PSYC1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: False Confession, Alt Key, Confabulation
26 May 2018
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v. Police may think it’s okay to bluff in other
circumstances vi.Vulnerable suspects may get PTSD
vii.Brief responses from suspects might not give whole, accurate story viii.Assumes
police officers can accurately detect deception when little evidence
supports this assumption & indicators of deception endorsed are not appropriate
1. Police not better than any one of us in detecting deception
ix.Technique may lead to false confessions
2. False Confessions: occurs when individuals confess to a crime they did not commit
or exaggerates their involvement in a crime they did commit; 20-25% prisoners later
exonerated by DNA evidence had given false confessions
a. Types of false
confessions i. Voluntary
1. Occurs w/o being prompted by police; person just rings up and confesses
2. Why?
a. Desire for notoriety: Trying to get famous
b. Inability to distinguish fact from fantasy: problem w/ source monitoring
c. Attempt to protect real offender: protect family member/friend
d. Need to be punished: people committed another crime, have feeling
of guilt
3. “Lendbergh baby” kidnapped in 1932, more than 200 people confessed
ii. Coerced-compliant
1. Occurs in response to a desire to escape further interrogation, gain
promised reward, avoid threatened punishment
2. Confessor knows that they did not commit crime
iii. Coerced-internalized
1. Results from highly suggestive interrogations
2. Confessor comes to believe that he/she did commit the crime
3. Often starts as coerced-compliant
4. Some people more susceptible to this type of confession (lower IQ,
learning disabilities)
b. Why do false confessions occur?
i. Compliance & Suggestibility
1. Compliance: tendency to go along with people in authority
2. Suggestibility: tendency to internalize information communicated
during questioning
c. False confession in the lab
i. Situation set up where participants were accused of committing a “Crime”
- pressing the Alt key when told not to b/c computer crashes
ii. Suspect’s vulnerability (Fast/slow pace) was manipulated as was presence
of false evidence (confederate witness or not)
iii. Percentage of false confessions were recorded under various conditions
iv. Criticisms
1. Participant does not suffer any negative consequences for confessions
2. Replicated Kassin & Kiechel’s study, participants told they will lose 80% of
fee if sign confession
3. 82% signed, 42% internalized, 58% confabulated
v. Two factors increase risk of false confessions
1. Suspect who lacks clear memory of event
2. Presentation of false evidence
d. Admissibility of confessions
i. For confessions to be admitted into court
1. Voluntary
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