Psychological Aspects of Interviewing Flashcards
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Read the first 7 Psychological Aspects of Interviewing flashcards as text
Which psychological phenomenon causes individuals to accept a false narrative as their own memory after repeated exposure to misleading information?
Answer: Memory implantation
Memory implantation occurs when repeated exposure to post-event misinformation causes a person to incorporate false details into their actual memory.
In the context of forensic interviewing, 'cognitive load' is most useful because it:
Answer: Makes deception harder to sustain simultaneously with narrative demands
High cognitive load taxes the working memory needed to maintain a fabricated story, which can cause inconsistencies in deceptive accounts.
A subject's sudden shift from cooperative body language to closed posture directly after a specific question is best interpreted as:
Answer: A behavioral change worthy of further exploration
Behavioral changes in context are noteworthy cues that warrant follow-up, but no single nonverbal signal is a reliable indicator of deception on its own.
The psychological concept of 'anchoring bias' in forensic interviewing refers to:
Answer: An interviewer over-relying on the first information received when evaluating a case
Anchoring bias occurs when the interviewer's initial impressions or early case information unduly influence the interpretation of subsequent evidence.
Which stage of Kübler-Ross's grief model is most commonly misidentified as deceptive resistance during a forensic interview?
Answer: Denial
The denial stage can appear as adamant rejection of facts, which untrained interviewers may mistake for deliberate deception rather than a grief response.
A forensic interviewer uses open-ended prompts to allow free recall primarily because:
Answer: Suggestibility is minimized when subjects generate their own narrative
Open-ended prompts reduce interviewer-induced contamination, preserving the subject's original memory trace and minimizing suggestibility.
Psychological 'reactance' in a forensic interview setting most likely manifests as:
Answer: A subject becoming resistant or contrary when they perceive their autonomy is threatened
Reactance theory predicts that people resist perceived threats to their freedom, which can cause an interviewee to become oppositional when they feel coerced.