?

Answer 2

false evidence can cause vulnerable individuals to confess to an act they did not commit, internalise the confession and perhaps even confabulate details

Question 3

What was the method of the experiment?

Answer 3

used a typing task were the computer would crash and they would then accuse the pps of pressing the wrong key

had a fast and slow typing condition

4 groups
-> high vulnerability, presence false witness
-> high vulnerability, absence of false witness
-> low vulnerability, presence false witness
-> low vulnerability, absence of false witness

Question 4

What did they find?

Answer 4

Overall: 69% confessed, 28% internalised and 9% confabulated details

Slow paced/witness absent group: least likely to comply, internalise or confabulate

Fast paced/witness present group: most likely to comply, internalise and confabulate

Question 5

What did the researchers conclude from these results?

Answer 5

memory can be altered even for recent actions
-> confirms their hypothesis