The link between suggestibility, compliance, and false confessions: A review using experimental and field studies

Henry Otgaar,Alejandra De La Fuente Vilar,Harald Merckelbach,Jennifer Maria Schell‐Leugers,Sanne T L Houben,Mark L Howe

doi:10.1002/acp.3788

Henry Otgaar, Alejandra De La Fuente Vilar + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3788

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Abstract

AbstractExpert witnesses and scholars sometimes disagree on whether suggestibility and compliance are related to people's tendency to falsely confess. Hence, the principal aim of this review was to amass the available evidence on the link between suggestibility and compliance and false confessions. We reviewed experimental data in which false confessions were experimentally evoked and suggestibility and compliance were measured. Furthermore, we reviewed field data of potential false confessions and their relationship with suggestibility and compliance. These diverse databases converge to the same conclusion. We unequivocally found that high levels of suggestibility (and to a lesser extent compliance) were associated with an increased vulnerability to falsely confess. Suggestibility measurements might be informative for expert witnesses who must evaluate the false confession potential in legal cases.

Highlights

Are certain types of people more likely to confess to a crime that they did not commit? The issue of false confessions has attracted wide scientific and legal attention in the past decades
The overarching aim of the present review was to examine the link between suggestibility, compliance, and false confessions
We found consistent support that high levels of suggestibility are related to the predisposition to falsely confess

Summary

Introduction

Are certain types of people more likely to confess to a crime that they did not commit? The issue of false confessions has attracted wide scientific and legal attention in the past decades. Some scholars have asserted that there are important individual differences that might impact people's willingness to confess to a crime that they did not commit (e.g., Gudjonsson, 2010, 2018), other scholars have argued that individual differences do not play a significant role in the susceptibility to form false confessions (Israëls, 2011; Mergaerts, 2019; Rassin & Israëls, 2014) This disagreement can be found when scholars are appointed as expert witnesses to testify on the potential false confessions, as happened, for example, in the highly publicized Dutch case of Kim V. After several long police interrogations, she confessed to stabbing her children After, she recanted her confession, claimed her innocence and stated that she falsely confessed to the murder of her children in order to attend their cremation service. This case posed a difficult task for investigators: Did this young mother commit filicide or did she falsely confess to the murder of her children (De Ruiter & Kaser-Boyd, 2015)?

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