Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

414 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
administered in accordance with the instructions given in the manual. The GCS
is much less of a problem with regard to administration, because it functions
like a straightforward questionnaire.
Of the three measures—suggestibility, compliance and acquiescence—
compliance is least related to intellectual skills and acquiescence the most.
Suggestibility is clearly principally related to memory and information processing,
personality and situational factors. In contrast, compliance is clearly
mediated by personality factors, such as social conformity, anxiety proneness,
low self-esteem and denial coping strategies. The concept and measurement of
compliance are highly relevant to coerced–compliant types of confession.
One of the most difficult questions with regard to suggestibility relates to the
extent to which one can generalize from a GSS test score to a trait concept of
interrogative suggestibility. This is not a new issue, but nevertheless is a very
important one, and will be taken up in the final chapter of this book, when all
the evidence, theoretical, empirical and anecdotal, has been assessed.