Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1989, Page 5
Although the possibility of false confession is acknowledged and given some attention in the
interrogation literature, the working assumption in the interrogation analysis business is
that the person being subjected to the interrogation is in truth guilty. The usual legal and
moral questions that are raised focus on the issue of defining the proper limits on the
freedom of interrogators to employ powerful psychological techniques in their attempts to
elicit confessions. The key issue usually is, “has the pressure become so great that the
target‟s will is overborne and is the confession therefore involuntary?”
The possibility that an innocent party might confess is never entirely disregarded. Physical
abuse or extreme fatigue are usually acknowledged as variables capable of causing an
innocent person to comply with a demand for a confession. Compliance in response to the
use of these sorts of pressures is not likely to leave the person in doubt as to what caused
the confession.
The interrogation literature is essentially silent on the rare but nevertheless significant,
phenomenon of induced belief change leading to compliance with demands for confession.
Under certain circumstances, interrogation tactics can result in a reaction far more complex
than that of compliance to a demand to admit to the truth of an accusation.
Relatively standard interrogation tactics applied to individuals possessing little self-
confidence and particular sorts of vulnerabilities can produce the first signs of a thought
reform reaction (i.e., brainwashing).8 The influence tactics routinely used in interrogations
are sufficiently powerful to cause some innocent persons to at least temporarily come to
believe that they have committed a serious crime. Once convinced of their guilt, they are
probably more than ordinarily likely to respond to the interrogation situations‟ ubiquitous
pressures to admit quilt.
For the individuals discussed here, the key to developing belief in their guilt and,
subsequently, to eliciting their false confessions, was to induce sufficient self-doubt and
confusion to cause them to adjust their perceptions of reality.
All of these individuals were psychologically evaluated through clinical interviews and/or
routine psychometric testing. Not surprisingly, they were found to be somewhat more than
usually trusting of authority, lacking in self-confidence, and more than ordinarily
suggestible. All were quite sane. These personality factors together with aspects of their
personal histories constituted the not very extraordinary vulnerabilities that interacted with
the interrogation tactics brought to bear on them.
The process through which the victims were brought to confess involved establishing in their
minds two specific beliefs that are “atypical” in run-of-the-mill interrogations and subjecting
them to the “typical” influence procedures of an interrogation. The “atypical” cognitions
that the victims were influenced to accept were that:
1. They committed the crime. Despite their lack of any memory of having committed the
crime there existed incontrovertible evidence of their guilt.
2. There was a valid reason for their lack of memory. There existed a plausible and
applicable explanation for their lack of memory of the crime.
Once established, these two cognitions and the false confessions were produced in response
to tactics which overwhelmed the victims. The tactics included:
1. Repeated displays of the interrogator‟s certainty of the victim‟s guilt through frequent
accusations and frequent statements of the interrogator‟s confidence in his position.
2. Isolation from information and social supports that differed from the interrogator‟s
position about the victim‟s guilt.
3. Lengthy interrogation under conditions of great emotional intensity.
Although the possibility of false confession is acknowledged and given some attention in the
interrogation literature, the working assumption in the interrogation analysis business is
that the person being subjected to the interrogation is in truth guilty. The usual legal and
moral questions that are raised focus on the issue of defining the proper limits on the
freedom of interrogators to employ powerful psychological techniques in their attempts to
elicit confessions. The key issue usually is, “has the pressure become so great that the
target‟s will is overborne and is the confession therefore involuntary?”
The possibility that an innocent party might confess is never entirely disregarded. Physical
abuse or extreme fatigue are usually acknowledged as variables capable of causing an
innocent person to comply with a demand for a confession. Compliance in response to the
use of these sorts of pressures is not likely to leave the person in doubt as to what caused
the confession.
The interrogation literature is essentially silent on the rare but nevertheless significant,
phenomenon of induced belief change leading to compliance with demands for confession.
Under certain circumstances, interrogation tactics can result in a reaction far more complex
than that of compliance to a demand to admit to the truth of an accusation.
Relatively standard interrogation tactics applied to individuals possessing little self-
confidence and particular sorts of vulnerabilities can produce the first signs of a thought
reform reaction (i.e., brainwashing).8 The influence tactics routinely used in interrogations
are sufficiently powerful to cause some innocent persons to at least temporarily come to
believe that they have committed a serious crime. Once convinced of their guilt, they are
probably more than ordinarily likely to respond to the interrogation situations‟ ubiquitous
pressures to admit quilt.
For the individuals discussed here, the key to developing belief in their guilt and,
subsequently, to eliciting their false confessions, was to induce sufficient self-doubt and
confusion to cause them to adjust their perceptions of reality.
All of these individuals were psychologically evaluated through clinical interviews and/or
routine psychometric testing. Not surprisingly, they were found to be somewhat more than
usually trusting of authority, lacking in self-confidence, and more than ordinarily
suggestible. All were quite sane. These personality factors together with aspects of their
personal histories constituted the not very extraordinary vulnerabilities that interacted with
the interrogation tactics brought to bear on them.
The process through which the victims were brought to confess involved establishing in their
minds two specific beliefs that are “atypical” in run-of-the-mill interrogations and subjecting
them to the “typical” influence procedures of an interrogation. The “atypical” cognitions
that the victims were influenced to accept were that:
1. They committed the crime. Despite their lack of any memory of having committed the
crime there existed incontrovertible evidence of their guilt.
2. There was a valid reason for their lack of memory. There existed a plausible and
applicable explanation for their lack of memory of the crime.
Once established, these two cognitions and the false confessions were produced in response
to tactics which overwhelmed the victims. The tactics included:
1. Repeated displays of the interrogator‟s certainty of the victim‟s guilt through frequent
accusations and frequent statements of the interrogator‟s confidence in his position.
2. Isolation from information and social supports that differed from the interrogator‟s
position about the victim‟s guilt.
3. Lengthy interrogation under conditions of great emotional intensity.
