THE INFLUENCE OF THE INVESTIGATOR'S DEMEANOR ON A SUBJECT'S
BEHAVIOR
One of the principles of behavior symptom analysis taught in
the Reid Technique is that the investigator's demeanor has a significant
influence on the subject's behavior. For example, an investigator who becomes
accusatory, authoritative and demeaning during an interview will predictably
cause a subject, regardless of his innocence, to exhibit symptoms of fear,
anxiety or resentment It is precisely because of this that we emphasize the
importance of conducting an interview in a non-accusatory tone and to assume a
compassionate and understanding demeanor during an interrogation.
When an interview or interrogation boils down to a session
where the suspect is simply accused of lying and asked to re-tell his story, the
ability to detect deception through analysis of the subject's verbal and
nonverbal behavior is greatly reduced. Under this circumstance the investigator
is left to evaluate information such as inconsistencies in a subject's story or
unintentional verbal slip-ups. Furthermore, because of the subject's emotional
state, the investigator has no way of knowing if the inconsistencies in the
subject's story are coming from a confused deceptive subject or a frustrated and
anxious truthful one.
In truth, we do not know what an innocent or guilty subject's
behavioral responses might be during accusatory questioning because that has
never been a practice of the Reid Technique -- our interviews are always
conducted in a non-accusatory fashion and our interrogations, while they start
out with a clear statement of involvement, quickly become a compassionate
endeavor in an attempt to understand why the suspect committed the crime. During
an interview we have never accused a suspect of lying to us. Similarly, during
an interrogation we would never admonish a subject for lying to us and make him
go through his account again. Perhaps these techniques do result in confessions
and are used successfully by other investigators. However, they do not represent
techniques advocated or used by John E. Reid and Associates and, therefore, we
do not have any guidelines to offer with respect to how a guilty or innocent
subject may respond to them.
A recent laboratory study conducted by Kassin and Fong
support our teachings in this area.(1) Video-taped interviews of students who
were assigned either guilty or innocent roles in committing a mock crime were
analyzed by student observers. These interviews consisted of eliciting an
initial statement from the student but then the investigator became angry and
said, "Dammit, stop lying to me! We caught you cold. Now tell the truth." The
subject was then told to restate his alibi. The average interview lasted less
than five minutes.
Half of the student observers who reviewed the video-taped
interviews were "untrained" and relied on common sense (inconsistencies in
accounts, verbal slip-ups, general nervousness) to formulate opinions of the
subject's truthfulness and the other half were "trained" in behavior analysis by
watching a 30 minute video describing some of the behavior symptoms used to
evaluate a subject during a non-accusatory interview. The study produced two
predictable findings: first, neither the trained nor untrained student observers
were able to identify truthful or deceptive subjects above chance levels.
Second, the trained students, who relied upon behavior symptoms elicited during
a non-accusatory interview, performed statistically poorer than the untrained
students.
In conclusion, a subject's behavior during the course of an
interview or interrogation can be influenced by many factors such as the
environment in which the behavior was elicited, the subject's intelligence or
age, the subject's emotional state and, of course, the investigator's demeanor.
Eachof these variables need to be considered when deciding how much weight to
afford behavioral observations. To the extent possible, the investigator should
eliminate or minimize the effects of these variables. For example, an
investigator should try to conduct an interview in an environment free from
outside or internal distractions, a subject who appears angry or upset should be
calmed down before an attempt is made to elicit specific behaviors of truth or
deception. Most certainly, the investigator should not do or say anything during
an interview that would place the suspect on the defensive or cause unnecessary
anxiety or apprehension.
1. Kassin, S. &
Fong, C. ""I'm Innocent!": Effects of Training on
Judgments of
Truth and Deception in the Interrogation Room," Law and
