Interrogative Suggestibility: Comparison between ‘False Confessors’ and ‘Deniers’ in Criminal Trials

Abstract

The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS) was administered to two groups of criminal suspects: (i) subjects who had retracted confession statements they had made during police interrogation; (ii) subjects who persistently denied any involvement in the crime they were charged with in spite of forensic evidence against them. It was hypothesized that the ‘false confessors’ would be more suggestible than the ‘deniers’. The hypothesis was confirmed, showing that the ‘deniers’ were significantly more resistant to both suggestive questions and interpersonal pressure than the ‘false confessors’. The ‘deniers’ also tended to be more intelligent, but the two groups did not differ significantly with regard to their memory capacity for verbally presented material.