Interrogations & Confessions Flashcards
Of all evidence presented to prosecutors, confessions are least valuable: true or false?
False
(We trust statements that are made against a person’s self-interest; people are more likely to believe someone who confesses to a crime than denies it. Confessions are therefore very powerful, but unfortunately the way in which confession evidence is obtained is equally very controversial.)
Police seem to gain satisfaction and prowess from eliciting confessions - some even keeping count of how many confessions they are able to obtain. This is called:
Confession culture
Despite “confession culture,” police don’t tend to admit that the aim of interrogating suspects is to elicit confessions. True or false?
False
(One study cited that about 80% police make confessions the aim of their interrogations.)
Police tend to focus on getting confessions because people who confess are more likely to then:
a) be incarcerated
b) confess to other crimes
c) plead guilty
c) plead guilty
The psychological phenomenon that occurs when we attribute a suspect’s behaviour to their being guilty of a crime (without acknowledging external factors) is called:
The fundamental attribution error
(Ignoring situational factors when evaluating someone’s behaviour for negative things, but doing the opposite for our own)
Name the controversial 9-step process designed by Reid & colleagues in 1986 to elicit confessions from suspects:
The Reid Technique
Sympathy and “face-saving” are examples of ____ strategies when eliciting confessions:
Minimisation
Interrupting denial, overcoming objections and confrontation are examples of ____ strategies when eliciting confessions:
Maximisation
According to Reid (1986), being overly polite is a sign that the suspect is:
Guilty
According to Reid (1986), the ability to give concise answers means a suspect is probably:
Innocent
If a suspect confesses and is actually guilty, then it is a:
1) False negative
2) Hit
3) False positive
4) True negative
Hit
If a suspect confesses but is NOT guilty, then it is a:
1) Hit
2) True negative
3) False negative
4) False positive
False positive
If the suspect does NOT confess but is guilty, then it is a:
1) False negative
2) False positive
3) Hit
4) True negative
False negative
If there is NO confession and the suspect is NOT guilty, then it is a:
1) Hit
2) False negative
3) True negative
4) False positive
True negative
Name the 3 types of false confessions:
Voluntary
Coerced compliant
Coerced internalised
Name the type of false confession: a person knows they are not guilty, but incriminates himself with no pressure from the police.
Voluntary
Name the type of false confession: an innocent suspect confesses after intense interrogation, but knows they are innocent.
Coerced compliant
Name the type of false confession: an innocent person confesses after intense interrogation, and believes they are guilty.
Coerced internalised
The case of Tom Sawyer, the victim of a coerced internalised false confession, also demonstrates which psychological phenomenon?
The fundamental attribution error
(Tom Sawyer had a plethora of mental health issues, including socialphobia and lower IQ. When interrogated by police, they were more likely to attribute his nervousness to being “guilty” than to his mental health.)
US police can lie to suspects. True or false?
True
(Police may use statements such as “we found your fingerprints on the gun” or “we know you did it” in order to elicit confessions from suspects, even if they are innocent. This has implications especially for vulnerable witnesses, for whom original memories may be irretrievable.)
Kassin et al (2005) found that police are not very good at identifying when confessions are true or false. They also found that they are most accurate when examining suspects via what?
Audio tapes
(Body language is thought to play role in identifying true or false confessions, even though research suggests that BL actually does not tell us much about whether a suspect is lying. Using audio tapes to examine confessions is therefore believed to be more reliable than using video tapes because police cannot see the suspect’s body language.)
Police would rather believe that confessions are true rather than false. This is called:
Positive guilt bias
Name the 3 variables measured in Kassin & Kiechel’s (1996) “reaction time task” (later revealed to be a study on false confessions):
Compliance
Internalisation
Confabulation
In Kassin & Kiechel’s (1996) false confession study, results showed there was less compliance with the slow-paced condition, and more ____ with the fast-paced condition:
1- Compliance
2- Internalisation
3- Confabulation
Confabulation
The 2 manipulated variables in Russano et al’s (2005) false vs true confessions study were minimalisation and:
No minimalisation
The ratio of true to false confessions is called:
Diagnosticity
(The goal of any interrogation is to have high diagnosticity - that is, more true confessions that false ones.)
Name the biggest risk factor for falsely confessing to a crime:
Innocence
