University of Twente Student Theses
The Effect of Guilt and Timing of Evidence Disclosure on Rapport in the Investigative Interview
Geschiere, Aleta (2025) The Effect of Guilt and Timing of Evidence Disclosure on Rapport in the Investigative Interview.
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| Abstract: | Rapport plays a critical role in the investigative interview, positively influencing the amount of information elicited from the interview. In order to detect deception from suspects, the Strategic Use of Evidence and Tactical Use of Evidence technique were developed. This study investigates the effect of evidence disclosure timing (gradual vs. late) and suspect status (guilty vs. innocent) on rapport. The participants (N = 67) were randomly allocated to one of the four conditions. Participants read an online mock crime, tailored to their condition of either committing a heist (guilty condition) or visiting a museum for a day (innocent condition). The mock crime was followed by an online mock police interview where participants were instructed to convince the interviewer of their innocence. After the interview, the participants were asked to complete two rapport questionnaires. There was a significant positive effect found of gradual disclosure on rapport, highlighting the importance of utilising the TUE technique in the investigative interview. Rapport was significantly higher in innocent suspects compared to guilty suspects. This is likely due to the increased cost of cognitive load for guilty suspects due to having to lie during the interview, which might make the suspect less able to focus on coordination, positivity and mutual attentiveness, the elements of rapport. There were no significant interaction effects found between evidence disclosure timing and suspect status. This can be explained by the fact that participants in this experiment had to recall a large amount of information from the scenarios presented to them, this could have made the cognitive demand of the interview larger for the innocent suspects compared to real investigative interviews. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 77 psychology |
| Programme: | Psychology BSc (56604) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/104944 |
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