Lucy Akehurst

Police officers', social workers', teachers' and the general public's beliefs about deception in children, adolescents and adults

Purpose. The present survey examined the beliefs of different occupational groups (police officers, social workers, teachers) and members of the general public about (i) cues to deception in young children (5- to 6-year-olds), adolescents (14- to 15-year-olds) and adults, and (ii) the underlying processes (emotions, cognitive load and attempted verbal and behavioural control), which may explain why cues to deceit do occur. Method. Two hundred and six participants completed a ‘cues to deception’ and ‘processes underlying deception’ questionnaire for three different age groups (young children, adolescents and adults). Results and discussion. The survey revealed that participants believed that liars are nervous, have difficulties in formulating their lies and do not fully endorse their lies. In general, participants associated more cues with deception than seems justified on the basis of deception literature. Participants generally associated the same cues to deceit for all three age groups but, when differences between age groups did emerge, this was most likely to be amongst teachers. Although participants believed that adults control their speech and behaviour more when they lie than adolescents and young children do, this did not result in participants believing that adults exhibit fewer cues to deceit. No major occupational differences emerged, although out of the four participating groups, teachers were most likely to associate cues with deception in young children.

Will the Truth Come Out? The Effect of Deception, Age, Status, Coaching, and Social Skills on CBCA Scores

The impact of Veracity, Age, Status (witness or suspect), Coaching (informed or uninformed regarding CBCA), and Social Skills (social anxiety, social adroitness, and self-monitoring) on Criteria-Based Content Analysis scores was examined. Participants (aged 5–6, 10–11, 14–15, and undergraduates) participated in a “rubbing the blackboard” event. In a subsequent interview they told the truth or lied about the event. They were accused of having rubbed the blackboard themselves (suspect condition) or were thought to have witnessed the event (witness condition), and were or were not taught some CBCA criteria prior to the interview. CBCA scores discriminated between liars and truth tellers in children, adults, witnesses, and suspects. However, truth tellers obtained higher CBCA scores than liars only when the liars were uninformed about CBCA. CBCA scores were correlated with social skills. It is argued that these findings should caution those who believe that the validity of CBCA has been conclusively demonstrated.

The effects of children's age and delay on recall in a cognitive or structured interview.

The study examined; (i) whether the enhanced cognitive interview (ECI) would aid event recall when used with children, (ii) whether the effects of a delay between the witnessed event and interview would have an impact on the effectiveness of the ECI, (iii) whether the age of the child would have a bearing on the effectiveness of the ECI, and (iv) which category(ies) of event recall might be effected. Thirty-two 8 to 9 year old children and thirty-two 11 to 12 year old children were shown a video recording of a staged shoplifting. Half were interviewed four hours after viewing the event and half after a six day delay. Children were interviewed individually using either the ECI or a structured interview (SI). Those interviewed using the ECI recalled significantly more correct details (especially detail pertaining to actions) with no increase in the reporting of erroneous information. The ECI was found to be a reliable interviewing technique regardless of age and delay.

Individual Differences in Hand Movements During Deception

This article addresses the influence of 2 personality traits on making hand movements during deception, namely public self-consciousness and ability to control behavior. It was hypothesized that especially individuals with high public self-consciousness and individuals who are skilled in controlling their behavior would make fewer hand movements during deception compared to truth-telling. A total of 56 participants were interviewed twice; in one interview they told the truth and in the other interview they lied. Before the interviews the participants completed a personality inventory to measure their levels of public self-consciousness and ability to control their behavior. The results supported the hypotheses. Some implications of these findings are discussed.

Content credibility of accounts derived from live and video presentations

Purpose. The present experiment examined the success rate of well-trained raters in judging the truthfulness of witness statements. Statements from children aged 7-8 years, children aged 10-11 years and adults were rated for the presence of 15 of the 19 original Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) criteria (Steller & Kohnken, 1989). Method. This experiment comprised a 3 (age of participant) × 3 (nature of account) design. One-third of the participants took part in a photography session, one-third watched a video recording of a peer taking part in a photography session, and one-third were party to a verbal description regarding the photography session but neither participated in it themselves nor saw a video recording. The first two groups then gave truthful accounts of their experiences in a subsequent interview. However, the third group was asked, by the experimenter, to lie during the interview and to try to convince the interviewers that they also had taken part in a photography session. Results. The CBCA criteria discriminated between truthful accounts based on actual involvement and fabricated accounts. However, the criteria did not significantly discriminate between those truthful accounts based on watching a video recording and fabricated accounts. Interestingly, there was a significant difference between the truthful accounts based on participation and the truthful accounts based on observation. Further, CBCA was equally effective in discriminating between participative truthful accounts and fabricated accounts for all three age groups. Conclusions. CBCA was found to be a very useful tool in discriminating between truthful accounts based on direct experience of an event and fabricated accounts (overall hit rate, 70%). Also, CBCA was found to discriminate between truthful acounts based on actual experience and truthful accounts based on watching a video. This latter finding has implications for the real world when children and adults use information from television programmes and videos on which to base false allegations. Finally, CBCA was found to be equally effective for use with accounts from adults as well as children.

The existence of a black clothing stereotype: The impact of a victim' black clothing on impression formation

The present experiment examined the existence of a black clothing stereotype in victims reports concerning sexual harrassment. The black clothing stereotype is concerned with the idea that people who are dressed in black make a dishonest and aggressive impression. Observer characteristics such as gender and the acceptance of sexual harrassment myths were investigated in order to find out whether this stereotype exists in different kind of people or only in subgroups (such as males or people high in sexual harrassment myths acceptance). In the experiment, 59 observers (college students) were exposed to a video-taped account of a victim of sexual harrassment. The victim wore either black or light clothing. The outcomes revealed the existence of the black clothing stereotype. Moreover, this stereotype existed in all groups and not only in subgroups. The practical implications of the findings are discussed.

The effect of socially encountered misinformation and a delay on children's eyewitness testimony

This study investigated the impact of different types of post-event misinformation and a 3-month delay on childrens suggestibility. Children aged 9–11 years old were interviewed about a witnessed event, on three occasions: immediately after witnessing the event (Baseline), after exposure to misinformation (Time 1) and after a 3-month delay (Time 2). With regard to misinformation, the children were allocated to one of three conditions: exposure to a biased narrative, exposure to a biased confederate, and no exposure to misleading information. Suggestibility was significantly higher when misinformation was introduced socially, by a confederate, than when it was introduced via a written narrative. Suggestibility scores, however, for all the children were significantly lower after a 3-month delay, although those who had been exposed to misinformation were still more suggestible than those in the control group.

An evaluation of a new tool to aid judgements of credibility in the medico‐legal setting

Purpose Clinical psychologists and other health professionals are often requested to act as expert witnesses in Court. They are required to assess, and report upon, the reliability of the accounts of physical and psychological symptoms made by their clients. This study investigated the effectiveness of a checklist drawing upon relevant literature on lying and malingering to aid the detection of exaggeration of physical symptoms. Method Sixty-four participants were cast as interviewers and assigned to either a ‘checklist’ or ‘no checklist’ condition. Another 64 volunteers were assigned to either a ‘truth teller’ or ‘malingerer’ role and, after undergoing a cold pressor procedure, were interviewed about their experience. The interviewers with a checklist drawn from the literature were asked to rate the presence of 28 checklist items on 5-point Likert scales and to indicate whether or not they believed their interviewee was truthful or exaggerating his or her symptoms. The interviewers without the checklist were asked to simply indicate whether their interviewee was truthful or exaggerating. Results Evaluators who were not given the checklist did not classify their interviewees at a level significantly better than chance. Those using the checklist achieved an overall hit rate of 70%. Signal detection analysis supported the finding that those with the checklist showed greater discriminability. Nine checklist items significantly discriminated between truth tellers and malingerers. Furthermore, the total checklist score was significantly higher for exaggerated accounts than for truthful accounts. Conclusions Results suggest that a checklist based on the literatures into lying and malingering warrants further investigation. Such a tool would be useful as an aid for expert witnesses called to provide informed opinion on the likelihood that a claimant is exaggerating, malingering or otherwise misrepresenting difficulties.

Evidence of big five and aggressive personalities in gait biomechanics

Behavioral observation techniques which relate action to personality have long been neglected (Furr and Funder in Handbook of research methods in personality psychology, The Guilford Press, New York, 2007) and, when employed, often use human judges to code behavior. In the current study we used an alternative to human coding (biomechanical research techniques) to investigate how personality traits are manifest in gait. We used motion capture technology to record 29 participants walking on a treadmill at their natural speed. We analyzed their thorax and pelvis movements, as well as speed of gait. Participants completed personality questionnaires, including a Big Five measure and a trait aggression questionnaire. We found that gait related to several of our personality measures. The magnitude of upper body movement, lower body movement, and walking speed, were related to Big Five personality traits and aggression. Here, we present evidence that some gait measures can relate to Big Five and aggressive personalities. We know of no other examples of research where gait has been shown to correlate with self-reported measures of personality and suggest that more research should be conducted between largely automatic movement and personality.

Can Judgments of Threat Reflect an Approaching Person’s Trait Aggression?

When in a vulnerable situation (such as walking alone at night), an approaching person may be seen as ‘threatening’. Here, we are interested in how well participants’ judgments of threat reflected the trait aggression of approaching target people. We use two similar experiments to demonstrate and replicate the relationship between judgments of threat and target aggression.In both studies participants judged how threatening they found 22 approaching people (presented in videos). In Study One, participants judged the targets whilst sitting at a computer. In Study Two, participants were standing and were either oriented facing the videos, or oriented away from the videos so they had to look over their shoulder. This was to emulate a potentially threatening person approaching from behind. Across both studies, there was strong evidence that the average judgments of the threat posed by the approaching targets accurately reflected the targets’ trait aggression. It was also found that there was noteworthy variability in individual participants’ ability to detect aggression, with a few participants even having an inverse relationship between threat and the target’s aggression. This research demonstrates that judgments of how ‘threatening’ a person is can be used to accurately index trait aggression at a distance.