Psychopathic traits, compliance and likelihood of falsely confessing.

摘要

False confessions present a unique problem for the justice system as they are difficult to prove false and can lead to devastating consequences. Research in the area of police-induced false confessions has identified two main types of risk factors: personal (i.e., suspect's age, sex, and personality) and situational (i.e., police interrogation techniques) that contribute to an individual's risk of falsely confessing (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004). The present study investigated three personality variables: (1) compliance, (2) psychopathy, and (3) anxiety, and their relationship with participants' self-reported likelihood of falsely confessing to police during interrogation. Few past experiences with police interrogation were reported by undergraduate students. Compliance and anxiety were positively correlated with likelihood of falsely confessing while psychopathic traits were negatively correlated with compliance and uncorrelated with likelihood of falsely confessing. The relationship between anxiety and other personality variables are discussed along with implications for policing and criminal justice procedures.;Keywords: psychopathy, compliance, false confessions, police interrogation, self-report.