Adults' difficulties in identifying concealment among children interviewed with the putative confession instructions. Issue 1 (28th August 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gongola, Jennifer; Quas, Jodi A.; Clark, Steven E.; Lyon, Thomas D.
• Is Part Of: Applied cognitive psychology. Volume 35:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 18
• Page End: 25
• Publication Date: 2020-08-28
• Subjects: deception detection -- interview instructions -- interviewing children -- putative confession; Cognition -- Periodicals; Psychology, Applied -- Periodicals; 153
• DOI: 10.1002/acp.3729
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0888-4080

Abstract

Summary: The putative confession (PC) instructions ("[suspect] told me everything that happened and wants you to tell the truth") increases children's honesty. However, research has shown that children who maintain secrecy despite the PC are more convincing. We examined whether (a) the PC undermines adults' deception detection abilities or (b) children who conceal despite the PC are better deceivers. Adults evaluated truthful and deceptive children interviewed with the PC where the PC portion of the interview was either present or absent. Adults' deception detection was no worse when the PC was present; in fact, it was slightly better. Rather than negatively affecting adults' ability to detect deception, the PC selects an unusually convincing group of concealers.