A Study on The Power of Storytelling to Persuade Suspects to Confession

Police interrogations of suspected offenders plays a pivotal role in criminal investigations and subsequent prosecutions. Unsurprisingly, the way police interrogate suspects has been the subject of much scrutiny as they sometimes lead to false confessions and incarcerations. Surprisingly, however, the effect that various techniques have on eliciting false confessions has not been the subject of much empirical testing. In the current study, the effect of the use of storytelling (e.g., stories of how others have confessed to the interrogator) on confession rate (i.e., admissions of guilt) will be examined. University students (N = 128) will be recruited for a study on problem solving ability, some will be invited to cheat on the task (making them guilty) and some will not (making them innocent). Later, the researcher will accuse all participants of cheating, but will tell the student a story about a previous cheating incident (where admission to the infraction was forgiven) for half of the participants, and will try to get the participant to admit to cheating and sign a written confession. “TO BE CONT’D”

Faculty Supervisor:

Brent Snook

Student:

Partner:

Lancaster University - to merge

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Other

University:

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Program: