Using rapport building to improve information yield when interviewing adolescents: A systematic review and call for research.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Adolescents frequently experience and witness violence and crime, yet very little research has been conducted to determine how best to question these witnesses to elicit complete and accurate disclosures. OBJECTIVE: This systematic review integrated scientific research on rapport building with child and adult witnesses with theory and research on adolescent development in order to identify rapport building techniques likely to be effective with suspected adolescent victims and witnesses. METHOD: Four databases were searched to identify investigations of rapport building in forensic interviewing of adolescents. RESULTS: Despite decades of research of studies including child and adult participants, only one study since 1990 experimentally tested techniques to build rapport with adolescents. Most rapport strategies used with children and adults have yet to be tested with adolescents. Tests of these strategies, along with modifications based on developmental science of adolescence, would provide a roadmap to determining which approaches are most beneficial when questioning adolescent victims and witnesses. CONCLUSIONS: There is a clear need for research that tests what strategies are best to use with adolescents. They may be reluctant to disclose information about stressful or traumatic experiences to adults due to both normative developmental processes and the types of events about which they are questioned in legal settings. Rapport building approaches tailored to address adolescents' motivational needs may be effective in increasing adolescents' reporting, and additional research testing such approaches will provide much-needed insight to inform the development of evidence-based practices for questioning these youth.