Browse this website: http://investigation.discovery.com/tv/real-interrogations/real-interrogations.html
watch some interrogations, take some quizzes.
what did you learn? what most surprised you? what does psychology have to do with it all?
Topical Blog due Thursday 3/1 @ midnight
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This website was pretty interesting. I took two quizzes. They were called wrongly accused quiz and interrogation quiz. I also listened to four of the real life interrogations. They were sympathy, lie detector, deception, and weakest link. I found the real life interrogations to be pretty interesting, but they are only on the side of the police or interrogators, which makes the information biased. Knowing what I know from the textbook and lecture made it so that I was able to see beyond what they were saying. One thing that caught my attention was that when they interviewed the cops who did the interrogation they all seemed very cocky and like they were above everyone else.
In the video about sympathy the cop who was narrating the clip said that in order to get a good confession you need to make the suspect comfortable. He also said that if you make sure they are comfortable than there is a better chance that they will feel safe and be more willing to talk to you. You have to make some sort of connection with the suspect. You have to make them feel like it isn’t there fault a lot by giving them sympathy so that they feel as if you were on their side. I think that this would deal with behavioral psychology because it has to deal with the behaviors of the people involved and what would make them feel safe.
The video about the lie detector was kind of interesting but it just made me think of false confessions because of the fact that you make them feel like they have nowhere to go. To me this will mess with their mind in making them want to leave with the best option, which could mean confessing to something that they didn’t do. The cop said that he would show them the computer so that they could tell they were lying. They are more likely to confess when they know you know they are lying. I found it very interesting that people would try random things in hope of fooling the lie detector. The cop said he has seen people bite and punch holes in the vacuum system that connects to the computer. Some people have even put peanut butter on the roof of their mouth thinking that would fool it. Even in some cases people have put pennies in their mouth, and things in their shoes.
The video on deception basically was about acting. The cop said that sometimes you have to pretend to be someone you are not. When you say that you know something specific about the suspect it makes them think that you are everywhere because they don’t know how you could have gotten that information. The cop told her that they knew more than they actually did in a situation. He also told that same girl that he knew she was driving the care and basically made her visualize the crime. This to me would have made this confession false because of the way he was talking to her. This has to do with cognitive psychology because he messes with her mind and the way she is thinking.
On the quiz called the interrogation quiz I got 8 out of 10. One of the questions that came up that didn’t know was that the eyes move to the right when trying to remember something. I find that kind of things extremely interesting. This would have to do with forensic psychology because of the fact that it is about reading peoples movements to see if they are lying.
Overall I have learned that if I am going to be arrested for any reason I am going to call my lawyer because I don’t want to have to go through the mind tricks that are used in an interrogation situation. I have learned that people look to the right when trying to remember something that has happened. I have also learned that mostly all interrogations are videoed so that people can look back on them to see what role the interrogator played, and if it was legal.
Psychology has a lot to do with interrogations because it has to do a lot with the mental state of the suspect. The interrogators mess with the person’s memory and that has a lot to do with psychology. Basically all of interrogations fall under psychology in a way.
I learned quite a bit through this assignment. I found this website to be a good tool in learning more about interrogations. I learned a lot through the book for the assignment due on monday but I watching videos and testing my knowledge through quizzes helped the information sink in more. I learned interrogators do not only use a polygraph to know if a person is lying or not, but they also use a computerized voice stress analyzer. This can tell if a person is lying by using analyzing the fm and am waves of a person's voice. I found it to be very interesting because a person could say yes or no to an answer and have it sound the same so it was interesting to hear it worked better in some cases. I also learned interrogators will say they know more than they actually do about the suspect's involvement in the crime. During one of the interrogations, the interrogators told her they had her under surveillance since days before on a Saturday and have been watching her since and they saw her at the crime. They told her this lie in order for her to confess to being a part of the crime rather than stating they did not know if she was or not but would like her to tell them, that would get them no where. I also learned it is very difficult to receive a confession from someone because the interrogator must be sympathetic and able to relate to the suspect and make him or her feel comfortable, but also be tough at the same time. This is a large reason why interrogators will use the good cop/bad cop technique so one person can take on the good cop roll and the other will take the bad cop roll. There are some interrogations where the interrogators are not sympathetic and are very intimidating in order to get the person to talk. The interrogation where the woman was present talking with the young man who was a suspect stroke interesting to me because he was more willing to talk to her because she was a mother figure and he was raised by his mother alone. I learned different techniques used in interrogations which was very odd to me. One of these techniques was the Chinese water torture which consists of dripping water on the suspects forehead until he or she goes nearly insane and finally gives a confession. Another technique used is water-boarding. This technique is when the person is strapped to a board with his or her head lowered and his or her face covered. The water is then poured over the person's face and it causes the person to gag and experience the feeling of drowning. There were many things consistent with the reading from the book but those things I learned from the website broadened my knowledge of interrogations even further.
What surprised me most were the techniques I learned about. I had no idea of some tactics the police use in order to obtain a confession. I have always thought the interrogations were just like the movies where the suspect sits in the plain room at a plain table with a light on and one other interrogator. I had no idea of all of the other things interrogators would do to reach their goal. It shocked me to read about water-boarding. It would be extremely awful for a person who did not commit the crime to undergo this process for something he or she did not do and this could lead to a false confession which is not good either. While some innocent people undergo these strong forceful tactics. the real perpetrator is on the loose, experiencing freedom.
Psychology is ALL of the interrogation. The interrogation occurs in order for the police to get inside of the suspect's head to obtain a confession. The different tactics are designed to get inside of the suspect's head at different angles until the person becomes mentally drained and finally confesses to the crime he or she may or may not have committed. Emotional psychology is evident due to the different ways interrogators speak to the suspect. There are some which are sympathetic and 'nice' while others are forceful and intimidating. The police lie in order to let the suspect think he or she can trust the police or so the suspect feels like he or she is doomed no matter what he or she says.
I found this assignment to be pretty helpful in helping me understand the interrogation process. A lot of what I looked at and learned about on this website overlapped with what was in the book and what we talked about in class on Tuesday. But by looking through this website I feel I now better understand the material as the quizzes helped a lot. I was able to take the different quizzes and even though I didn’t get a perfect on them I was able to see what I got wrong and learn from that.
I watched several of these videos on the website as they were on a playlist. In watching these videos I learned that different interrogators use different tactics in trying to obtain a confession. I watched one that the interrogator just used pure intimidation to try to get a conviction. This went along with what we talked about in class on Tuesday that these interrogations are often times an intimidating and difficult place to be in. The officer here used a very assertive voice and was using terminology like “we know you did it” and “we have evidence that you were at the scene.” He was basically accusing this person to try to put fear in them to get them to confess. Eventually he was able to get the conviction but it was interesting in the way he went about it.
In a different video on the website interrogators took a pretty different approach. There were two of them in there and it almost seemed like they were trying to be nice to the suspect. They were quoted by saying “our first step in trying to get a confession is trying to relate and make them feel comfortable.” They said in all the years of their experience they have not been successful when creating a hostile environment. They found it is much easier to get information and confessions when they make suspects feel comfortable.
Finally I watched another video that seemed to be a mixture of the two previous methods I talked about. In the video they stated they use a “Good cop, Bad Cop” approach. I liked this one the best because we talked about this in class and this video gave me a visual of what it actually looked like. These interrogators seemed to use an intimidation and calming style. In this particular interrogation the first interrogator use intimidation by being loud and accusing the suspect of murdering her husband. After an extended period of time he would leave and another interrogator would come in and try to calm this situation down by trying to calmly talk with her and try to get answers. They would do this over and over until they got a conviction. I feel like you would be able to catch on to this but I guess most don’t as we talked in class it is a pretty powerful style of interrogating.
Psychology plays a vital role in the interrogation process. There is lots of social psychology and communication going on during this process. Interrogators are asking lots of questions to get some kind of response from the suspects. Ultimately they are trying to get a straight confession but if they don’t they may be able to read people nonverbal and use them to their advantage in trying to get a confession. Interrogators try to see in the suspects head and manipulate their thinking so they can get a conviction.
I found this assignment to be very helpful in learning more about the process of interrogations in general along with testing your own individual knowledge. It was interesting to get to hear about interrogations from actual cops and then get to watch the footage after they explained a little bit about what was going on. I also really enjoyed taking the many different quizzes because it helped me to see how much I have learned.
The lie detector is useful to let the suspect see that the police know he/she is lying. To actually be able to see something like that on paper may encourage the suspect to just come out and confess. Persons undergoing the lie detector test go to great means such as bringing in outside influences like a penny to put in their mouths or messing with the detecting device. The weakest link video emphasized that the goal is to make the suspect feel as though they have nothing to lose by sharing information. They make it out to seem as though it will be beneficial to do so and the police will protect her from the possible repercussions. The deception video emphasized how sometimes the cops have to be good actors. By scaring the suspects and making them feel like the cops know a lot more than they had expected can convince the suspect that they might as well just come forward since the cops know so much already. Empathy can be very useful in an interrogation setting because it helps the suspect feel more comfortable and safe. When using this, interrogators are relying on a basic human need to talk to others and feel understood. Each style of interrogation relies on psychology in one way or another because they all manipulate the suspect’s emotions and the effectiveness of any given interrogation will depend on the suspect’s mental state. The type of interrogation that works best on any given suspect will also vary from person to person depending on the situation and that individual’s personality and weaknesses.
The first quiz that I took was the interrogation quiz, on which I did fairly well getting 7 out of 10. I got all of the information about definitions and law correct, but what I struggled with were the questions regarding real instances such as the one that asked about which person the CIA used waterboarding on. I think I did well on the rest of the quiz because the chapter we read for Monday taught me a lot about general protocol for interrogations along with the laws. Next I took the wrongly accused quiz, but I didn’t do very well on it because I don’t know much about real life cases of this, though I did get the questions about the innocence project correct. The quizzes in general were a good representation of the solid facts and knowledge I have obtained over this subject material.
What surprised me the most was probably the fact that suspects will try to manipulate the lie detector so that they can get the results that they want. I understand that an interrogation is a high stress environment and they may not be thinking clearly, but it just seems like sheer stupidity that would make someone believe that if they put something in their shoe then the test will come back saying that they passed. Also, if I were ever in a police station I would just assume that I was being watched pretty much at all times. To think that an officer wouldn’t notice that you’re poking holes into the machine or even notice the damage later seems ridiculous.
I watched four interrogation videos on the website. I learned quite a bit about the various tactics used by the interrogators in order for them to successfully get a confession. The police will use interrogators they believe will make the biggest connection with the suspect. For example, if a black man commited the crime and is uncomfortable talking and relating to a white person then they will send in a black interrogator. This allows the suspect to more comfortable and more likely to spill more information to someone they feel they can relate to. Also there was one video where a white teenage boy was raised by his mother. The interrogator used to interrogate him was a white female who look and acted like a mother figure. Which allowed him to put his guard down and tell them the information they wanted to hear.
I took four quizes on the website. I found the quizes to be actually pretty fun. I also tested my memory by taking a few quizes about cases I learned in the past. Surprisingly I memorized most of the information but was a little rusty on certain questions. The four quizes I took were: Famous crimes, O.J. Simpson, Jack the Ripper, and the interrogation techniques quiz. My favorite one was the famous crimes because it contained a variety of different facts about various well known crimes. The Jack the Ripper case however is the most interesting because the killer was never found and the case is still unsolved. His killers happened over a 4 month span and then suddenly stopped. I was surprised to hear that in the O.J. Simpson case that after he was proven innocent in a criminal court and he was found liable in a civil matter. The Goldman and Brown families were awarded will a multi-billion dollar settlement. O.J. wrote a book with the title "If I did it." Which was later changed by the Goldman family to "Confessions of a killer." It was also interesting to know that 50% of the population watched the trial on the television.
Psychology has a huge impact on interrogation. The police put their suspects in multiple different situations and scenarios in order to change up their state of mind. By doing so it allows the interrogators to have an advantage over there suspect in hope to gather valuable evidence if they can't get a confession out of them. A popular technique that the interrogators use is good cop/bad cop. In this scenario the bad cop is very negative and doesn't show any sypathy and it really puts the suspect down in an attemp to break them and cause them to confess to the crime. While the bad cop shows that he is caring and comes off as if he actually cares about the suspect as a person and shows respect. This lightens the mood and might trigger the suspect to feel comfortable enough to tell the cops the information they want to hear because they wont get in that much trouble because how thoughtful the good cop was. The atmosphere in the room and the mood of the suspect plays a big role in the amount of information they provide and whether or not they give a confession. Psychology is used to trick and/or persuade the suspect into providing additional evidence that could lead to the potential solving of the crime or speep up the process by breaking down the suspect into confessing to the crime they commited or providing the name or names of the perpetrator.
The first interrogation I watched was called "Weakest Link". In this video, I feel that the interrogator comes across as someone the suspect can trust. For this reason, the lady confided in the officer, offering up the name Diablo as well as the criminal's real name. I didn't like hearing that other cops were on Diablo's payroll. I am not so naive to think such activity doesn't happen here in the states, but it sickens me nonetheless. It really made me wonder how many crooked cops there really are out there.
The next video was called "Empathy". The officer that speaks in the beginning goes into detail about how it is in our nature as human beings to want to talk to someone or connect with someone. The connection or bond with a suspect is critical to gaining the trust of the suspect. The next officer says that he tries to be the suspect's best friend and to avoid using "muscle". The suspect must be comfortable. One officer even says that if a female officer makes the suspect not want to talk, then the female officer is removed in able to make the suspect feel more comfortable. The female officer that spoke at the end of the video believes that sometimes a suspect could view a female officer as a mother figure, especially in the case of the suspect on the video who was raised by his mother. In this case, the suspect is much more likely to offer up information in the presence of the female officer.
The next video is titled "Lie Detector". The first officer to speak in the video states that often when the equipment (in this case a supposedly more accurate tool called a computerized voice stress analyzer) tells the suspect that they lied, it can spawn a confession. The next officer speak of deceptions suspects use in order to thwart the lie detection process. Many of these I had heard of including the penny in the mouth and putting something in your shoe.
The final video was on deception. Here, a cop lies after establishing credibility. The officer in the video used tipster information to fool the suspect into thinking she was under surveillance for a while. Another officer describes a technique where they tell the suspect that gun powder was found on their hands when in fact it was not. To close the video, an officer sums up by stating that "we have to lie to get the truth". Hypocritical, but I like it.
The first quiz I took was the interrogation quiz. I received a score of 8/10. One of the question that I missed asked what chinese water torture was. I have never heard of dropping water on someone's forehead as torture, but I suppose it would accomplish its objective. I know I would go crazy if I knew the water wasn't going to stop dripping. The other question I missed was related to whom the U.S. government waterboarded. I naively chose Saddam since the picture associated with the question appeared to be Saddam (maybe not).
The next quiz I took was Crimes of the 20th century. I thought this would be interesting since I pay alot of attention to the news and consider myself a history buff. Apparently I never paid much attention to detail as I only scored 5 out of 10. I wasn't surprised at all by the proportion of people who watched the O.J. verdict. I was in 6th or 7th grade when this happened and I remember the teachers getting all the students into one room to hear the results. My parents were discussing it all night that night as well. It was probably the most media-followed domestic criminal case of my lifetime. I was shocked to find out that the Unabomber was a former professor at a prestigious college. Lastly, I missed the question about Lindbergh's son. Very sad.
I love taking quizzes so I decided to do a few more. The next one I did was the spy gadgets quiz mainly because it sounded interesting and I wanted to see just how far-fetched the gadgets seen in the James Bond movies really were. As it turns out, the movies could be construed as fairly accurate by today's standards. A lipstick gun, poison-tipped umbrellas, and a intelligence-gathering catfish were just a few of the gadgets that I never would have thought possible for the time in which they were used. If there were such
Psychology is omnipresent in interrogations. From the way the interrogation room is set up to the tactics used to deceive suspects into confessing, psychology is everywhere. The interrogators make it their job to mess with suspects' heads in order to get them to confess to a crime. Much of the mental warfare is done in an attempt to "break" the suspect. In other words, a defiant suspect is more likely to confess if they are put under extreme duress. Also, interrogators wil often play on/with the emotions of suspects. Interrogators are trained to be able to detect possible lies through the suspect's body language and how the suspect may or may not react to certain questions asked.
This was interesting website to explore and interact with. I had a chance to watch several different interrogations and the different techniques that were utilized in them. The four main techniques displayed were weakest link, establishing empathy, lie detector, and deception. All of these techniques are important depending on both the circumstances of the crime and also the type of suspect that is being interrogated. I also had a chance to explore more of the website and took advantage of some of the quizzes that were offered. Although I had learned most of the information from the website in the C&K textbook reading of chapter two, there was some new things that were pointed out to me.
I think it is important that I learned some of the interrogation sytles that were presented not only for better knowledge on the subject, but also if I am ever unfortunate enough to find myself in a situation where I am being falsely accussed. The first interrogation I watched involved investigators using the weakest link approach. In this approach interrogators try to demonstrate to a suspect how they are at a significant disadvantage in comparison to either other suspects or the investigation as a whole. For example, in the video the interrogators tried to frame the questioning in a fashion that would put the woman suspect at the scene of the crime, while all the time they were trying to get the suspect to give details on other suspects involved. The second technique used was the method of establishing empathy. This involved investigators establishing rapport and gaining the suspect's trust in order to open lines of communication. Utilizing lie detectors were used in cases where suspects were particularly hard-headed and would not admit to obvious falsities. Finally, the technique of interrogator deception is commonly used to misrepresent an investigation in order to fool a suspect into incriminating themself or others. All of these techniques can be used in the interrogation process, and it is important for individuals to understand these in cases where they can be used against them. However, they are important also to the effect that they do help to put away serious offenders.
There are many psychological relationships invovled with these different types of techniques. The weakest link technique is basically a method to exploit a suspect's inherent insecurity. Exploiting this can trap suspects in a mental corner with only a couple options. Establishing empathy is essential in creating a foundation that allows clear communication to occur within the interrogation setting. Without this step suspects become introverted and unwilling to open up. The lie detector simply detects the truth value of a suspect's statements through the monitoring of nonverbals such as heart rate, voice inflection, and eye movements. Deception is similar to weakest link technique psychologically speaking because it also exploits a suspect's insecurity. This approach forces a suspect to believe incriminating claims to be true which lead to bargaining and further confession.
I had a chance to take a couple of quizzes while I was exploring the website. The quizzes I took were the interrogation quiz and the falsely accussed quiz. I learned some very surprising information in these quizzes. For instance, I was not aware of the fact that people's eyes subconciously look to the right when they are attempting to remember something. Understanding eye movements can be especially useful for interrogators because they can understand how truthful suspect statements are by tracking and diagnosing such eye movements. Additionally, I was appalled at how many individuals waive their miranda rights upon being arrested. Eighty percent of all individuals who are obtained waive their miranda rights in some fashion. It astounds me how foolish people are in these situations. Despite how innocent an individual may be, the minute someone is brought into custody the state will use every mechanism at its disposal to gain a conviction. The best approach people can take is to simply keep their traps shut, unless of course they are requesting an attorney be present. Overall, the website provided me with both some new valuable knowledge on interrogations and also some raw idea of what the inside of an interrogation room looks like.
I found this assignment intrigueing. I learned a lot more about the processes of interrogation. I watched the four interrogation videos. The first one they showed was the weakest link video. This video used the suspects weaknesses to get what they wanted. In this type of situation they picked a useful tactic because they could place her at the scene. The cops ultimately made her feel like they could protect her till she told them the name of the main person in the crime. The second video emphasized the importance of establishing empathy with the suspect. There are different ways of doing this. First of all the officer leading the interrogation is not suppose to make himself seem superior to the suspect. The officers are suppose be more laid back and having a conversation with the suspect. This provides an environment the suspect feels more comfortable in, and will hopefully be more willing to talk to the officers. Second, the officer talking to the suspect should be someone the suspect feels comfortable with. For example, the video showed a clip where the suspect only felt comfortable with a woman officer, and he told her more than the other people who talked with him. The third video was about lie detectors. This video supports the idea that once a suspect knows they are going to have to take a lie detector test they will be more likely to give a confession because they know they can't pass the test. Sadly, this is not always the case. This is why I found it so surprising that people try deceiving these test. The video showed many examples like pennies or peanut butter in your mouth or putting something in your shoe. To me this is just stupid because of course the cops are going to find out, and the suspect just gave them another reason to believe you are guilty. The fourth video was about deception. This video discussed how investigators sometimes need to become actors and lie about how much evidence they have. This is done so the suspect believes the police have all this evidence that can pin them to the crime, so now they are more likely to confess or give them the information they are looking for. I still find it surprising that police are allowed to like about evidence to get what they want out of a suspect.
The first quiz about interrogations I took, I did okay on. I knew a little more than half the answers. I wasn't familiar with the exact cases that were being asked about. I knew the questions about techniques used in interrogation and questions about what is considered involuntary. I knew these from our class discussion and from reading chapter two. The second quiz I took was about profiling because I wanted to see if I could remember everything I learned from profiling. I actually did really good on this quiz. I knew how police started a profile on a suspect, and how profiling helped police.
Overall, psychology plays a huge role throughout interrogations. First of all, the investigators need to socially connect with suspect. Second they need to cognitively be able to come up with a plan to get inside of the suspects head. Cognitive psychology also plays a role in the mind of the suspect because they need to figure out how to handle the high pressure stress situation when giving their answers, and they need to think about whether or not the police are being honest with the evidence they are presenting. Those are just a couple of ways psychology works in interrogations.
I watched two video from this website. The first video I viewed was all about establishing empathy with the suspect. Essentially, this video reminded me of the good cop – bad cop technique used by policeman but, without the bad cop part. The interrogators said that it was within our human nature to want to be able to connect with people especially in stressful situations. Also, these interrogators stressed the importance of having the suspect be comfortable. This feeling of comfortability can come from the race or the gender of the interrogator in relation to the suspect. For example, if they are interviewing an African American suspect, it is important for the interrogator to be African American too. Similarly, if the suspect is a female, she will most likely feel more comfortable being interviewed by a female officer. This video surprised me because of how much they stressed the good cop role. Before watching this video, if I were to guess which role was used more (good cop or bad cop) I would definitely have said bad cop. This relates to psychology because the interviewers are definitely trying to influence the suspects using psychological techniques. Good cop – bad cop was one of the psychological techniques our textbook described. Whenever you are trying to manipulate the mood or the thought processes of an suspect, you are using some sort of psychology on them.
The second video I watched was about lie detectors. It was stated that when a suspect is told that they have failed a lie detection test often times they confess. However, right after they said this they showed an interrogation where the man had failed the test but still refused to confess to anything. Perhaps the confession comes a few days after the test. I also wondered whether or not the man in the video actually did fail the test or if the policeman was just telling him that to make the suspect nervous. I thought it was interesting how the officer kept telling the suspect that this machine was very reliable and nobody can beat it. This was probably another scare tactic to make the suspect nervous or believe that the test was always right. Saying these things about the validity of the lie detector was definitely a psychological technique used by the officer.
After watching the videos I took a couple quizzes. The first quiz I took was about interrogations. I got a 6 out of 10. Something I learned from this quiz is that when people are remembering information they tend to look to the right. I will definitely pay attention to this now when I am talking to people to see if this is true. I also thought it was cool that the quiz mentioned the Central Park Murder Case, which was also in our textbook. Something else I learned is that I don’t know much about different torturing techniques. I think I got all of them wrong especially because I didn’t know the difference between the Chinese Water Torture and Waterboarding.
The second quiz I took was about serial killers. The most surprising thing I learned was that there have been somewhere around 400 serial killers w/in the last century. I never would have guessed it was that many! I also learned about the McDonald Triad. According to this theory there are three characteristics that serial killers are most likely to have shown during late childhood to early adolescents. These three characteristics are: Bed-wetting, arson, and cruelty to animals. This last aspect has to do with psychology because these are the kind of characteristics that a profiler would notice within a serial killer’s past.
After visiting this site I have a more clear picture of how the interrogation process works. I watched the four videos provided: the weakest link, empathy, lie detector, and deception. As well as taking multiple different of the quizzes offered on this website.
In the first video titled the weakest link they put the suspect in question in a position that would be most beneficial to her to tell them the truth about who was involved and what they did. They said they could place her at the scene so it would be in her best interest to tell the police what she knows. The interrogator also made the girl feel comfortable, therefore helping her feel comfortable telling him the name they needed to know.
The second video, empathy, was about a boy being interviewed and the interrogator made him feel like he wasn't a bad person for it and that he was on his side. A police officer from Michigan says that he has learned that the best way to get information out of the suspect is to act like their best friend. They also get someone who the suspect will feel most comfortable talking to. For example the boy in this video opens up to a woman, she believe because he views her as a mother figure and can tell her. This was interesting to me but makes sense that they will do whatever it takes to make the suspect feel comfortable talking to whoever.
Lie detector was the third video. The most interesting part to me that I learned was that besides just actual lie detector (polygraph) test there is a machine (computerized voice stress analyzer) that detects the am and fm waves in your voice and it can tell your lying because the fm waves aren't there when your lying. The police officer talks about how showing the suspect that not only does he (the officer) think that the suspect is lying the machine knows that the suspect is lying can sometime lead to the confession. I think this is a very clever tactic that can be used and should be used more often especially because its more accurate and it can't be beaten unlike polygraphs. Another interesting piece of information I learned from this video is that people try so many things to pass the polygraphs like have peanut butter in their mouth and things in their shoes. This leads me to believe that if they do anything of the sort that they are guilty and they know it otherwise they wouldn't try and go to these measures to try and pass the test.
The last video on the website was titled deception. In interrogations acting like you know something that you really don't is an important and beneficial skill. In the video of the girl in the first section they tell her that they have had her on surveillance since saturday. The reasoning in saying this is so she thinks that the police know everything and she will be more likely to give more details. I believe that lyon to get the truth as long as it is an honest confession is permissible, but if its through coercion like we learned in the reading the confession should be disregarded.
I took multiple of the quizzes on this site. One of them was on criminal profiling. I thought this would be a good one since we learned about it last week and also the book I'm reading for class is all about profiling. I scored 7 out of 9. This quiz asked questions about the first cases, Jack the Ripper, how the profile is developed and about some profiles that have been used. The second quiz I took was about the Casey Anthony trial. I was in Orlando, Florida at the same time as the trial was going on so i got into it and watched almost all of it. The third quiz I took was interrogation techniques. I learned from this quiz that when someone is trying to remember something they look to their right, the interrogation technique called chinese water torture consists off dripping water on suspects forehead until they confess, also what water boarding is.
Psychology has a huge role in interrogations. The whole purpose is to get into the suspects mind and trick them into giving a confession. First, cognitive psychology because it has to do with memory and processing. Social psychology is also important because the interogattor wants the suspect to feel most comfortable so they can put them at ease and hopefully get a confession. It also has a role in the good cop bad cop technique used.
This site was very interesting, and would have been a nice one to find when I was looking for sites Tuesday for our reading blog. I took two quizzes. The first quiz I took was the interrogation quiz. Luckily I only missed one at that one due to the fact that I just read the chapter on it and had lecture on it as well. One of the questions was about Chinese water torture. This is when they drip water on your forehead repeatedly until you pretty much go insane and spill the beans. I wonder how long people usually last with this type of torture. I wonder how long I could last.
Next I watched several videos of real interrogations. You couldn’t pick and choose what videos you watched, they just kept playing one after the other. So I decided to watch the first three: weakest link, establishing empathy, and lie detector.
The first video I watched was called the weakest link. They had a woman in an interrogation room with two male interrogators. I didn’t catch what the crime was, but I know it had something to do with a car, if at the very least, “fleeing from the scene”. The police talked about the importance of making her feel comfortable and seeing eye to eye with her and letting her know that she could trust them. One cop suspected that she was afraid of men, and his hypothesis was correct. He used this fear against her and talked about how the cops weren’t like normal men, that they were the good guys and she could trust them. It worked and she gave them the name they were looking for. One thing I found interesting was that it didn’t matter about telling the police his name because she said that he had connections with the police and they would already know his name. I wonder how often this actually happens where criminals have connections with the police and therefore are never committed. I hope not very often.
The next video I watched was called Establishing Empathy and I thought it had the most to do with psychology. I think they had four cops come on there and talk about the importance of making a suspect feel comfortable. One cop talked about how “we’re all humans” and stressed the importance of establishing a connection and talking about how the police actually do care. I don’t know if that last part is true, however the suspect seemed to believe him. Another cop talked about how brute force and intimidation usually didn’t work when interrogating a suspect. We all have heard the saying “you get bees with honey, not a stick” and this is the principle that this video was demonstrating.
The last video I watched was about lie detection. This was my favorite video because I learned the most from it. One of the lie detection they used was a device that detected stress in the voice. The cop had said it was more accurate than a polygraph. Which is definitely a good thing, because everything I’ve ever learned about polygraphs says that they are not very accurate. However that doesn’t even matter, because it is more of a psychology thing. Most people don’t know how accurate polygraphs truly are (or rather aren’t) and only see on the movies and television that they do work. So when this “fool-proof” machine is telling you that you lied to the cops, you almost have to confess. I also found interesting when one cop talked about all the different ways people try and beat polygraphs. The most interesting ways were putting pennies or peanut butter into your mouth. I find this to be highly unintelligent because more than likely a cop could notice these things, and then not even need the polygraph test.
The last thing I did was take the other quiz I mentioned earlier. I took the quiz about the Casey Anthony trial. I originally knew very little about the case, so I only got 25% of the answers right. However I figured a quiz would be quicker and have the “fun facts” rather than taking the time to read a page of information. I’m still uncertain about my beliefs on the trial and case. Even after the quiz, I don’t think I have enough information to have an opinion.
I found this assignment very interesting and to my surprise learned a lot more information than I thought I would. I really enjoyed this website because it had a lot of information about different techniques of interrogation. I took two quizzes on the website. The first one I took was the interrogation quiz. I only missed two so I didn't think that it was that bad. Luckily I just learned about a lot of the information from the reading and class so I was pretty familiar with the questions.
This website shares a lot of helpful information. I watched a few videos and got a lot of helpful information about that. I learned about lie detection. I thought this was really cool because they used a detection that listened to the stress in the suspects voice to see if they're telling the truth or not. This detection is a lot more accurate than a polygraph. I've heard that polygraph tests aren't very accurate anyways, people just think they are because of what they see on tv or in movies.
This website was very surprising to me also. The quizzes were pretty cool and they shared a lot of information about different things in the legal system. One of the quizzes I took was about serial killers. I was surprised to find out that there were so many serial killers in the past. This quiz kind of scared me too because I was unaware of how many serial killers were out there even back then.
I think this website had a lot to do with psychology because a lot of interrogation techniques have to do with the mind and behavior of the criminal. They get inside of their heads to figure out if the suspect is guilty or not. This website was very interesting and was full of information. I really enjoyed this topical blog.
The first video I watched was called Weakest Link. A woman was being interrogated about some crime and the officer was trying to get her to give them some names. They didn’t really give us much background on the case other than she was supposedly driving the car. The angle that the interrogator took was that she would benefit by ratting out the others that helped her. They told her they could place her at the scene. It wasn’t until the interrogator mentioned something about men making her so whatever they want, that she really cracked. She then became really vulnerable and seemed very afraid that a specific man was going to harm her. The police clutched on to this and eventually got her to reveal a name. This interrogation involved psychology in a sense that the police tapped into the suspect’s fear of men’s power over her, and she got shook up and confessed the name.
The second video focused on using empathy to get confessions. These detectives acted like they were the suspects’ friends and wanted the best for them. They didn’t use violence or talk in a way that would intimidate or scare a confession out of them. They tried to be someone that the suspect could confide in and felt at ease around so that they felt more comfortable opening up to them. I thought that this kind of contradicted what the book said about interrogations being very uncomfortable for the suspect. This video implied that the suspect has some control over the interrogation. Psychology is used in this method because the suspects are more likely to talk if they feel that they are talking to someone that they have a connection with.
Lie Detection was the title for the third video and I thought it was very informative. I didn’t know that there are different kinds of lie detector tests. It was amusing to hear all of the different ways that suspects would try to tinker with the results of the test. In my opinion, if a suspect tries to mess with the test in any way, it is a sign that he/she is guilty. I also thought it was interesting that even after a suspect was told that he failed the lie detection test, he still was persistent the he was innocent, he even went as far as to claim that in a couple of days, the police would be apologizing to him. It was hard for me to place psychology in this video other than the fact that the police could be lying about the results of the test, and trying to scare the suspects into confessing, which they stated most of the time works.
The fourth video was about deception, which seems to be to be the most sneaky, manipulative, most effective way to get a confession or valuable information out of a suspect. I thought the video did a good job of showing what kinds of lies cops use by using the footage from a real interrogation. They can lie about pretty much anything. Most of the time they will use a piece of evidence that they already know to scare the suspect by not telling them where they got it from. Then, they use a piece of evidence that they aren’t sure of, and hope that suspect will give them confirmation. Psychology is definitely evident in this aspect of interrogations because the police manipulate the thoughts of the suspect by tricking them into think they know something that they might not actually know.
I took the quiz called interrogation techniques and scored a 9 out of 10. I guessed on a couple of them and apparently got lucky. They only one I didn’t know for sure was about people looking to the right when they are trying to remember something, which was kind of interesting. I always thought people looked upward. Most of the questions involved material from the reading, so I think that’s why I scored so well. Overall I thought the site was very informative and a great way to learn about interrogations.
I really enjoyed browsing this website and learned quite a bit from it by watching the videos and taking some quizzes. The first video I watched was the interrogation strategy where the interrogator trys to make someone else the enemy. In the video they were interrogating a woman and the interrogator got the woman to see that the guy that was putting her in bad situations is the enemy, not law enforcement. The next video was about establishing empathy. To establish empathy the interrogators try to make a bond with the suspect and make it seem like they are there to help the suspect. The interrogator said that he likes to act like the suspects best friend to try to elicit a confession. He hadn't had much success trying to "muscle" the suspect into a confession and he said it is important not to place yourself above the suspect. If I were a detective interrogating a suspect I would probably try to establish empathy first. I had kind of thought that interrogators always want to make you uncomfortable to get you to confess. As we learned many false confessions are the result of interrogation techniques that make the suspect uncomfortable. From one of the videos it is clear that the goal of some interrogators is to get the suspect comfortable, for example they said if they suspect isn't comfortable talking to a white interrogator they will get an African American person to interrogate. However, in the video on intimidation they use techniques that involve being confrontational to elicit a response and one officer found that the more they yell at the suspect the more the suspect will talk but not necessarily tell the truth.
I didn't learn much from the interrogation quiz but the wrongly accused quiz was helpful. I learned from the wrongly accused quiz that 28 states do not have laws regarding the preservation of evidence and this was a surprise to me. I had assumed that evidence from all cases was saved because you never know when you'll need it. It makes sense to get rid of evidence from small crimes but it is important to keep evidence from cases where people are doing an extended period of jail time.
Psychology plays a role in all the interrogations. The interrogators have to know how the suspect thinks in order to do the type of interrogation that will get factual responses from the suspects. The interrogators try to see whats going on in the suspects mind by paying attention to non verbal cues as well as verbal cues such as shakiness in the voice or stuttering. Overall a detective who does interrogations has to know a great deal of psychology in order to be good at their job.
As I was sifting through this website I came to learn a few things about the interrogation process. For one, I truly underestimated to what lengths police and detectives are willing to go to get their confessions. In class discussions I came to realize lying or misleading evidence was normal in the process. However from watching the real life interrogations it became more apparent to me. I watched five of the videos: empathy, deception, weakest link, detection, and intimidation. The continuous aspect throughout all these videos was the persistence of the detectives with their misleading techniques. As one detective stated near the end of the video, "we have to lie to get the truth". This almost seems unjust. One of the quizzes backed this statement by saying the theory and practice is allowed because "it is believed that an innocent person will not confess even if told misleading information". Now we know this is not necessarily true from class. We talked about how some detectives are so skilled at interrogating suspects that they convince them of something false as actual truth, making the suspect begin to believe the lie in their own minds and even fill in holes that the police left out, creating an even larger lie.
One aspect that I would like to learn more about is the intimidation approach. I find it interesting in how that practice gets confessions, especially from innocent people. I get that it may seem scary for some people but from an outside perspective I would assume if someone was barking and yelling at me I would tell them to 'fuck off', and not talk to them.
Another thing I found interesting is how they choose who is most likely to get the suspect to talk to them. From the one example the boy openly talked with the middle aged detective, feeling more comfortable with her than any other detectives. Come to find out he was raised by his single mother, which in hind-sight makes perfect sense.
I took the interrogation quiz and got a 9 out of 10. I also took the false confession quiz and got a 2 out of 9. I found the latter quiz to be a lot more difficult simply based on the ambiguity of the subject. I feel interrogation, though a serious psychological game between suspects and detectives, a bit more straight forward. In practical sense it is confusing as to why anyone would ever admit to some crime they know they did not commit. The workings of the human mind are vast and strange and we can only keep learning knew things about ourselves and the way we process thoughts. As this science continues to grow and develop, I look forward to the new findings and techniques guaranteed to be discovered and used.
I really enjoyed viewing the content of this website, and I found it all very interesting. I watched three videos regarding interrogations and I took two quizzes. Most of the material that was covered by these things was information that I had read in the book and was covered in class, however, some of the information that was covered was new to me.
In the video Weakest Link, one of the men said that once the detectives can place a suspect at the scene it only benefits the suspect to tell everyone who was involved and what each person did. Telling the suspect this information led her to tell that there was a man involved as well as others involved. In the end she ended up giving the names of others involved.
I also watched a video called Establishing Empathy. The people discussing empathy said that connection with the suspect is very important. In an interrogation they try to act like they are the suspect’s best friend. One interrogator said that in his experience attempting to muscle a suspect doesn’t lead to very much success, establishing a relationship works much better for gathering information. Something that I did find interesting is that they would switch out interrogators depending on the suspects reactions. If a suspect doesn’t react well to a female interrogator, they will bring in a male interrogator. Same for race. If a suspect doesn’t respond to a white interrogator, they will bring in an interrogator of a different race to attempt to build a relationship and gain information from the suspect.
The final video that I watched was called Lie Detector. This video had the most new information in it. A lie detector test is a told for detectives to use to show the suspect that they know they are lying. It was described as being psychological, it shows the suspect that an inanimate object knows that a lie is being told, it’s not just a person’s idea.
In addition to watching these videos, I also took two quizzes. One was called interrogation techniques. It confirmed a lot of the information that I had learned in class, but also provided some new information as well. A confirmation of information learned from class is that a confession that is obtained by threat of violence or promise of benefit is considered involuntary. Some new information is that when people are remembering something they look to the right. By watching these types of physical characteristics, an interrogator might be able to tell the difference between remembering information and making up a lie. The most surprising thing that I learned was about Chinese Water Torture. This is where interrogators repeatedly drip water on the forehead of the suspect. The goal is to drive the suspect to near insanity with will result in them confessing.
The second quiz was called the wrongly accused quiz. Something that I did not know before this quiz is that some courts refuse to consider newly discovered DNA evidence once a trial is over. I also did not know that 28 states do not have laws regarding the preservation of evidence. Both of this things were new information to me and really surprised me as well.
Psychology has everything to do with interrogations. Using various techniques, interrogators try to get inside the minds of the suspects. They may do this with fear, empathy, or muscle. By getting inside the minds of suspects, they are able to obtain information about crimes that took place which can lead to the arrests of the criminals they are looking for.
This was interesting, however it only confirmed what we already learned about police officers using unethical yet perfectly "legal" tactics to force confessions. I know that they're working towards a greater good, and they think that putting a killer away for good justifies the means, however I find it troubling that the police officers don't see anything wrong with the way that they treat other human beings. They think that just because they're on a certain "side," that they can do no wrong because they're the "good guys," but the less humanely they treat these SUSPECTS is the more like the actual PERPETRATOR the cops become. They talked about their tactics like they're no big deal, but humans shouldn't have to go through that kind of stress. Remember, in America we're INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty. Some of those videos reminded me of what Philip Zimbardo described in his book The Lucifer Effect. The way that these cops were behaving in these videos weren't at all unlike the results of the Stanford prison experiment. However, these people being interrogated weren't even prisoners; they were supposedly innocent until proven guilty...
I tried to take one of the quizzes on this website multiple times, but failed miserably. I think that the first time I got like -1000 points or something like that. I knew some of the answers too...but it required me to think really quickly, and the time limit alone caused me to miss quite a few questions. I don't know why this happens, but any time there's a timer (like on a quiz), I happen to not do so well. I think it's an added level of stress.
This assignment was fun and somewhat less work-intensive; however, I think it really drove home the message that cops use many less-than-ethical tactics during interrogations.
I watched three different people go through the interrogation process and found it very interesting. The only suspect that seemed to understand that it was their job to be nice was a young African American man who replied to something they said with, “You aren’t here to be social either”.
Something else I noticed was that even though no one confessed right away, by their verbal as well as body language it seemed as though they all wanted to confess and were uncomfortable hiding something so socially taboo.
I learned that a main goal they have is to establish empathy in order to connect. This relates to psychology in that Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs states that one of humans’ basic needs is to love and belong; to have family, friendships, and sexual intimacy. In the video, one of the interrogators states that it is human nature to need to talk to someone and be able to connect with someone –this process is about being able to do this with someone you know did something wrong.
I got an 8/10 on the quiz, and from it I learned that people look to the right when they are remembering things, not necessarily lying. Another thing I learned fromt his quiz is also what most surprised me--that the CIA admitted to using the waterboarding technique on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—not the fact that our government did this, but the fact that we admitted to it publically.
I honestly, didnt care for this site to much. I feel its very one sided. It shows how the cops do things to people and manipulate them so they say what the cops want to hear. All four videos show how well cops know how to mess with the human mind and how easily they can get people to think things and confess things. To me it even seems like they are tying to manipulate the viewer into thinking what they are doing is right and that its ok to lie to people. Another thing i noticed is the cop basically said that they just want to put someone in jail, when he said "do I want them to be in prison the rest of their life?? Yes" and thats all they really care about. They dont care if the suspect is innocent or guilty as longs as they put someone in jail and close they case. We are taught from the time we are born that is wrong to lie. So why is it ok for a cop to say something they dont know. Thats how people can start to believe they are guilty when in reality they are innocent. They think well they have proof so i must have been there when in reality they have no proof at all. I think that these techniques are ok when you are positive who the perp is and you just need him to say it, but when you may be dealing with people who are really innocent its wrong. They put these people thought hell just to get them to say they did it and dont care if they really did or not. Even if these people dont get sentenced im sure they have problems related to the questioning and interrogation for the rest of their life.
I took the quiz about interrogation techniques. The question that is the most astonishing to me is when it asks if a detective is allowed to mislead a suspect to gain a confession. That is a true statement. The theory is that they will not confess to it if they are honestly and truly guilty. I think that is false. If it was true we wouldnt have as many false confesions as we do. These people go through hours of interrogations and people telling them the did something and that the police have proof or evidence, or video, or fingerprints. Anything to make the person believed they are trapped and weather you are innocent or guilty you begin to fell that way, like there is no way out no matter what you say or you start to believe you did it and somehow dont remember or maybe you make up a scene of what happened in your mind to make it make sense. To do something like water torture to a person and make them feel like they are drowning is awful. If I was in that situation of feeling like i was drowning and about to die i would do anything someone asked even if it was confessing to something i didnt do and having to spend my life in jail. Torture is what it is, Torture and nobody in their right mind would be able to withstand it even if they were innocent.
what did you learn?
I learned how well police have been trained to mess with the minds of people and how uneducated the US is about it.
what most surprised you?
What suprised me most is that people believe that only the guilty will confess. I bet if you put everyone through the torture and interrogations and other things that suspect go through atleast 75% of the population would confess too!
what does psychology have to do with it all?
Psychology has everything to do with this. How the police make suspects think things, how the mind of the police work, how the techniques work, and much more.
3/1/2012
For this assignment I watched four videos Weak Link, Empathy, Lie Detector, and Deception. Each of these videos offered something new about interrogations. I also took a few quizzes dealing with both interrogation and crimes that I find interesting (some that we have had to read about for previous homework assignments).
The first video I watched was called Weak Link. In this video investigators have a woman in a room for questioning. At first she is simply denying everything. With persistence the investigators are able to wear her down fairly easy. They keep telling her that they know that she was driving the car when a certain crime was committed. She then gave a nickname “Diablo” and when police asked what his name was she answered after the first time they asked. I would say this is the definition of a weak link. Now, I do not know how long these people had been in the investigation room when this video was taken but after approximately two minutes this woman went from knowing nothing to knowing the name of the person who committed the crime. I wonder if this type of person (the suspect) would have agreed to anything that an authority figure was insistent with.
Next, I watched the video called Empathy. This is where investigators try to ‘nice’ the information out of suspects. In this video investigators talk about trying to ‘match’ the suspect and investigator. This does not necessarily mean that these two need to have the same ethnic race or background. They don’t have to be the same age, or have similar backgrounds (although I can see how one might argue this). In this video they talk about finding an investigator that the suspect is comfortable with (i.e. maybe females or males or black instead of white etc.). This will make them more likely to confide in this person. Once they have found the correct person this person will act very empathetic toward the suspect. This comfort and building a level of trust is supposed to make the suspect more likely to confide in the investigator.
The next video I watched was called Lie Detector. I had never before heard of using the sound or frequency of ones voice to tell whether or not they are lying (I’m not sure I am explaining/understanding this correctly), but I have never heard of using a voice instead of things stuck to your fingers. Investigators in this film talked about when a person states that you are lying it is easy to disagree or just take it as a matter of opinion. However, if there is an inanimate object that can’t have any ‘personal’ gain from them lying then it is easier to believe that tests suggest they are being dishonest.
The last video I watched dealt with deception. This video did give some new information that was not said in the other videos however they did bring to light some things that I had already noticed (things that we have discussed in class). It seems to me that all of these investigators are positive that this suspect is the perpetrator, and their tactics are not necessarily about getting the truth but about getting a confession from these people. I can see the investigators trying to argue that their confession being their finding the truth. However, we have been learning about all the ways that confessions can be wrong. So with investigators and police with this mind set and then the inaccuracy of confessions this can lead to many people being wrongfully convicted. Not only are the wrong people being put away, but this means that the real perpetrators are still out in the open.
I really enjoyed taking all of the quizzes. My roommate even started taking a few and we got pretty sidetracked, but it was very interesting! I knew more answers than I thought I would mostly from out past homework assignments. I especially enjoyed taking the quizzes that dealt with serial killers because that is something that we recently discussed. I really enjoyed this part of the website!
This website was very interesting to me because hopefully I will get a chance to be the person asking the questions some day. I learned that interrogations are pretty much total mind games; and the person who plays the game the best has the best chance in accomplishing their goals. Either to person conducting the interrogation will find out what they are tyring to find out from the person that they interviewing. It could also go the other way around and the suspect or alleged suspect can play his/her cards right and walk in and out of the police station or wherever they are the same day they get there. I picked up the perception that interrogations should probably oncly conducted by someone who can easily control their emotions; because if you don't and it makes your suspect mad or upset it can make your job a lot harder than it could of been.
The thing That surprised me the most was the amount of work going into finding out about the suspect before they are brought in for questioning. I was surprised in the fact that it seems like not very much is done to prepare except worry about the evidence. Yes, the evidence is extrememly important but its more significant when you can like it to a specific person. However, when you don't have a particular person labeled as a suspect, it would help to know about the person you about to interrogate, where they are from, who they live with, where they work, have the been in trouble before. In one of the videos a male being interviewed opened up more freely to a woman then to a male becasue he was raised by his single mother his whole life. If reasearch was done before he was questioned they could of employed this tactic right away and saved everyones time.
Psychology relates on every level to crime; frome when its committed all the way to the court room. Interogations are critical important in the process becasue this is the chance to get it all solved and make the rest of the process a lot easier for everyone involved. When you are in a state of authority over other people this can make them feel inferior or just flat out not like you so you are already in a bind before you even start. Even though you might be the law, you have to relate to the person you are asking questions to in order to increase the chances of them opening up and spilling it all out, if they know anything to begin that is.
I thought the information covered in this website was very interesting and I found out some very interesting things. I also found out some interesting things by taking some of those quizzes.
In the first video, The Weakest Link, was about trying to get information out of the person being interrogated. The detective in this video talked about how if they can place the suspect at the scene the suspect will be more likely to tell who was at the scene with them. If they can make the suspect believe that they know they were at the scene of the crime even if they weren't the suspect will feel as if they have nothing left to lose and will be more willing to give up more details.
The second video, Establishing Empathy, talked about how making a connection with the suspect is critical. In some interrogations, detectives may try and act like a friend to the suspect to seem more trustworthy and like they have good intentions to help out the suspect when they really don't in most cases. Establishing relationships with the suspect will make it more likely for the suspect to trust the interrogator and tell them information. I found it interesting that they have to switch out interrogators depending on the suspects reaction. For example if a suspect isn't connecting well with a female interrogator they may switch it out for a male interrogator and the same thing goes for race.
In addition to these two videos I also took numerous quizzes. One of the quizzes I took was the Interrogation quiz and I actually did pretty well on it. One thing I found interesting in this quiz was that when people are trying to remember something they look to the right. Police use characteristics like this to tell whether or not people are lying. Another interesting thing I learned was what chinese water torture was which is when you repeatedly drip water on the suspect's forehead. This is supposed to drive the suspect to near insanity until they finally confess.
Another quiz I took was the quiz on serial killers. I didn't do as well on this quiz but I did learn in the past century there have been about 400 serial killers and the number of victims has been between 2,526 and 3,860. There are a lot of things I didn't know about serial killers and a lot of things I thought I knew about serial killers and taking this quiz cleared a few things up for me.
The use of psychology plays a very important role in interrogations. The variety of techniques and just the simple fact of being interrogated plays with the mind of those being interrogated and makes them think all kinds of things about the intentions of interrogators. Interrogations can help police officers break down suspects psychologically and get information out of them.
Going through this site was really fun to do. I really enjoyed watching the videos and taking various quizzes. Seeing real interrogations was really neat. Seeing the methods officers use instead of just reading about them was cool. Methods such as using sympathy on your suspect or using the person you have in custody to get information out of them because you know they are being controlled by the real mastermind and you play on that to get them to spill. In other words, you know their weaknesses and you use those to make them tell you what's going on.
The quizzes I took were about stupid criminals and the interrogation techniques quiz. The interrogation quiz was a good way to test my knowledge about what I've learned thus far about interrogations. The stupid criminals one was more fun and had me laughing at some of the things criminals have done and thought they could get away with.
Psychology has a lot to do with interrogations. Of the interviews I watched, all the officers tried to use the "good cop" method and gain the trust of the suspect. Like one officer pointed out, if you go into an interview all "muscle-like" and bully the suspect, they aren't going to be willing to tell you anything. You have to make them believe you're on their side and that they can trust you to tell them things. Although the cops aren't out to get those that are innocent, nor to be viewed as untrustworthy and liars, their job is to catch the person who did the crime and get enough evidence against them to convict them in court. By getting a suspect to incriminate themselves with something they might let slip in an interview is a perfect way to do it.
This is a site that I will definitely refer back to in the future for more insight on how to use psychology on a suspect and get them to help you when they think they're helping themselves. And to take some more interesting quizzes!
Watching the videos of real-life interrogations was very eye-opening and all around very interesting. It changed my whole mindset on criminal investigations; where they take place, who conducts the interrogations and how they're gone about. From watching crime shows like 'Criminal Minds', ‘Law and Order: SVU’, and even ‘The Mentalist’, I was given a sort of unrealistic visual of an interrogation. In these “perfect” questionings of the shows perpetrator, the room they’re staged in is a huge room where the suspect is usually chained up with no privileges, or the suspect is treated like royalty, being offered coffee and snacks and occasionally a smoke or two. In the videos I watched, these “techniques” or what have you, were never mentioned.
Ones that were though, began with the basic You Did It, We know It, Give Up scheme of interrogation. In the first video the officer is talking with the main suspect whom they have a pretty good idea that she committed the crime or at least had something to do with it. The officer proceeds to tell her that she should ignore everything everyone else is saying about keeping quiet and “not talking to the cops” seeing as they have evidence that places her at the crime scene. The officer talks her into giving up information by reassuring her that she’s safe and that the authorities are on her side. This leads this suspect to giving up a name.
In the next video I watched, I experience the empathy technique. Cops try to tap into the soft and vulnerable side of suspect and manipulated that into getting answers. They do whatever is necessary to accommodate the suspect to elicit a high level of comfort for the suspect. That means doing things like changing the race, gender, or even strategy of the interrogator. The authorities pose as almost a therapist to the suspect exemplifying their humanistic nature to need to talk to someone about the things they’ve done.
In the third video, the criminal investigation takes a deceptive turn for the better. The cops use a technique to where they essentially lie to the suspect, make them believe that there is hard, true evidence against them when in actuality there may or may not be. This technique can be very effective, especially when dealing with the softhearted suspects that can crack easily. This also leads to suspects accidentally giving the cops more information through the things they say, giving the authorities hints and clues to what actually happened, almost how cops can influence a witness by planting things into their memories.
I was mainly surprised by how easily the cops could go between techniques and not smash them all together. I know that kind of sounds silly but if you're in the middle of an interrogatoin and one technique is not qorking, how can you go about switching to another or deciding which one would be the next best thing. I think that would be something pretty interesting to study. How to tell what technique would work best and if that one fails, how to decide on another.
This website was very interesting. I took the interrogations quiz and received a 7/10 score. I was rather surprised by the Chinese water torture method. This method consists of investigators dropping water onto the suspect’s forehead, hoping it makes them go insane and they confess. I can’t really picture this working very well. It seems like this would be a very time-consuming method of interrogation. I also thought it was a neat fact that our eyes go to the right when we’re trying to remember something.
I also took the Wrongly Accused Quiz. I was reminded that 215 wrongly accused people have been exonerated by DNA evidence. I think we discussed this statistic in class before. I’m glad there are people working to continue to exonerate all the people who have been falsely committed of a crime.
The first video I watched was called “Weakest Link”. This video’s primary lesson was that the investigators need to make the suspect feel like they will have nothing to lose by sharing information. The cop in this video was being a ‘good cop’, he was creating a trust between the suspect and himself. The officer was acting empathetic towards the suspect and making the suspect feel weak. They want the suspect to feel that their best option is to go ahead and give up some information to the cops.
I also read, “Why People Confess”. This was written by Agent Patrick A. Ness from the New Mexico State Police. Agent Ness talked about how many people agree to meet with investigators without their attorney present. These same people also ended up being found guilty of crimes that put them in prison for a very long time. Agent Ness is more interested in figuring out why suspects confess instead of finding a specific formula or tactic to get them to confess. Withholding the truth and keeping a secret causes stress and anxiety in a suspect. Naturally, humans want to get rid of their stress. Officers must try and help the suspect relieve their stress by providing an environment that the suspect can share their emotions in. Agent Ness supports trying to gain trust from the suspect. He thinks it’s a good idea to develop rapport between the two. Ness says, “Even though it seems illogical, confessing guilt for a person's 'sins' and finding relief from the stress of carrying this burden often overrides the human impulse of self-preservation.”
I thought everything Patrick Ness said was really interesting. I think his approach on confessions and interrogations is really smart. Psychology is definitely the basis for his approach. People’s minds are trying to figure out whether confessing or keeping a secret is the better option. They are weighing the pros and cons of each option. Social psychology exists when they have an officer who is developing a sense of trust with them. Trying to predict people’s actions and entice them to do what you want to do relies heavily on psychology-related concepts.
I thought this website was very interesting. I enjoyed watching the different interrogation techniques. These videos proved my ideas and beliefs on how i think interrogations go. I thankfully have never been in an interrogation room or been asked questions by the police because i know if i did i would probably believe whatever they told me because i am gulible! I think the tactics they use to get information out of a suspect are very useful and smart. In one of the interrogations they talked about how the suspect needs to be comfortable with the investigator otherwise they most likely won't get any information out of the suspect. I agree with that statement. People are more likely to talk openly with people they are comfortable around than people that are rude or intimidating. I think interrogating and psychology go hand in hand with each other. A good interrogator has to be able to read people, their body language and their emotions. Manipulation is often used in an interrogation room, so if an investigator cannot manipulate a situation then they will not get very many confessions.
This website was an new way to learn information from class. It was a great tool to use real life stuff to relate to class. A lot of the stuff I found was an addition to the things I learned in the book or in class. However, it really helped imprint the information. The first thing I read was the Inside False Confessions. I am still amazed at the information we learned in class about people confessing to crimes they didn’t committee. Many of the tactics the investigators used were cited in the book. For instance, a few of the suspects described the awfulness of being held in custody and interrogation so they so they just decided to confess in order to leave. One case in particular was where Lindbergh’s little girl had been kidnapped. They believe that almost 100 people confessed to abducting the girl. Along with this case, 30-60 people are believed to have confessed to killing Black Dahlia. Both of these famous people’s crimes were enough to make someone confess to committing them. I don’t know why anyone would want to be recognized for doing a crime even if it was against someone famous.
Next, I watched the Weakest Link video. It was compelling to watch them ask a question and detect answers from their nonverbal clues. The cops used tactics to make her feel more comfortable in order to get her to confess. They make her feel like she is benefiting from telling them something. Once they establish she knows something, they continue to fetch for information in the same way. The police can be very deceiving and tricky when interrogating someone.
The next video I watched was establishing empathy. Establishing a bond with the suspect, allows the suspect to open up and feel comfortable sharing information with someone else. Like the video says, everyone is needs someone to talk to so when the opportunity comes in a scary situation, someone is likely to take it. Once again, the police are tricky individuals and can deceive the individual into confessing to the crime.
The last video I watched was Deception. This video expresses the impact of deception on an individual. The cop tells them the suspect that they have evidence and proof that they knew more than they did. In this situation, his position of power is overused to trick her into a crime. Acting is an important quality for a cop in this situation, as well as the others. The better they can pretend they have the information, the more likely they are to receive a confession.
Psychology is used in these videos alone. It is all about a subject’s mindset and how an investigator can change their outlook upon a situation in order to receive a confession. For instance, in the Empathy video, they establish a bond between the suspect and the investigator. Through this bond, the person feels the ability to share information with them, leading to a confession. Without the psychological impact of empathy, the suspect would never be able to feel that bond.
The first quiz I took was the wrongly accused quiz. I did not do very well on it at all. It was all factually questions, which I apparently don’t know much about. IT was really interesting to learn about the information about all the wrongly accused cases, as well as statistical information. The second quiz I took was the interrogation quiz. I was hoping I would do much better on this considering we had just studied in class. Turns out, I did. I received a much better percentage at the end of it than the last one. I really enjoyed the quizzes because it helped reinforce the information that we learned in class in a fun way.
Overall, I have learned the importance of having an attorney present with me during the interrogation. Police officers have some tricky stuff up their sleeves and I would never want to be caught in a room with them alone, especially after an emotional event.
When looking at this website I was fascinated by the part of “why people confess”. Now going into detail I think that agent Ness summed it up perfectly when he mentioned the stress factor. As he states that it is human nature to be stress free. So people will sometimes do something just to relieve that stress. This one thing is to lie. Now I think psychology plays a huge part in why they confess. When they get put in these stressful situations they become very uncomfortable. Just looking into my own past when I get put into a stressful situation with a boss or something I will start to sweat, I will tense up, I might stutter, and while all of that is going on my mind is racing. I then think in my mind that the only way I can get out of this situation is to lie, which I might do. Now I feel that this would be exactly what the people being interrogated would do because they feel that’s the only way out and then they will be able to get out of it later.
Now it also goes into how that people who commit crimes or lie will have guilt attached to their actions. In this the psychology plays into it in the way that the brain almost overthinks what is going on. So they say things in different ways at different times to try to cover themselves up, or the tone in their voice might fluctuate.
The part I thought was pretty important is how he went through the interview phase and how he made sure that his main goal was gaining a rapport with the suspect because it helped him with the psychological advantage. He was able then to gain this fragile trust with the suspect which in return can be most helpful in the investigation. The suspect might in return let his guard down and give up way more information that might incriminate himself or someone else. Every little thing is important in these interviews. It allows for the interviewer to gain control of the situation and use it to his advantage.
I watched the first two movies and took the real interrogation quiz. After watching the movies I found that the cops were always looking for a comfort zone. This was used in the first movie when he was saying what men will do when you wrong them and found out this guy beat her and they were able to play off that to elicit information off of her. The second video you can see it all the way threw because they try an empathy approach and they try to be friends with the accused. This happens because they can make a bond a comfort zone to get information that they can play off of. Basically an interrogation is a psychological game that is played by the cop to the suspect. They put them in an uncomfortable room and everything that you say they are going to try to use against you to get more information on the topic. What also surprized me was everyone of these people waived their right to council and thats why these tatics are working. Psychology comes into it in the interrogation room. It is present from how the room is set up. Everything is made to make a suspect uncomfortable. Then it also come in when they interrogate as you see they can take those comfort approaches. They try to manipulate by language. They want to play off with what your saying so they can keep you talking so you give them more information. This is all a psychological game. Behavioral psych, development psych, and even abnormal psych come into play during this process.
I thought the website was really interesting. While I was there, I took two quizzes (Wrongly Accused and Interrogation) and watched 4 videos on interrogations (Empathy, Lie Detector, Weakest Link, and Deception).
I thought the information on the two quizzes was very interesting and was surprised about how much I knew in each quiz just from the things we've gone over in class and read in the textbook. A lot of the questions were about real cases, most of which are in our textbook at the beginnings of the chapters we've read. A lot of information also came from The Innocence Project, which we've looked at in class. I noticed that the quiz information is not up to date because one question asked how many people have been exonerated in the United States. According to the quiz, the answer was 215, but now, according to the Innocence Project, 289 people have been exonerated in the US. The website was copyright 2012, so I thought all the information would be up to date.
The interrogations I watched were someone interesting, but a little anti-climactic. I noticed that when the police spoke to the camera, they were very high on themselves at how well they did their jobs, but in the recordings, they stuttered a lot and seemed much less competent then their interviews suggested. I don't know if I'm biased because I've learned about interrogation techniques, but a lot of the methods seemed pretty easy to see through, especially in the deception video. A lot of deception is studied in social psychology, especially lying behavior. People have certain behaviors called "tells" that indicate when they are lying. Some tells include eye contact (or lack thereof), hand placement, stuttering, and shifting. In one of the quizzes, it said that a person looks to their right when they are trying to remember something. I've heard that a person looks up when they are trying to make up a lie. I don't know if that is true or not, but that could be a possible tell. When the cops lied, it was kind of easy to tell because the things they were saying seemed a little outrageous. For example, they told a girl that they were interrogating that they could place her in the driver's seat of a car (where there was apparently a dead body in the truck) because they had had her under surveillance since Saturday (apparently for 3 days). Now, I don't think that sounds really plausible. First of all, three days of surveillance takes up a lot of time and resources that I bet those police didn't have. Also, this girl wasn't even charged with a crime yet. I think that level of surveillance would require some sort of already acquired evidence or a warrant of some sort. While watching the other videos, I started to doubt a lot of things that the cops were saying. I was particularly interested in the lie detector they used. They called it the computerized voice stress analyzer. When the cop was telling the suspect about the machine, he said that it was better than polygraphs (which are not very accurate in detecting lies) and that it was unbeatable. After a little research, I found that both of those statements were untrue. Testing and comparison between polygraphs and voice stress analysis show that the VSA was less accurate than polygraphs when tested on the same individuals under the same circumstances. Also, the VSA was only accurate about 49% of the time. To me, less than half accurate seems a little beatable to me.
Another point that struck me during the videos was during the empathy video, where one cop spoke about how suspects may be more or less comfortable with a man than a woman or a black person rather than a white person. They try to accommodate for that within the police department, but I bet it's difficult, especially if this interrogation happened in somewhere like Iowa which is not all that racially diverse. The odds of the department having a black cop to be present during an interrogation would be slim to none. However, I was curious about what that cop said. If we go off of social psychology, it's most likely that people would be more trustful and willing to speak with people that are similar to them. We like similar others. So it would be more likely for a white woman to confess to another white woman, or a black man to confess to a black man. However, like I said earlier, police departments nationwide won't be all too fantastically diverse. Most police stations will probably be made up of white men.
Another video that the webpage had dealt with intimidation as an interrogation technique. This is probably a more delicate to use because the cops must be cautious about using too much force or their confessions might be false and inadmissible in court. Intimidation works off the social psychological idea of obedience to authority. The cops are trying to remind the suspect who is in charge so that they will submit and confess.
Psychology has to do with a lot of interrogation, but I find that most of it is part of social psychology, which makes sense. Social psychology is about studying interpersonal behaviors, which is exactly what interrogation is. Cops use methods of gaining trust, deception, and intimidation to get suspects to confess. All of these are built off of social psychological principles.
I thought this website was overall pretty neat and a good way to present the information to a broad range of people. I took a few of the quizzes. They were pretty easy, however I learned a few new things. Watching the interrogations was a lot different then what you see on tv, in the first clip the police and the person interrogated were on the same side of the table the room was well lit, and the chairs were not hard metal ones. All the stories about false confessions were interesting to read. I found the amount mentioned on the site to be incredible. I believe it would take a lot for me to confess to a crime I know I didn't commit but under some of the circumstances described, I found it understandable to how some people did. I really enjoyed the article, "Why People Confess". It was enjoyable to read about this topic from the perspective of a police officer.
I found it interesting how police can acquire a lot of knowledge from one question about the other people involved in the illegal activity without ever asking a question concerning them directly. The videos showcased different methods of opening a suspect up to talking to them. I found the different ways they appealed to them was most similar to social psychology. The cops use the emotions of the individual to their advantage to gain information. The good cop-bad cop technique through deception can gain trust. Appearing empathetic can make a person feel like the cop is trustworthy and build a connection to them. Deception such as leading a person to believe they can strike a deal can build trust.
I watched the first video titled "The Weakest Link". It was kind of a typical interrogation that you see on tv shows and movies. I did think it was interesting when the cop started talking to her about how you should not tell the cops anything unless they can put you at the scene of the crime. He also mentioned that it's not good to be in the rooms with men and lie to them and that they can hurt her. They weren't necessarily trying to befriend her, but they were talking to her and trying to get her to open up about who did it. By talking to her and asking questions, they were able to get some details and put those together. From there, they got the name of the perpetrator. The second video I watched was "Empathy." The cop in this interrogation said he tries to be the suspects best friend. He says that through his experience, he has learned that by being mean and cold to the person, the suspect will not open up and the crime. You need to make the suspect comfortable so there is respect for one another and they will then open up. The suspect feels like they can trust the cop. I also watched "Lie Detector." The lie detector is used to show the defendant that they know the suspect is lying, according to the video. I'm not quite sure how I feel about lie detectors because through previous classes, I have heard a lot of negatives about them. I feel that at times they work, but I also feel that there are a number of other things that can affect the outcomes. All three of the videos were just kind of boring. I was thinking that they would be more exciting and show the whole interrogation. The videos do not really provide a good sense of what exactly happens in an interrogation. Instead, they give a sense of the tactics used.
I took the interrogation techniques quiz first. My overall score was 6 out of 10. Quite a few of those things I have learned in my other class this semester, but I was still surprised by some of the answers. One thing that I did not know what which way a person's eyes move when they are trying to remember something. I put upward as my answer but the actual answer was to the right. I next took the wrongly accused quiz. This quiz was a lot harder than the first one. One thing that suprised me was that only 28 states require the preservation of evidence from the crime. My overall score for this quiz was 2 out of 9. It was harder because I have not heard of any of the cases presented in the quiz.
Psychology has to do with interrogations because cops are dealing with people and are trying to elicit something from them. Whether they are trying to establish rapport with the suspects to make them feel comfortable or not, police have to manipulate the people into telling them what they need to know. Psychology is definetely present in people being wrongly accused. The quiz stated that most people are wrongly accused because of mistaken eyewitness testimony. This begs the question of why was it that the person was misidentified? Overall, I think this website was very beneficial and presented a lot of information that deals with psychology.
I really did enjoy looking through this website, it had some interesting facts and information on it. I took a quiz, the one called Famous Female Criminals. I got a 3 out of 9, so I definitely need to look up and find more information about lady killers. I learned that women not only can be civil, but they can also be just as nasty when it comes to raping, killing, or harming someone. I couldn’t believe a woman killed nine, all nine children of hers, that is just nuts! Also the Countess Elizabeth Bthory where she drained the blood and then bathed in it was completely disgusting and beyond gross. But because she was an aristocrat she was only placed on house arrest? What is up with that, you can definitely tell that these laws were made back in the 17th century. Behavioral psychology plays a role in this quiz because all these women are acting on how they were feeling in the moment they committed the kills against their families or complete strangers.
I watched two interrogation videos. The first one was about sympathy and how the cops give their take on the best way to get a confession is you need to provide some type of comfortable atmosphere for the suspect. So then the suspect will be comfortable enough to give out the information the cops want to receive. Also as long as the cops are in a good place, while they are interrogating, then the suspect will feel at more ease and be able to keep a clear mind and expose what they know. Basically one of the main things the cops do is try to make the suspect feel like they aren’t the ones at fault, to give them the illusion they are supporting their side. Behavioral psychology plays a role here because people are having their feelings being tested on how they feel about the environment around them, whether they feel comfortable or not.
The second video I watched was about deception which is when the cop is putting on his acting shoes to pretend to be someone that they aren’t. In this particular video he told a woman that they knew more then they really did, creating the illusion to her that these cops know everything there is to know about her situation because she didn’t know where else they would of gotten it from. But really he was playing on like they knew more information, when in reality they didn’t know all that much. He also brings up the topic of her driving the car, so she could get a visualization of what went down in the crime scene. This type of interrogation would be known as false confession because he was egging her on to admit it was her, when clearly he didn’t have all the major facts to put her away. Cognitive psychology plays a role here because the cop seems to messing the woman’s mind up on the way she is thinking about things.
Overall from class I learned that no matter the situation and how bad or simple it can be, you always need to ask for a lawyer or have one present when you get put into interrogation situations, because you never know when a cop wants to play mind games with you. You always have to be prepared, and a lawyer would definitely help. Also I learned that all the interrogations are videoed taped, so we can look back at them and make sure everything was legal and legit. The mental state of the people during interrogations and the suspects themselves deal with psychology in many ways, because it all deals with the mind, and all the mind games both the cops and suspects pit against each other with.
First off, I’d like to say that Investigation Discovery is an awesome T.V. channel. If you search on Netflix “Investigation Discovery,” you will find some very interesting TV shows that are extremely relevant to this class. Some of the TV shows include “Solved,” which is about different murder cases in which are solved due to forensic evidence. Another show, “Who the bleep did I marry?” is about people who think that they are marrying completely normal people, but in reality they are marrying serial killers. This is an awesome channel that has very real stories about real people.
This webpage that we were instructed to visit was also very realistic with real interrogations. They also had some pretty cool quizzes on the site. I personally watched three of the interrogations, which were Empathy, Weakest link, and Lie Detector. The first that I watched was Empathy, which was very interesting to see how the police make people comfortable before they really screw them over. The techniques that the police use are very sly and cold blooded. This is shown in the interrogations that I watched. I think that the “Empathy” interrogation had a lot to do with counseling psychology, because the officers are making the suspect feel that it is okay and that everyone makes mistakes. They want to make the suspect feel as if the officer is a friend, and not an enemy. I believe that this strategy probably works very well. Personally, I would rather confess to someone that I liked and that treated me with respect, rather than confess to someone that I didn’t have any respect for.
The next video that I watched was called Lie detector. The police officers in this video tried to convince the suspect that they knew that they were lying. They said that they were able to show them a computer that knew that they were lying. I think that this is terrible and should not be legal. It reminded me of something that we learned in class; that the police are able to lie to you in order to get a confession. Within certain restrictions, the police are able to mislead you in many ways in order to get you to say that you committed the crime. This can include statements such as “Well Jake, your friend already said that you did it.” Or, “Jake, we have video footage of you at the crime scene.” Or even better, “Jake, we know you did it because we have DNA evidence.” This was actually also a question in one of the quizzes that I took.
Taking the quizzes really showed me that this class is going to be extremely helpful in my future in legal studies. I also realized that not taking this class or not applying yourself could be a very poor decision. Out of all the students in our class, there is a good chance that at least one of us will be interrogated by the police at least some point in our lives. With the knowledge that we have learned this week, in class, through our readings, and on this website; we can stand a chance to show the police that we are educated individuals who will not confess to a crime that we did not commit. In fact, we won’t even talk to the police, because we know better. As for those that were never educated on the shading workings of the police, those of us that have been can later help those people in our future careers.
Psychology is most relevant because the police really try to get into your head. Cogitive psychology would be extremely relevant because the police try to change the way that you think by misleading you. Counseling Psychology is relevant because some of the police officers try to comfort the suspect before they stab them in the back.