Observers' Perceptions of Rapport in Accusatorial Interrogations
type: CreativeWork
description: Rapport is widely regarded as a necessary precondition for interrogations and is thought to lay the foundation for the success of later interrogation techniques. In accusatorial contexts in which suspects are often resistant to disclose potentially self-incriminating information, rapport enables interrogators to gain the suspect’s trust, respect, and cooperation. Although the specific psychological mechanisms by which rapport achieves these effects are largely understudied, rapport-building techniques resemble principles of social influence (Goodman-Delahunty & Howes, 2014), specifically persuasion. Techniques such as establishing common ground, engaging in active listening, demonstrating empathy, and disclosing personal information may serve as impression management strategies, which allow interrogators to convey that they are trustworthy, competent, and likeable. These characteristics are dimensions of credibility, which have been shown to increase a source’s persuasive abilities. In countries like the United States, rapport is often followed by accusatorial approaches, including deceptive tactics, such as false evidence presentations and minimization themes that misrepresent the consequences associated with confessing. Therefore, in accusatorial contexts rapport may facilitate the use of deceptive tactics that inflate the expected utility of confessing. Recent research has shown that rapport has synergistic effects with minimization, increasing the rate of self-incriminating disclosures (Vallano et al., 2022), but little is known about whether these synergistic effects extend to observers tasked with judging the reliability of such statements. Currently, police in over thirty states are required to videorecord custodial interrogations with the goal of documenting and increasing transparency for the process by which confessions are produced. Thus, jurors are increasingly exposed to techniques including rapport-building and deception, which raises questions about h…
abstract: Rapport is widely regarded as a necessary precondition for interrogations and is thought to lay the foundation for the success of later interrogation techniques. In accusatorial contexts in which suspects are often resistant to disclose potentially self-incriminating information, rapport enables interrogators to gain the suspect’s trust, respect, and cooperation. Although the specific psychological mechanisms by which rapport achieves these effects are largely understudied, rapport-building techniques resemble principles of social influence (Goodman-Delahunty & Howes, 2014), specifically persuasion. Techniques such as establishing common ground, engaging in active listening, demonstrating empathy, and disclosing personal information may serve as impression management strategies, which allow interrogators to convey that they are trustworthy, competent, and likeable. These characteristics are dimensions of credibility, which have been shown to increase a source’s persuasive abilities. In countries like the United States, rapport is often followed by accusatorial approaches, including deceptive tactics, such as false evidence presentations and minimization themes that misrepresent the consequences associated with confessing. Therefore, in accusatorial contexts rapport may facilitate the use of deceptive tactics that inflate the expected utility of confessing. Recent research has shown that rapport has synergistic effects with minimization, increasing the rate of self-incriminating disclosures (Vallano et al., 2022), but little is known about whether these synergistic effects extend to observers tasked with judging the reliability of such statements. Currently, police in over thirty states are required to videorecord custodial interrogations with the goal of documenting and increasing transparency for the process by which confessions are produced. Thus, jurors are increasingly exposed to techniques including rapport-building and deception, which raises questions about h…
author: Rico, Gabriela
keywords: Criminal Procedure, Social Psychology, rapport, interrogations, persuasion, juror decision-making, deception, confessions
date published: 2023-09-01T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:00:13Z
provider: City University of New York - Graduate Center
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York