Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

Suggestibility: Empirical Findings 401
with reasonable rapport and cooperation. In contrast, when these defendants
were highly resistant to suggestions, there had been expressed indication of
either suspiciousness and/or anger.
It can be tentatively suggested on the basis of these anecdotal observations,
and some further cases, that in order for anger to encumber suggestibility it has
to be directed outwards towards some third person or object rather than towards
the self. The anger need not necessarily be felt towards the interrogator, but
it will still seriously reduce the person’s susceptibility to suggestions. In other
words, an angry suspect is probably difficult to interrogate at the best of times
even if the anger is not directed towards the interrogator. Suspiciousness, on
the other hand, appears to have a more specific focus. It has to be directed either
towards the experimenter or the tests themselves.
Stricker, Messick and Jackson (1967) discuss the implication of suspiciousness
for conformity research. They found strong evidence that subjects’ suspiciousness
about the experiment they were participating in was related to lack
of conformity and cooperation. In other words, those subjects who expressed
ideas indicating suspiciousness about the testing procedure were much less
conforming than those who expressed no such suspicions. The authors offered
two possibilities for their findings. First, subjects’ generalized suspicious cognitive
set predisposes them to seek evidence of deception and makes them more
able to identify it when it does occur. Second, when subjects, for whatever reason,
happen to become suspicious during a particular experiment, they develop
a resistant cognitive set, which helps them resist pressure and suggestions.
Singh and Gudjonsson (1992a) used institutionalized delinquent boys (aged
11–16 years) to examine the relationship between suggestibility, as measured
by the GSS 1, and attitude towards authority and hostility, using the General
Attitude to Institutional Authority Scale (Rigby, 1982) and the Buss–Durkee
Hostility Inventory (Buss & Durkee, 1957), respectively. Neither attitude towards
authority or hostility correlated significantly with the suggestibility
scores. This is unexpected, because negative attitude and hostility would be expected
to relate closely to suspicious cognitive set and distrust of others. Singh
and Gudjonsson pointed out that the explanation for an absence of significant
findings may relate to the fact that during the assessment the youths in the
study were fully cooperative and did not display any suspiciousness or hostility.
This suggests that it is the attitude towards the examiner and the testing
which are more important in influencing suggestibility than the general level
of hostility and attitude towards persons in authority. In other words, negative
attitude towards people in authority and hostility need to be actively present
at the time of testing to have any impact on suggestibility. The alternative explanation
is that the concept of hostility and its measurement are complex and
a significant relationship with suggestibility may not always be present. For
example, in the study by Blagrove, Cole-Morgan and Lambe (1994) hostility
ratings during baseline testing, when the GSS 1 was also administered, did not
correlate significantly with the suggestibility scores.
Milberg and Clark (1988) examined the effects of different moods, which
were experimentally induced, on compliant behaviour. Three different mood
states were induced: happy, neutral mood and angry. Significant differences