The Effects of Intelligence and Personality on Performance in Simulated Interrogation Scenarios
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The Effects of Intelligence and Personality on Performance in Simulated Interrogation Scenarios Robert Morgan1 · Laurence Alison1 · Marek Palace2 · Neil Shortland3 · Michael Humann1 Accepted: 5 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The paper explores the relationships between individual differences in intelligence and personality and the ability to extract critical information (and identify missing but required information) from a suspect’s brief sheet (i.e. model formulation) and develop a suitable line of questioning (i.e. approach strategizing) in interrogation scenarios. We hypothesised that cognitive flexibility, emotion management, low need for closure and rapport would all be predictors of these abilities. Two hundred and seventy-four participants of different backgrounds were exposed to two interrogation scenarios to assess model formation and approach strategizing abilities, as well as intelligence and personality tests. Benchmarks for performance were measured against two experienced interrogators and two psychologists’ calibrated performance. In terms of overall performance, only rapport and cognitive flexibility were significant positive predictors. Whereas only rapport was a positive predictor of approach strategizing, both rapport and cognitive flexibility were positive predictors of model formation. In conclusion, the data from the early stage of our project suggests that the examined factors should be carefully considered when training and selecting optimal interrogators. Though previous research has identified a number of individual differences in intelligence and personality that are important in demanding law-enforcement contexts, ours is the first to explore them with respect to effective interrogator performance. Keywords Personality · Intelligence · Interrogation · Simulated scenarios
Introduction Although interrogations are an integral part of the investigative process, little is known about the cognitive skills and traits that underpin effective performance in this domain. What is known, however, is that interrogations are cognitively and emotionally demanding for those who conduct them (Kleider-Offutt et al. 2016). Though previous research has identified a number of individual differences in intelligence and personality that are important in other, similarly demanding, law-enforcement contexts (Larmour et al. 2015), none has been investigated with respect to effective * Marek Palace [email protected] 1
School of Psychology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
2
School of Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom
3
Center for Terrorism and Security Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, United States of America
interrogator performance (e.g. Alison et al. 2013b; Kleider et al. 2010). Defining such performance is itself a challenge, but the present study proposes that two important antecedents of interrogation performance are model formation and approach strategizing. Model formation involves the examina
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