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Overcoming Innocents' Naiveté: Pre‐interrogation Decision‐making Among Innocent Suspects
Author(s) -
Scherr Kyle C.,
Alberts Kimberly M.,
Franks Andrew S.,
Hawkins Ian
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.2247
Subject(s) - interrogation , cognition , mindset , scarcity , psychology , social psychology , dual process theory (moral psychology) , cognitive load , computer security , computer science , economics , political science , law , psychiatry , microeconomics , artificial intelligence
Suspects, especially innocent ones, are highly susceptible to waiving their interrogation rights. This research tested the ability of two strategies to overcome innocent suspects' willingness to waive their rights. One strategy was based on the social influence of scarcity (i.e., not constraining the pre‐interrogation time limit). The other strategy focused on disrupting individuals' cognitive fluency during the decision‐making process (i.e., violating their induced expectation of offering a waiver). Disrupting innocent individuals' cognitive fluency increased their willingness to invoke their rights and, notably, was not qualified by interactions with any other factors. However, scarcity did not influence individuals' pre‐interrogation decision‐making. Results also further established the association between innocent individuals' naïve mindset and their willingness to waive their rights – specifically, innocents' willingness to waive their rights increased with the strength of their just world beliefs. The theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed. The importance and benefit of reforming pre‐interrogation protocols using fair and feasible strategies that would disrupt suspects' cognitive fluency are emphasized. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.