Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

406 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
consistent with the previous findings, the most striking differences between the
two groups is in relation to Yield 2 and Shift, which links confessing behaviour
primarily with the suspect’s ability to cope with pressure, rather than their
tendency to give in to leading questions per se.
It is worth noting that whereas alleged false confessors as a group are
markedly higher on suggestibility and compliance than the average male in
the general population, the resisters are in contrast unusually resistant to suggestions
and interrogative pressure. Having said that, it should be born in mind
that we are dealing with group means and there are clear individual differences
within the respective two groups. For example, not all of the alleged false confessors
proved highly suggestible or compliant; similarly, but less striking, not
all of the resisters were low on suggestibility and compliance. This raises an important
point, which should always be carefully considered by the psychologist
or psychiatrist when carrying out a forensic assessment in cases of alleged false
confession. The suspect’s ability to resist the police interviewer’s suggestions
and interrogative pressure, when these are present, is undoubtedly due to the
combination of situational and interrogational factors on the one hand, and the
suspect’s mental state, motivation, personality and coping style on the other.
Figure 14.1 gives the suggestibility and compliance scores of three groups
of subjects (Gudjonsson, 1991c). Here I compared the suggestibility and compliance
scores of 76 alleged false confessors, 38 forensic patients who had
not retracted their confession and still maintained their involvement in the
crime and 15 criminal suspects or defendants who had been able to resist police
interrogation in spite of other evidence against them on which they were
Figure 14.1. Mean suggestibility and compliance scores of ‘false confessors’, ‘forensic
patients’ and ‘resisters’