Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

370 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
than the effects of a hypnotic induction or state on interrogative suggestibility.
Without a clear relationship being found between interrogative suggestibility
and a formal hypnotic induction the findings of a relationship between the two
scales is of no forensic importance.
COMPLIANCE
In Chapter 13 I offered a theoretical distinction between suggestibility and
compliance. The main difference, it was argued, was that suggestibility, unlike
compliance, implies personal acceptance of the information provided or
request made. In this chapter the concept of compliance, as it is relevant to
interrogation, is explored in greater detail, particularly in relation to testing
and empirical findings.
In its broadest sense, compliance refers to the tendency of the individual
to go along with propositions, requests or instructions, for some immediate
instrumental gain. The person concerned is fully aware that his or her responses
are being influenced and an affirmative or a compliant response does not require
personal acceptance of the proposition. In other words, people may disagree
with the proposition or request made, but they nevertheless react in a compliant
way. This is different to suggestibility, where there is personal acceptance of
the proposition offered by the interrogator. This kind of distinction between
suggestibility and compliance is also evident in the literature on suggestibility
in relation to hypnosis (Wagstaff, 1981).
I have argued elsewhere (Gudjonsson, 1989c, 1997a) that compliance has two
major components to it. First, there is an eagerness to please and the need of the
person to protect his or her self-esteem when in the company of others. Second,
there is avoidance of conflict and confrontation with people, and particularly
those perceived as being in a position of some authority. These two components
of compliant behaviour overlap extensively with Milgram’s (1974) construct of
‘obedience to authority’. Indeed, my compliance scale (GCS; Gudjonsson, 1989c,
1997a) is more closely associated with Milgram’s work than that of Asch (1951,
1952), and it was Milgram’s work that provided the conceptual basis for it.
Milgram (1974) defined obedience as the action of a person ‘who complies with
authority’ (p. 113). Within this framework highly compliant people appear fully
aware of their difficulties in coping with pressure when in the company of people
in authority, unlike the participants in Asch’s experiments. As was mentioned
in Chapter 13, the subjects in Asch’s experiments were not aware that they
were being influenced by the subtle suggestions introduced, and it therefore is
more similar to the concept of suggestibility.
Compliance can be conceptualized in two different ways. It can be viewed
either as a personality trait or as a behavioural response to a given situation
(Gudjonsson, Sigurdsson, Brynjolfsdottir & Hreinsdottir, 2002). Irrespective of
which conceptualization is preferred, there are two main ways of measuring
compliance, which are based on behavioural observation and self-report procedures
respectively.
Milgram’s (1974) obedience experiments and the work of Asch (1952) into
conformity were based on behavioural observation. Here experiments are