Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

378 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
CORRELATIONS BETWEEN SUGGESTIBILITY, COMPLIANCE
AND ACQUIESCENCE
Do suggestibility, compliance and acquiescence scores correlate with one another?
The evidence indicates that suggestibility and compliance are poorly
correlated and that there is a weak, but significant, relationship between suggestibility
and acquiescence. There is no significant relationship between acquiescence
and compliance.
Three studies have investigated the relationship between GSS suggestibility
and acquiescence. Two studies correlated GSS 1 scores with the acquiescence
scale of Winkler, Kanouse and Ware (1982) and the third used the GSS 2. The
first study (Gudjonsson, 1986) comprised a group of 30 male volunteers. A low
but a significant correlation (r = 0.33, p < 0.05) was found between Total Suggestibility
and acquiescence. The correlations with Yield 1 and Yield 2 were
0.32 and 0.42 ( p < 0.05), respectively. No significant correlation was found with
Shift. I suggested that a state of uncertainty and low self-esteem, which arises
when subjects are in doubt about how to answer a question, produces an unpleasant
feeling. This negative state motivates subjects to reduce uncertainty
and to restore their self-esteem. Affirmative answers function to facilitate this
process because they are seen as being more acceptable to the interviewer.
I subsequently failed to find a significant relationship (r = 0.13) between
Total Suggestibility and acquiescence in a study comprising 60 forensic patients
(Gudjonsson, 1990b). It seems that suggestibility does have some relationship
with acquiescence but the relationship is very weak and may not be found in all
studies. In the same study, acquiescence was not found to correlate significantly
(r = 0.11) with compliance, as measured by the GCS.
In the third study, involving 145 participants of a wide range of abilities,
Gudjonsson and Clare (1995) investigated the relationship of acquiescence with
intellectual ability, verbal memory, confabulation and suggestibility. Acquiescence
correlated negatively with IQ (r =−0.52, p < 0.001), GSS 2 Immediate
and Delayed Recall (r =−0.37 and −0.40, p < 0.001, respectively), and with
Yield 1 and Yield 2 (r = 0.27 and 0.21, p < 0.01, respectively). No significant
correlation was found with Shift or confabulation.
There appears to be a certain overlap between the constructs of suggestibility
and compliance. In fact, suggestibility and compliance may be mediated
by similar factors, such as avoidance coping, eagerness to please and certain
anxiety processes associated with how the individual copes with pressure. In
one study (Gudjonsson, 1990b), I correlated the GSS 1 scores with the GCS
score among 119 subjects. Yield 1, Shift and Total Suggestibility correlated
significantly with compliance; the correlations were 0.40, 0.53 and 0.54 for
the three suggestibility scores respectively ( p < 0.001). The correlation between
compliance and acquiescence among a subgroup of 57 subjects was 0.28
( p < 0.05).
On theoretical grounds compliance should be less correlated with intelligence
than acquiescence and suggestibility (Gudjonsson, 1990b).
Studies have also found a significant correlation between acquiescence and
acceptance of misleading information (similar to GSS Yield 1), using different
instruments (Eisen, Morgan & Mickes, 2002).