Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Psychology

Advisor

Saul Kassin

Committee Members

Deryn Strange

Kelly McWilliams

Erik Mac Giolla

Kyle Scherr

Subject Categories

Criminal Procedure | Social Psychology

Keywords

rapport, interrogations, persuasion, juror decision-making, deception, confessions

Abstract

Rapport is widely regarded as a necessary precondition for interrogations and is thought to lay the foundation for the success of later interrogation techniques. In accusatorial contexts in which suspects are often resistant to disclose potentially self-incriminating information, rapport enables interrogators to gain the suspect’s trust, respect, and cooperation. Although the specific psychological mechanisms by which rapport achieves these effects are largely understudied, rapport-building techniques resemble principles of social influence (Goodman-Delahunty & Howes, 2014), specifically persuasion. Techniques such as establishing common ground, engaging in active listening, demonstrating empathy, and disclosing personal information may serve as impression management strategies, which allow interrogators to convey that they are trustworthy, competent, and likeable. These characteristics are dimensions of credibility, which have been shown to increase a source’s persuasive abilities. In countries like the United States, rapport is often followed by accusatorial approaches, including deceptive tactics, such as false evidence presentations and minimization themes that misrepresent the consequences associated with confessing. Therefore, in accusatorial contexts rapport may facilitate the use of deceptive tactics that inflate the expected utility of confessing.

Recent research has shown that rapport has synergistic effects with minimization, increasing the rate of self-incriminating disclosures (Vallano et al., 2022), but little is known about whether these synergistic effects extend to observers tasked with judging the reliability of such statements. Currently, police in over thirty states are required to videorecord custodial interrogations with the goal of documenting and increasing transparency for the process by which confessions are produced. Thus, jurors are increasingly exposed to techniques including rapport-building and deception, which raises questions about how well-equipped they are to identify and understand the weight these strategies bear on suspects’ statements. In the present studies, I examined whether (1) rapport-building influences observers’ perceptions of interrogator credibility, (2) deception influences observers’ understanding of the expected utility of confessing, (3) rapport increases the effects of deception, and (4) the interrogation outcome colors observers’ interpretation of these techniques.

I conducted two studies using participants from Prolific Academic. In both studies, participants watched staged interrogation videos based on the Russano et al. (2005) cheating paradigm, in which a participant is accused of cheating on a research task. Within these videos, the interrogator varied the use of rapport-building strategies before accusing the suspect of cheating. Following the accusation, the interrogator varied the use of deceptive interrogation strategies, specifically the false evidence ploy and minimization themes. Then, participants answered questions regarding their impressions of the interrogator's and suspect’s credibility, perceptions of the case and suspect’s guilt, and expected utility of confessing. In Study 1, 383 participants based their judgments on only the interview and interrogation. In Study 2, 633 participants additionally watched the suspect’s confession or denial before making their judgments.

Across both studies, observers rated the interrogator as more credible when he built rapport than when he did not. Unexpectedly, rapport-building was also associated with increased suspect credibility. Additionally, deceptive tactics influenced observers’ understanding of the case. Those exposed to deception thought the evidence against the suspect was stronger, likely as a function of the false evidence ploy, and they tended to think confessing would render more benefits than those who heard non-deceptive tactics. Although rapport and deception independently influenced observers’ perceptions of the interrogation context, they did not have synergistic effects as predicted—increased credibility did not result in greater persuasion for deceptive claims. Furthermore, observers underestimated the extent to which both tactics could influence interrogation decision-making. Specifically, they thought it was unlikely overall that the suspect would confess (Study 1) and thought it was unlikely that they would confess as a result of interrogation tactics if they were in the suspect’s position (Study 1 & 2). In Study 2, observers’ perceptions of the case and decision-making process were also influenced by seeing the suspect’s own decision; those who saw the suspect confess inferred confessing was the more utilitarian choice and were more likely to think they would confess themselves.

Taken together, the results of these studies demonstrate that rapport-building manages even observers’ impressions of an interrogator, despite not being directly involved in the interaction. Although I did not find evidence that these impressions influenced the efficacy of later interrogation tactics, credibility did persist in spite of increasingly accusatory questioning, which raises questions about the long-term consequences of rapport-building for both observers and suspects. Future research should continue to explore the underlying psychological mechanisms of rapport-building for observers, suspects, and interrogators alike. Such research will improve our understanding of how interrogation tactics function together and inform the development of evidence-based alternatives to current accusatorial interrogation approaches.

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