THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF FALSE CONFESSIONS : Compliance , Internalization , and Confabulation

An experiment demonstrated that false incriminating evidence can lead people to accept guilt for a crime they did not commit. Subjects in a fastor slow-paced reaction time task were accused of damaging a computer by pressing the wrong key. All were truly innocent and initially denied the charge. A confederate then said she saw the subject hit the key or did not see the subject hit the key. Compared with subjects in the slowpacelno-witness group, those in the fast-pace/witness group were more likely to sign a confession, internalize guilt for the event, and confabulate details in memory consistent with that belief Both legal and conceptual implications are discussed. In criminal law, confession evidence is a potent weapon for the prosecution and a recurring source of controversy. Whether a suspect's self-incriminating statement was voluntary or coerced and whether a suspect was of sound mind are just two of the issues that trial judges and juries consider on a routine basis. To guard citizens against violations of due process and to minimize the risk that the innocent would confess to crimes they did not commit, the courts have erected guidelines for the admissibility of confession evidence. Although there is no simple litmus test, confessions are typically excluded from triai if elicited by physical violence, a threat of harm or punishment, or a promise of immunity or leniency, or without the suspect being notified of his or her Miranda rights. To understand the psychology of criminal confessions, three questions need to be addressed: First, how do police interrogators elicit self-incriminating statements (i.e., what means of social influence do they use)? Second, what effects do these methods have (i.e., do innocent suspects ever confess to crimes they did not commit)? Third, when a coerced confession is retracted and later presented at trial, do juries sufficiently discount the evidence in accordance with the law? General reviews of relevant case law and research are available elsewhere (Gudjonsson, 1992; Wrightsman & Kassin, 1993). The present research addresses the first two questions. Informed by developments in case law, the police use various methods of interrogation—including the presentation of false evidence (e.g., fake polygraph, fingerprints, or other forensic test results; staged eyewitness identifications), appeals to God and religion, feigned friendship, and the use of prison informants. A number of manuals are available to advise detectives on how to extract confessions from reluctant crime suspects (Aubry & Caputo, 1965; O'Hara & O'Hara, 1981). The most popular manual is Inbau, Reid, and Buckley's (1986) Criminal Interrogation and Confessions, originally published in 1%2, and now in its third edition. Address correspondence to Saul Kassin, Department of Psychology, Williams College, WllUamstown, MA 01267. After advising interrogators to set aside a bare, soundproof room absent of social support and distraction, Inbau et al, (1986) describe in detail a nine-step procedure consisting of various specific ploys. In general, two types of approaches can be distinguished. One is minimization, a technique in which the detective lulls Che suspect into a false sense of security by providing face-saving excuses, citing mitigating circumstances, blaming the victim, and underplaying the charges. The second approach is one of maximization, in which the interrogator uses scare tactics by exaggerating or falsifying the characterization of evidence, the seriousness of the offense, and the magnitude of the charges. In a recent study (Kassin & McNall, 1991), subjects read interrogation transcripts in which these ploys were used and estimated the severity of the sentence likely to be received. The results indicated that minimization communicated an implicit offer of leniency, comparable to that estimated in an explicit-promise condition, whereas maximization implied a threat of harsh punishment, comparable to that found in an explicit-threat condition. Yet although American courts routinely exclude confessions elicited by explicit threats and promises, they admit those produced by contingencies that are pragmatically implied. Although police often use coercive methods of interrogation, research suggests that juries are prone to convict defendants who confess in these situations. In the case of Arizona v. Fulminante (1991), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that under certain conditions, an improperly admitted coerced confession may be considered upon appeal to have been nonprejudicial, or "harmless error." Yet mock-jury research shows that people find it hard to believe that anyone would confess to a crime that he or she did not commit (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1980, 1981; Sukel & Kassin, 1994). Still, it happens. One cannot estimate the prevalence of the problem, which has never been systematically examined, but there are numerous documented instances on record (Bedau & Radelet, 1987; Borchard, 1932; Rattner, 1988). Indeed, one can distinguish three types of false confession (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985): voluntary (in which a subject confesses in the absence of extemal pressure), coercedcompliant (in which a suspect confesses only to escape an aversive interrogation, secure a promised benefit, or avoid a threatened harm), and coerced-internalized (in which a suspect actually comes to believe that he or she is guilty of the crime). This last type of false confession seems most unlikely, but a number of recent cases have come to light in which the police had seized a suspect who was vulnerable (by virtue of his or her youth, intelligence, personality, stress, or mental state) and used false evidence to convince the beleaguered suspect that he or she was guilty. In one case that received a great deal of attention, for example, Paul Ingram was charged with rape and a host of Satanic cult crimes that included the slaughter of newbom babies. During 6 months of interrogation, he was hypnoVOL. 7, NO. 3, MAY 1996 Copyright © 1996 American Psychological Society 125 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE