Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

• Increased anxiety and depression (Zuckerman et al., 1970)
• Greater instability of beliefs and of both peripheral and central attitudes
(Tetlock and Seudfeld, 1976; Seudfeld and Borrie, 1978)
• Cognitive disorganization (Seudfeld and Borrie, 1978)
• Increased persuadability (Seudfeld and Borrie, 1978)
• Increased compliance behavior (beyond usual social influence
conditions) (Moscovici and Doms, 1982)
Key Findings
The review presented above is mainly descriptive. This section highlights
some of the more important findings and their potential implications.
• From the perspectives of both research and practice, educing
information is most productively viewed as a dynamic and reciprocal
process rather than as a discrete event, task, or series of face-to-face
encounters.
• U.S. personnel have used a limited number of interrogation
techniques over the past half-century, but virtually none of them — or
their underlying assumptions — are based on scientific research or have
even been subjected to scientific or systematic inquiry or evaluation.
• The potential mechanisms and effects of using coercive
techniques or torture for gaining accurate, useful information from
an uncooperative source are much more complex than is commonly
assumed. There is little or no research to indicate whether such techniques
succeed in the manner and contexts in which they are applied. Anecdotal
accounts and opinions based on personal experiences are mixed, but the
preponderance of reports seems to weigh against their effectiveness.
• The accuracy of educed information can be compromised by
the manner in which it is obtained. The effects of many common stress
and duress techniques are known to impair various aspects of a person’s
cognitive functioning, including those functions necessary to retrieve
and produce accurate, useful information.
• Psychological theory and some (indirectly) related research
suggest that coercion or pressure can actually increase a source’s
resistance and determination not to comply. Although pain is commonly
assumed to facilitate compliance, there is no available scientific or
systematic research to suggest that coercion can, will, or has provided
accurate useful information from otherwise uncooperative sources.
• Research studies on important related issues such as persuasion,
influence, compliance, and resistance have mainly (although not
exclusively) focused on persons from Western cultures. Findings from the
fields of intercultural psychology and anthropology suggest that patterns,
meanings and modes of interpersonal interaction may be different
35