Russano, M. B., Meissner, C. A., Narchet, F. M., & Kassin, S.
M. (2005). Investigating
true and
false confessions within a novel experimental paradigm. Psychological Science, 16, 481-486.
The goal of the present article was to develop a new experimental
false confession paradigm and to test different interrogation tactics used by
interrogators. A new experimental
paradigm for false confessions was needed because in the original paradigm, the
“ALT” key paradigm all participants are innocent. In the new paradigm, the experimenters can
manipulate who is guilty and innocent, allowing them to look at both true and
false confessions.
Method
Participants were brought into the lab with a
confederate. They were given the task of
solving problems – some of which were supposed to be solved individually and
some were to be solved in pairs. In the
experimental “guilty” condition, the confederate asked the participant an
answer to one of the “individual” problems.
If the participants gave the answer, then they were included in the
“guilty” condition. (If not, their data
was not used). In the control condition
the confederate did not ask for the answer.
After completion of this phase, the experimenter started
“scoring” the responses and came back into the lab and told them that they had
the same wrong answer on one of the “individual” problems, and that they must
have cheated. He said that the faculty
advisor had been contacted and he was very angry. He asked the participant to sign a confession
stating that they had cheated on the problems.
The experimenters also manipulated the presence of two
interrogation tactics. One was
“minimization” where the experimenter minimized the seriousness of the offense
by saying “I’m sure you didn’t realize what a big deal it was.” The other was the offer of a deal, where the
experimenter told the participants that if they signed the confession he
wouldn’t involve the faculty advisor any further. (The punishment for
confessing was that they would have to come back and participate in an
experiment without receiving credit).
Results
Both minimization and deal making increased the rates of
true AND false confessions. When both
techniques were used there was an even higher rate of true and false
confessions.
Diagnosticity (the ratio of true
to false confessions) was highest when neither of the techniques were used and lowest when both were used.
Discussion
Although the interrogation tactics increased true
confessions, they also had the negative effect of increasing false confessions.
Important Legal
Disclaimer: The preceding are articles we read together in the Lampinen Lab Fall 2005 false memory reading group. By
clicking on the button next to the article you can see the summary of that
article. The summary was prepared by the student presenting that article and it
is of course the case that the views expressed in the summary do not
necessarily represent the views of the reading group as a whole, Dr. Lampinen, the Lampinen Lab, Hugo's,
the University of Arkansas, the Razorback Football or Basketball teams
(although we're not sure about cross country), people living down the street
from us, Bob Dylan, Jack Fate, our extended families, or anyone else for that
matter except for the student who wrote the summary (and they don't necessarily
believe what they wrote either).