Determining the Authenticity of Suicide Notes

Abstract

Two studies examined the degree to which training could improve participants’ ability to determine the authenticity of suicide notes. In Study 1, informing participants about variables that are known to discriminate between genuine and simulated suicide notes did not improve their decision accuracy beyond chance, nor did this training allow participants to perform as accurately as a statistical prediction rule. In Study 2, the provision of additional training instructions did enhance participants’ decision accuracy but not to a level achieved by the statistical prediction rule. However, training that included all instructions simultaneously resulted in a slight performance decrease attributable to the fact that certain instructions proved problematic when applied to the sample of suicide notes upon which decisions were being made. The potential implications of these findings for police decision making and training are discussed.