Psychology 2990A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Good Cop, Psych, False Confession

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2990A/B
• Professor: Glen Gorman

Document Summary

Many cases can only be solved with confessions: the point is to get someone to admit to crime. Guilt is admitted only after several hours of private investigation. Suspects sometimes require less refined methods more harsh. Step 1: gather evidence related to crime, interview witnesses and victims. Step 2: non-accusatory interview (or behavioural analysis interview) to assess possible guilt. Minimization (good cop): sympathy, excuses, justifications, downplaying suspects actions, involves suggesting that if they confess then they will be treated more leniently (most often not the case) Maximization (bad cop): intimidation, exaggeration, deception, without confession, the suspect will face more severe consequences, legal to pretend you have evidence, even if you don"t, all about scare tactics. Since the beginning there have been a lot of critics. Main aspect is to see if someone is guilty is by using non-verbal cues but we aren"t that good at detecting lies in other people. We cant reliably detect the differences between truth and deception.