The Social Psychology of False Confessions

Inspired by DNA exoneration cases and other wrongful convictions of innocent people who had confessed to crimes they did not commit, and drawing from basic principles of social perception and social influence, a vast body of research has focused on the social psychology of confessions. In particular, this article describes laboratory and field studies on the “Milgramesque” processes of police interviewing an interrogation, the methods by which innocent people are judged deceptiveandinducedintoconfession,andtheripplingeffectsoftheseconfessions onjudges,juries,layandexpertwitnesses,andthetruth-seekingprocessitself.This article concludes with a discussion of social and policy implications—including a call for the mandatory video recording of entire interrogations, blind testing in forensic science labs, and the admissibility of confession experts in court. The 2012 film, The Central Park Five, tells a horrific tale about a profound, disturbing, and all-too-common manifestation of social influence. In 1989, a female jogger was raped, beaten, and left for dead in New York City’s Central Park. She managed to survive but could not remember anything about the attack—then or now. Within 72 hours, five African- and Hispanic-American boys, 14–16 years old, confessed to the assault. Solely on the basis of their oral confessions, four of which were videotaped, and all of which were vividly detailed, though often erroneous, the boys were convicted and sentenced to prison. Almost nobody questioned their guilt—even though there was no other evidence; even though DNA tests on sperm that was recovered from the victim and her clothing had excluded them all. Thirteen years later, Matias Reyes, in prison for two rapes and a murder committed subsequent to the jogger attack, stepped forward to admit that he was the Central Park jogger rapist and that he acted alone. Reinvestigating the case, the ManhattanDistrictAttorneyquestionedReyesanddiscoveredthathehadaccurate