The Impact of Interrogations on the Testimonies of Eyewitnesses and Confessions - Research Proposal Example

Topic: Research paper Introduction Interrogations by police typically entail various interrogation approaches and in worst case situations, the suspects have to deal with false evidence and suggestive questions among other ploys (Ofshe & Leo, 1997). An approach that is familiar in interrogation texts is the Reid approach that entails nine steps that seek to obtain confessions from suspects (Buckley, 2006). The key opposition to the Reid approach is the excessive degree of pressure, which the witnesses have to experience that in some instances may result in false confessions, in order to ensure that the interrogated person is protected, the Reid technique is proscribed in a number of nations in Europe. However, some of these approaches to interrogation that may be dangerous to the suspect continue to exist in interrogation rooms (Kassin, 2010). This is a proposals for a study that will seek to create a comparison of the impact of interrogations on the testimonies of eyewitnesses and confessions. Studies have demonstrated that incorrect confessions that which result from dubious interrogations are a commonplace occurrence that can be categorized into three classes including compliant false confessions, which are coerced, voluntary false confessions and internalized false confessions that occur under coersion (Kassin, Appleby & Perillo, 2010). In the case of voluntary false confession, there is no form of external pressure and they are motivated by desires to be notorious. Conversely, coerced-internalized and coerced-compliant confessions are the result pressure during interrogations where in the coerced-compliant false confessions entail people being convinced that they are innocent regardless of what they confess. Their confessions can be considered as attempts to escape the interrogations or avoiding or avoiding being locked up at the police station. In regards to coerced-internalized false confessions, people are made to become certain that they have been involved in an offence and they maintain their confessions despite their lacking in knowledge related to crime. In this form of confession, the memory distrust syndrome that is a state whereby individuals develop deep wariness of what they able to recollect, may be the main cause of false confessions (Moston & Stephenson, 2009).. This leads to a situation where they become especially vulnerable to depending of external suggestions and cues. Memory distrust syndrome can be linked to two differing conditions; undermining and manipulating of the confidence of the witness as far as memory is concerned during interrogation and, problems in remembering as a result of faulty consolidation at the time when the crime occurred because of the use of drugs or alcohol (Dixon, 2010). In this research, the participants will go through an activity that will be forensically relevant and immediately after they will be subjected to questions concerning the event that they have witnessed or have participated. The questioning that the participants will be subjected to will include both leading and misleading information after which they will be evaluated on their memory based in the event that has unfolded. In the case, the dependent variable will be the degree to which the participants who have been misled will integrate the misleading information in their reports. It can be hypothesized that the effect of leading questions results in witnesses being influenced. Additionally, misleading post-event questions may also result in a number of alterations in the reports that are given by the witnesses. The final hypothesis is that there is also a possibility of witnesses being led to report entire events and objects that were not part of the occurrence in the event that originally happened through the use of leading questions. These three hypotheses will be used as the basis of the research to understand the effects that Interrogations have on Eyewitness Testimony and Confessions Methods Participants The sample for this study will consist of thirty students studying psychology sixteen of which will be female. The average of sample population of the study should be approximately twenty years old and the participants will not be informed of the purpose of the study prior to its commencement. All they will be told is that they have to perform several cognitive tasks and fill a number of questionnaires in a session that will last approximately fifty minutes. The participants will be recommended to the faculty of psychology to be given research credits as a form of compensation for their participation in the research. Procedure The study will take place in a small classroom that will be arranged to resemble an interrogation room and when the participants arrive, their first activity will be signing of informed consent forms. After this, they will be instructed to organize some file containing a number of forensic cases that have been mixed up deliberately and when they are engrossed in this activity, papers that contain the structure of the end of semester exam will be left on their table and the person conducting the experiment will leave the room. The researcher will return five minutes later looking for the paper before leaving the room and leaving the door partially open in order to hear any conversations about the paper. Consequently, a few participants will be accused of exam fraud, while those who were arranging a different part of the room will be the witnesses to the exam fraud that occurred. The participants will then be given papers that outline different interrogation situations and how they would react in each of them after which they will be supposed to fill a number of questionnaires which will serve as fillers. In order to identify the participants who had looked at the paper and those who had not, a hidden camera was used and the footage demonstrated that eight of the participating members had peeked at the papers. Instruments Interrogation methods: The techniques which will be chosen include the ones defined by Henkel and Coffman (2004), and will be similar to the memory distrust aspect with some descriptions entailing technical evidence that will be fabricated. There will also be another approach that will entail fake eye witnesses and a different one that minimized the offences in the event that the participants could give the names of other people who looked at the paper. The witnesses will be given an interrogation description that stated that in some cases people have memory problems where they have difficulties in remembering particular actions. The participants will be told that this may also apply to them and they may have seen some of the participants unconsciously but cannot clearly remember who the people who looked at the papers were. The participants will have to respond to the questions on Visual Analogue Scale since responding to the first question will automatically lead them to the consequent questions which will be presented on different pages. Subjective cognitive functioning: The Squire Memory Questionnaire will be utilized in measuring the degree of confidence in memory functioning for the participants through a self-report questionnaire that will contain eighteen items that will be scored in a seven point scale (Bergen, Brands, Jelicic & Merckelbach, 2010). The scores will be cumulated in order to get a cumulative SSMQ score, and thus negative subjective evaluations of memory will be depicted by a negative score. Attribution Style: In getting an enhanced picture in regards to attribution styles of the participants, the Attribution Style Questionnaire will be employed, in order to understand if they attribute positive and negative environments in an internal or external manner (Peterson, 1982). The participants will be given various situations that will followed by questions which will be rated through a five point scale and scores summed up with higher scores demonstrating internal attribution styles and vice versa. The study will also use other questionnaires which will be considered as filler questionnaires in order to conceal the actual objective of the research and also eliminate any cross-over effects that may be associated with the results. References Bergen, S., Brands, I., Jelicic, M., & Merckelbach, H. (2010). Assessing trait memory distrust: Psychometric properties of the Squire Subjective Memory Questionnaire. Legal and criminological psychology, 15(2), 373-384. Buckley, J. P. (2006). The Reid technique of interviewing and interrogation.Investigative interviewing, 190-206. Dixon, D. (2010). Questioning suspects: A comparative perspective. Journal of contemporary criminal justice, 26(4), 426-440. Henkel, L. A., & Coffman, K. J. (2004). Memory distortions in coerced false confessions: A source monitoring framework analysis. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18(5), 567-588. Kassin, S. M., Appleby, S. C., & Perillo, J. T. (2010). Interviewing suspects: Practice, science, and future directions. Legal and Criminological Psychology,15(1), 39-55. Kassin, S. M., Drizin, S. A., Grisso, T., Gudjonsson, G. H., Leo, R. A., & Redlich, A. D. (2010). Police-induced confessions: Risk factors and recommendations. Law and human behavior, 34(1), 3-38. Moston, S., & Stephenson, G. M. (2009). A typology of denial strategies by suspects in criminal investigations. R. Bull, T. Valentine & T. Williamson (Eds.). Handbook of psychology of investigative interviewing. Current developments and future directions, 17-34. Ofshe, R. J., & Leo, R. A. (1997). The social psychology of police interrogation: The theory and classification of true and false confessions. Studies In Law Politics And Society, 16, 189-254. Peterson, C., Semmel, A., Von Baeyer, C., Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I., & Seligman, M. E. (1982). The attributional style questionnaire. Cognitive therapy and research, 6(3), 287-299. Read More