Abstract
In police interrogation, an explicit false claim to have evidence raises important legal and constitutional questions. Therefore, some interrogation manuals recommend implicit false-evidence ploys (FEP) that ask suspects about potential evidence without making a direct claim to possess the evidence. Similar to the hypotheses in a recent study of implicit FEP and confession rates, we hypothesized that individuals would perceive implicit FEP as less coercive and deceptive when compared to explicit FEP that involve direct claims of false evidence. Although mock jurors rated all FEP as highly deceptive and coercive and as more deceptive than controls, we found that participants did not view implicit and explicit FEP differently and that ploy specificity (implicit or explicit) failed to affect verdicts or recommended sentences. These findings suggest that although interrogation trainers and scholars in law and psychology discriminate between the methods, jurors do not.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 603-617 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Psychology, Crime and Law |
Volume | 20 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2014 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- confession
- false confession
- interrogation
- juror decision-making
- police interrogation
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Pathology and Forensic Medicine
- General Psychology
- Law