Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling最新文献

The literature on information elicitation in psycholegal settings has predominantly focused on the investigator–interviewee dynamic, with little attention to the environment in which the interview takes place. The present study compared the impact of two interview locations on the disclosure of crime-related information and perceptions of rapport building. Participants experienced a virtual reality mock crime, and 1 week later were interviewed at either their homes, or a formal room akin to a real-world police interview room. Participants in the home setting reported feeling more at ease and in control compared to participants interviewed in the formal room. However, we found no differences between conditions on the quantity and quality of information disclosure and participants' perceptions of rapport building. Based on our findings, we found no advantages or disadvantages for conducting witness interviews at their homes. However, these results underscore the practicality of interviewing witnesses outside the police interview room if deemed as more convenient.

Prisoners' affective education is a hot topic in criminal psychology. The lack of the social support for prisoners means that they are more prone to loneliness. The mental health status of the prisoners directly concerns their social adaptation when released. We therefore explored the relationship between loneliness, psychological affect, and control source in 201 prisoners. Prisoners completed the state and trait loneliness scale, the affectal scale, the internal control, powerful others, and chance scale. Mediation effect analysis was conducted to explore the mediation role of the control source from influence of loneliness on psychological affect. State loneliness indirectly affected positive affect through internal control factors. Trait loneliness directly affected negative affect, and trait loneliness indirectly affected negative affect through opportunity factors. Overall, this study uncovers some of the psychological mechanisms underlying emotional state in prisoners, highlights the need for effective psychological correction programmes in the prison system and provides reference for effectual ascension of prisoners out of jail.

To what extent stereotypical deceptive behaviours such as gaze aversion and fidgeting actually influence people's credibility judgements remain largely unknown. In this study, we directly manipulated the presence/absence of such behaviours to investigate this. Participants were shown four truthful videos in which we manipulated the presence of stereotypical cues and asked them to judge how credible the person in each video is. Moreover, research consistently shows that decision making is influenced by various cognitive biases. One example is the primacy effect, which implies that people form an opinion early in the decision process. Information acquired early will have the largest influence on how subsequent information will be interpreted. To investigate a possible primacy effect, we also manipulated whether these cues were present towards the beginning or the end of the video (i.e. the timing of the manipulation). In line with our expectations, the presence of stereotypical cues significantly lowered the observed credibility, showing that the presence of these cues indeed influences credibility judgements. The timing of the cues had no effect.

The aim of this study was to understand if guilty suspects' perceptions regarding the prior information or evidence held by the interviewer against the suspect could be influenced through the content of the investigative questions. To test this idea, we explored three question-phrasing factors that we labeled as topic discussion (if a specific crime-related topic was discussed or not), specificity (different levels of crime-related details included in the questions), and stressor (emphasis on the importance of the specific crime-related detail in the questions). The three factors were chosen based on relevance theory, a psycholinguistic theory that explores how people draw inferences from the communicated content. Participants (N = 370) assumed the role of the suspect and read a crime narrative and an interview transcript based on the suspect's activities. After reading the narrative and the transcripts, participants responded to scales that measured their perception of interviewer's prior knowledge (perceived interviewer knowledge [PIK]) regarding the suspects' role in the crime, based on the questions posed by the interviewer in the transcripts. Of the three factors tested, we found that questioning about a specific crime-related topic (topic discussion) increased their PIK. This study is the first to explore the underlying mechanisms of how suspects draw inferences regarding the interviewer's prior knowledge through the content of the investigative questions adopting concepts of psycholinguistic theory.

The present study examines suicide notes, using a sample of suicide notes from published corpora (N = 50), combined with a sample of recent suicide notes from a suicide website (N = 50). The present study proposes a model of differentiation in completed suicides. The characteristics of the suicide notes were analysed using a content dictionary developed by Giles in 2007, and the data subjected to smallest space analysis. Four themes of suicide completer were discovered: Egoistic Victim, Anomic Hero, Altruistic Professional and Fatalistic Revenger. The implications of these findings and the potential use in therapy work with suicide survivors and those with suicidal ideation are discussed, as well as suggestions for the direction of future research.

The Scharff technique aims to elicit information by affecting the source's perception of the interviewer's existing knowledge. Although the technique has been found to be effective for gathering new information, countermeasures to the technique have not been examined. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment, we informed half of the 120 sources about the counter-interrogation strategy of carefully considering the interviewer's prior knowledge and the tactic of providing information perceived as already known to the interviewer. After this, sources were interviewed with the Scharff technique or the Direct approach, widely used in human intelligence-gathering situations and consisting of open-ended and direct questions. We found that “informed sources” did not succeed in revealing information already known to the interviewer, where informed sources and uninformed sources revealed known information to a similar degree (1.62 pieces vs. 1.65 pieces). Sources interviewed with the Direct approach (vs. Scharff technique) revealed a larger amount of information previously known to the interviewer (2.18 pieces vs. 1.08 pieces). When interviewed with the Scharff technique, sources informed about the counter-interrogation strategy attempted to adopt more counter-interrogation strategies. The present study replicates earlier research on the Scharff technique as a technique effective in affecting the source's perception of the interviewer's prior knowledge. The results of the current study indicate that both the Scharff technique and the Direct approach might be similarly robust against counter-interrogation strategies, in terms of gathering new information. Future studies should focus on implementing more comprehensive training in counter-interrogation strategies for the sources.

Forensic interviewing involves gathering information from a suspect or eyewitness. Administering a model statement during an interview results in greater information elicitation, which can enhance lie detection. Typically, a model statement is a highly detailed statement, on an unrelated topic to that of the interview. This study examined the effect of manipulating the modality of the MS, either by allowing participants to listen to (Audio-MS), or read (Written-MS) a model statement. A total of 162 (81 truth tellers, 81 liars) participants were randomly allocated to one of three interviewing conditions where they received either the Audio-MS, Written-MS, or No-MS (control condition). Truth tellers honestly reported a “spy” mission, whereas liars performed a covert mission and lied about their activities. Results showed both model statements were equally more effective at eliciting information and facilitating lie detection, compared with a control condition. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The subject of this research is the deprivation of freedom at two time points. A total of 490 convicts from open, semi-open, and closed prisons participated in the research. Freedom deprivation intensity was determined by using the freedom deprivation scale (α = .93). The results of the research indicate that almost all the participants reported freedom deprivation. The prison type had an impact on freedom deprivation intensity, whereas an influence of the ward type on deprivation was not demonstrated. Freedom deprivation intensity was consistent from the turn of the century to the present day.

Mentally disordered individuals are increasingly coming into contact with the police. The current study explored investigative interview practice with mentally disordered suspects to examine how they respond and the impact this has on the level of information obtained. Transcripts of interviews conducted with vulnerable and nonvulnerable suspects (N = 66) were analysed using a specially designed coding framework. Results highlighted that best practice is generally not being adhered to regarding questioning techniques (for example, the use of open questions). Furthermore, although police officers altered their communication to suit the needs of the vulnerable suspect, they were also more likely to use minimisation tactics. Mentally disordered suspects sought more clarification for open questions and provided more information to closed questions. They also demonstrated higher levels of vulnerability (suggestibility and compliance) when compared with their nonvulnerable counterparts. Implications regarding interviewing methods for this vulnerable group are discussed.