The Personality of a Human Intelligence Interrogator : The Relation Between Personality and a Comfortable Interrogator

The purpose of this study is to discover if there is a relationship between personality and a comfortable Human Intelligence interrogator. Two specific interrogation methods were used, the most common used one, the Direct approach and a relatively new one, the Scharff approach. 35 participants participated in the within-group design experiment. They have executed two interviews followed by standardized protocols, one with the Scharff method and one with the Direct method. Afterwards they filled out five questionnaires. The first two questionnaires were measuring the dependent variable the comfort feelings of the participants with each approach. The three other questionnaires were measuring the independent variable, personality of the participants by using the Hexaco model, adaptability scale and uncertainty avoidance scale. Correlational analysis was used to discover if there were any relations between the personality and the comfort feelings with each approach. The results shows that someone who is easy in adapting to different situations is more comfortable in using the Scharff tactics. Moreover a relation was found between conscientiousness and a comfortable Scharff interrogator. Lastly this study shows that there is a negative relationship between honesty-humility and the comfort feelings with the direct approach.