What Will You Do When They Think It Was You? Counter-interrogation Strategies of Innocent Interviewees Under Suspicion vs. No Suspicion

Abstract

The current imaginary mock-crime study examined innocent interviewees’ (N = 128) planned counter-interrogation strategies and their willingness to disclose critical information as a function of (a) the type of secondary act (irrelevant to the crime under investigation) they imagined having executed at the crime scene (lawful act vs. unlawful act) and (b) the presence of suspicion directed towards the interviewees (suspicion vs. no suspicion). Results show that, to be honest, was the most frequently reported strategy among lawful as well as unlawful act participants. In contrast, none of the lawful act participants reported the strategy to be deceptive, whereas 35.9% of the unlawful act participants did. When no suspicion (vs. suspicion) was directed towards unlawful act participants, they were less willing to voluntarily share critical information on their true intentions at the crime scene. Consequently, seemingly easy “no suspicion” situations appear to promote the application of more deceptive and evasive behavior in unlawful act interviewees and might therefore put them at risk of being wrongfully assessed as guilty of the crime under investigation.