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“I’d Know a False Confession if I Saw One”: A Comparative Study of College Students and Police Investigators

“I’d Know a False Confession if I Saw One”: A Comparative Study of College Students and Police... College students and police investigators watched or listened to 10 prison inmates confessing to crimes. Half the confessions were true accounts; half were false—concocted for the study. Consistent with much recent research, students were generally more accurate than police, and accuracy rates were higher among those presented with audiotaped than videotaped confessions. In addition, investigators were significantly more confident in their judgments and also prone to judge confessors guilty. To determine if police accuracy would increase if this guilty response bias were neutralized, participants in a second experiment were specifically informed that half the confessions were true and half were false. This manipulation eliminated the investigator response bias, but it did not increase accuracy or lower confidence. These findings are discussed for what they imply about the post-interrogation risks to innocent suspects who confess. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Law and Human Behavior Springer Journals

“I’d Know a False Confession if I Saw One”: A Comparative Study of College Students and Police Investigators

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References (61)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.
Subject
Psychology; Law and Psychology; Criminology and Criminal Justice, general; Personality and Social Psychology; Community and Environmental Psychology
ISSN
0147-7307
eISSN
1573-661X
DOI
10.1007/s10979-005-2416-9
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

College students and police investigators watched or listened to 10 prison inmates confessing to crimes. Half the confessions were true accounts; half were false—concocted for the study. Consistent with much recent research, students were generally more accurate than police, and accuracy rates were higher among those presented with audiotaped than videotaped confessions. In addition, investigators were significantly more confident in their judgments and also prone to judge confessors guilty. To determine if police accuracy would increase if this guilty response bias were neutralized, participants in a second experiment were specifically informed that half the confessions were true and half were false. This manipulation eliminated the investigator response bias, but it did not increase accuracy or lower confidence. These findings are discussed for what they imply about the post-interrogation risks to innocent suspects who confess.

Journal

Law and Human BehaviorSpringer Journals

Published: Jan 1, 2005

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