Advancing the Shift-of-Strategy approach: Shifting suspects' strategies in extended interviews.

OBJECTIVE: Interviewers often face the challenge of obtaining information from suspects who are willing to speak but are motivated to conceal incriminating information. The Shift-of-Strategy (SoS) approach is an interviewing technique designed to obtain new information from such suspects. This study provides a robust empirical test of the SoS approach using more complex crime events and longer interviews than previously tested as well as testing a new variation of the approach (SoS-Reinforcement) that included a strategic summary of the suspect's statement. We compared this new variation with a standard version of the approach (SoS-Standard) and an interviewing approach that involved no confrontation of discrepancies in the suspects' statements (Direct). HYPOTHESES: We predicted that the two SoS versions would outperform the Direct condition in terms of participants' disclosure of previously unknown information. We also predicted that SoS-Reinforcement would outperform SoS-Standard. Finally, we expected that participants in the SoS conditions would not assess the interview or the interviewer more poorly than participants in Direct. METHOD: A total of 300 participants completed an online mock crime procedure, and they were subsequently interviewed with one of the three interviewing techniques. Following the interview, participants provided assessments of their experiences being interviewed. RESULTS: Participants in both SoS-Standard (d = 0.49, 95% confidence interval [CI: 0.21, 0.78]) and SoS-Reinforcement (d = 0.59, 95% CI [0.30, 0.87]) disclosed more previously unknown information than participants in the Direct condition, but SoS-Reinforcement did not outperform SoS-Standard (d = 0.08, 95% CI [-0.20, 0.36]). Participants in SoS-Reinforcement assessed their experience more negatively than those in Direct. No such differences were observed in the remaining two-way comparisons. CONCLUSIONS: The study provides support for the effectiveness of eliciting new information through the SoS approach and illuminates possible experiential downsides with being subjected to the SoS-Reinforcement approach. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring how members of illicit networks navigate investigative interviews.

This study explored how members of an illicit network navigate investigative interviews probing their crimes. We examined how perceived disclosure outcomes, namely, the projected costs and benefits, affect what members choose to reveal. We recruited N = 22 groups, maximum of six participants per group. Each group assumed the role of an illicit network and planned for possible interviews with investigators probing into the legitimacy of a business the network owns. All participants underwent an interview after the group planning stage. The results indicated that network members navigate the dilemma interviews bring by disclosing information they perceive would likely yield beneficial (or desirable) rather than costly (or undesirable) outcomes. Additionally, much of the participants' sensitivity to potential costs and benefits was explained by the group of which they are a part: different networks likely respond to costs and benefits in unique ways. This work contributes to understanding how illicit networks manage information disclosure in investigative interviews.

The process of replication target selection in psychology: what to consider?

Increased execution of replication studies contributes to the effort to restore credibility of empirical research. However, a second generation of problems arises: the number of potential replication targets is at a serious mismatch with available resources. Given limited resources, replication target selection should be well-justified, systematic and transparently communicated. At present the discussion on what to consider when selecting a replication target is limited to theoretical discussion, self-reported justifications and a few formalized suggestions. In this Registered Report, we proposed a study involving the scientific community to create a list of considerations for consultation when selecting a replication target in psychology. We employed a modified Delphi approach. First, we constructed a preliminary list of considerations. Second, we surveyed psychologists who previously selected a replication target with regards to their considerations. Third, we incorporated the results into the preliminary list of considerations and sent the updated list to a group of individuals knowledgeable about concerns regarding replication target selection. Over the course of several rounds, we established consensus regarding what to consider when selecting a replication target. The resulting checklist can be used for transparently communicating the rationale for selecting studies for replication.

Set Size and Donation Behavior.

Choice overload is the phenomenon that increasing the number of options in an assortment makes choosing between options more difficult, sometimes leading to avoidance of making a choice. In this pre-registered online experiment (N = 501), choice overload was tested in a charitable behavior context, where participants faced a monetary donation choice. Charity organization assortment size was varied between groups, ranging between 2 and 80 options. The results indicate that there were no meaningful differences in donation likelihood between the 16 organization assortment sizes, neither for individuals with high preference certainty nor for individuals with uncertain preferences among charitable causes. Having more charitable organizations to choose from did not affect donation behavior.

Self-reported impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, affective responding, and subjective well-being: A Swedish survey.

A rapid stream of research confirms that the COVID-19 pandemic is a global threat to mental health and psychological well-being. It is therefore important to identify both hazardous and protective individual factors during the pandemic. The current research explored the relationships between self-reported affective responding, perceived personal consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and subjective well-being. An online survey (N = 471) conducted in Sweden between June and September, 2020, showed that higher levels of irritability, impulsivity, and the tendency to experience and express anger were generally associated with more severe personal consequences of the pandemic, particularly in areas related to family life, work/study, and finances. While more severe impacts of the pandemic in these areas of life were directly associated with lower subjective well-being, emotion regulation through cognitive reappraisal appeared to moderate the extent to which consequences of the pandemic in other areas of life (i.e., social, free-time and physical activities) translated into decreased well-being. This suggests that cognitive reappraisal may serve to protect against some of the debilitating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. Overall, the results indicate that the perceived consequences of the pandemic are multifaceted and that future research should examine these consequences using a multidimensional approach.

Implanting false autobiographical memories for repeated events.

Research to date has exclusively focused on the implantation of false memories for single events. The current experiment is the first proof of concept that false memories can be implanted for repeated autobiographical experiences using an adapted false memory implantation paradigm. We predicted that false memory implantation approaches for repeated events would generate fewer false memories compared to the classic implantation method for single events. We assigned students to one of three implantation conditions in our study: Standard, Repeated, and Gradual. Participants underwent three interview sessions with a 1-week interval between sessions. In the Standard condition, we exposed participants to a single-event implantation method in all three interviews. In the Repeated condition, participants underwent a repeated-event implantation method in the three interviews. The Gradual condition also consisted of a repeated-event implantation method, however, in the first interview alone, we suggested to participants that they had experienced the false narrative once. Surprisingly, within our sample, false memories rates in the Standard condition were not higher compared to the Repeated and Gradual conditions. Although sometimes debated, our results imply that false memories for repeated events can be implanted in lab conditions, likely with the same ease as false memories for single events.

Swedish and Norwegian Police Interviewers' Goals, Tactics, and Emotions When Interviewing Suspects of Child Sexual Abuse.

As the suspect interview is one of the key elements of a police investigation, it has received a great deal of merited attention from the scientific community. However, suspect interviews in child sexual abuse (CSA) investigations is an understudied research area. In the present mixed-methods study, we examine Swedish (n = 126) and Norwegian (n = 52) police interviewers' self-reported goals, tactics, and emotional experiences when conducting interviews with suspected CSA offenders. The quantitative analyses found associations between the interviewers' self-reported goals, tactics, and emotions during these types of suspect interviews. Interviewers who reported experiencing more negative emotions were more likely to employ confrontational tactics. Specifically, anger was positively associated with the goal of obtaining a confession and with aggressive tactics like raising one's voice and emphasizing the seriousness of the crime. Frustration and disgust displayed similar patterns. Somewhat contrasting these quantitative results, the thematic analysis identified a strong consensus that emotions should not and do not affect the police interviewers' work. Furthermore, the police interviewers described a range of strategies for managing emotions during the interview and for processing their emotional reactions afterwards. The present findings highlight the relevance of emotional processes in CSA suspect interviews and provide an initial exploration of the potentially complex relationship between the goals, tactics, and emotional experiences of police interviewers who question CSA suspects.

The mechanisms of minimization: How interrogation tactics suggest lenient sentencing through pragmatic implication.

Objective: Minimization is a legal interrogation tactic in which an interrogator attempts to decrease a suspect's resistance to confessing by, for example, downplaying the seriousness of the crime. These studies examined the extent to which minimization pragmatically implies that a suspect will receive a more lenient sentence in exchange for a confession. Hypotheses: Generally, we predicted that participants who read an interrogation with a minimization theme or a direct promise of leniency would mistakenly expect more lenient sentences compared with a control condition if the suspect confessed to the crime. Hypotheses were preregistered prior to conducting each experiment. Method: In 6 experiments (Ns = 413, 574, 496, 552, 489, 839), MTurkers read an interrogation transcript in which the suspect was (a) promised leniency, (b) subjected to minimization, or (c) questioned about the evidence (control). We tested whether warnings about direct promises and minimization induced people to adjust their expectations of sentence severity and also whether a warning could help people better calibrate their sentencing expectations. Results: Moral minimization techniques decreased sentencing expectations after a confession (d = 0.34), by influencing the perceived severity of the crime (d = 0.40). Honesty themes, similar to illegal direct promises, led participants to infer that leniency would be forthcoming in exchange for a confession (d = 0.60). Warnings about leniency repaired sentencing expectations when participants read an interrogation with a direct promise, but were ineffective when an interrogator used minimization. Conclusions: Contrary to the beliefs of American courts, which have allowed minimization but not direct promises to be used in interrogations, minimization does indeed impact sentencing expectations. There may be cause to review the legality of such tactics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Lessons From Pinocchio: Cues to Deception May Be Highly Exaggerated.

Deception researchers widely acknowledge that cues to deception-observable behaviors that may differ between truthful and deceptive messages-tend to be weak. Nevertheless, several deception cues have been reported with unusually large effect sizes, and some researchers have advocated the use of such cues as tools for detecting deceit and assessing credibility in practical contexts. By examining data from empirical deception-cue research and using a series of Monte Carlo simulations, I demonstrate that many estimated effect sizes of deception cues may be greatly inflated by publication bias, small numbers of estimates, and low power. Indeed, simulations indicate the informational value of the present deception literature is quite low, such that it is not possible to determine whether any given effect is real or a false positive. I warn against the hazards of relying on potentially illusory cues to deception and offer some recommendations for improving the state of the science of deception.

On the general acceptance of confessions research: Opinions of the scientific community.

Eighty-seven experts on the psychology of confessions-many of whom were highly published, many with courtroom experience-were surveyed online about their opinions on 30 propositions of relevance to deception detection, police interrogations, confessions, and relevant general principles of psychology. As indicated by an agreement rate of at least 80%, there was a strong consensus that several findings are sufficiently reliable to present in court. This list includes but is not limited to the proposition that the risk of false confessions is increased not only by explicit threats and promises but by 2 common interrogation tactics-namely, the false evidence ploy and minimization tactics that imply leniency by offering sympathy and moral justification. Experts also strongly agreed that the risk of undue influence is higher among adolescents, individuals with compliant or suggestible personalities, and those with intellectual impairments or diagnosed psychological disorders. Additional findings indicated that experts set a high standard before judging a proposition to be sufficiently reliable for court-and an even higher standard on the question "Would you testify?" Regarding their role as scientific experts, virtually all respondents stated that their primary objective was to educate the jury and that juries are more competent at evaluating confession evidence with assistance from an expert than without. These results should assist trial courts and expert witnesses in determining what aspects of the science are generally accepted and suitable for presentation in court. (PsycINFO Database Record