1.NASP Position Statement Reflection Papers: You will submit a critical written review and reflection of a position statement from the National Association of School Psychologists (https://www.nasponline.org/research-and-policy/pro…). In your paper, briefly summarize the position statement and write your personal reaction to the statement based upon your own professional identity and experiences within schools and/or with providing school-based psychological services. You should also provide research citations to support your position and reaction. There is a link in the upper paragraph to NASPs positions on certain topics in the syllabus. You are to pick TWO topics and write a summary and give our personal opinion about it. I have attached one as an example. Law Hum Behav (2010) 34:418–428
DOI 10.1007/s10979-009-9212-x
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Incentives Increase the Rate of False but not True Secondary
Confessions from Informants with an Allegiance to a Suspect
Jessica K. Swanner • Denise R. Beike
Published online: 27 January 2010
Ó American Psychology-Law Society/Division 41 of the American Psychological Association 2009
Abstract One hundred ninety-two students participated
in an experimental simulation testing whether incentives
would reduce the reluctance of informants to implicate a
close other. Half of the students were made to feel interpersonally close to a confederate who either admitted to or
denied a misdeed. All students were interrogated and
encouraged to sign a secondary confession stating that the
confederate had confessed to the misdeed; half were
offered an incentive to do so. Contrary to expectations,
closeness did not induce reluctance. Instead, the offer of
incentive increased the number of participants willing to
sign a secondary confession implicating a close other.
Further analyses revealed that this increase occurred only
for false secondary confessions. Implications for interrogation practices are discussed.
Keywords Secondary confession False confession
Interrogation Informant testimony
On May 26, 2006, results from DNA testing by the Innocence Project (http://innocenceproject.org) exonerated
Larry Peterson from his wrongful conviction after serving 10
years for murder and aggravated sexual assault. Peterson’s
wrongful conviction was due largely to the testimony from
four informants. Three of the informants were coworkers
who provided the police with secondary confession evidence
after multiple, lengthy interrogations. A secondary confession is confession evidence provided by someone other than
the suspect and purported to be direct information from the
J. K. Swanner (&) D. R. Beike
Department of Psychology, The University of Arkansas,
216 Memorial Hall, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
e-mail: jessicaswanner@gmail.com
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suspect (Neuschatz, Lawson, Swanner, Meissner, & Neuschatz, 2008). In addition to the three coworkers, a jailhouse
informant provided another false secondary confession in
order to obtain a reduction in his prison sentence. Peterson’s
case exemplifies the potentially biased nature of informant
testimony, especially when pressuring interrogation tactics
and the offer of incentives are used to obtain secondary
confessions. The present research was a laboratory simulation designed to examine the effect of incentives during the
interrogation of potential informants on the validity of secondary confessions obtained.
Although a secondary confession closely resembles
hearsay evidence (i.e., an out of court statement presented
in court by someone other than the person who allegedly
made the statement; see Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule
801, 2009), a secondary confession is excluded from the
hearsay rule. A secondary confession is admissible in a
court of law because the Supreme Court has approved the
use of informant testimony given that in most cases the
defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confrontation is
upheld via cross-examination (Garrett, 2008; Hoffa v.
United States, 1966). Additionally, the credibility of the
testimony is to be judged by the jurors who are assumed to
understand that an informant who receives an incentive for
her testimony may have motivation to lie (Giglio v. United
States, 1972; United States v. Singleton, 1998).
Unfortunately, the problem of invalid or false secondary
confessions is widespread. Demonstrably false secondary
confessions provided by informants were present in 46% of
the wrongful convictions in death row cases (Garrett, 2008;
Warden, 2004). Such miscarriages of justice occur because
jurors view secondary confession evidence as powerful and
telling. For example, mock juror participants were more
likely to convict a defendant when presented with a secondary confession relative to no confession (Neuschatz
Law Hum Behav (2010) 34:418–428
et al., 2008). Moreover, high conviction rates were present
even when mock jurors were told the informant received an
incentive for her testimony. Knowledge of the incentive led
the participants to view the informant as a more unsavory
character, but this negative attribution did not impact their
conviction rates. Thus, jurors may not like the apparent
opportunism demonstrated by secondary confessors who
accept incentives for their testimony. However, they do not
seem to consider that this opportunism might result in a
secondary confession that is entirely false. The present
research explores the operation of this opportunistic motivation among ordinary, non-criminal college students to
demonstrate that it is a ubiquitous phenomenon.
Advocates of the use of incentivized testimony argue
that incentives are offered in order to entice reluctant
informants to come forward when they have incriminating
evidence (Cassidy, 2004; United States v. CervantesPacheco, 1987; United States v. Reynoso-Ulloa, 1977;
United States v. Singleton, 1998). The rationale behind the
utility of incentives in exchange for testimony is superficially sound. If an informant is willing to come forward of
her own volition with information, then an incentive is not
necessary. However, if the informant has information and
for some reason is unwilling to provide that information,
then an incentive may bring the informant forward.
Unfortunately, information from death row exonerations
and previous research suggests that incentivized testimony
may not be as accurate as proponents of the use of incentives or mock jurors believe (Swanner, Beike, & Cole,
2009).
Advocates of the utility of incentivized testimony provide three reasons that an informant may not wish to come
forward with incriminating evidence: (1) to prevent
incriminating herself, (2) because of her allegiance to the
suspect, or (3) because of fear of retaliation (Cassidy, 2004;
United States v. Cervantes-Pacheco, 1987; United States v.
Singleton, 1998). These three reasons are eminently logical
and seem to be supported by social psychological research.
First, most people hold a positive self-view and would not
wish to have others see them in a negative manner (i.e.,
people are often motivated by self-enhancement; see Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Greg, 2008; Sedikides & Strube,
1997). Therefore, people may be reluctant to inform on
another if their testimony incriminates themselves. Second,
allegiance to the suspect may take a variety of forms such
as interpersonal closeness (Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson,
1991), loyalty to ingroup members (i.e., group cohesiveness; Dion, 2000; Hogg, 1993; Holtz, 2004), and/or
affiliation due to shared experiences (Schacter, 1959). All
three of these forms of allegiance would lead to reluctance
to see negative outcomes befall the allied suspect. Third, an
informant may be reluctant due to a fear of retaliation from
the suspect. In theory, people engage in a cost/benefit
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analysis before deciding to engage in a behavior that may
harm or anger another person (Bies & Tripp, 1996;
Crombag, Rassin, & Horselenberg, 2003). Therefore, a
potential informant may be reluctant to provide a secondary confession if the costs include possible retaliation (e.g.,
threats to one’s person) that outweigh the possible benefits
of testifying.
Given these various forms of reluctance, offering
incentives in exchange for a secondary confession might be
necessary in order to convince a reluctant informant to
provide incriminating evidence. Undoubtedly, the promise
of incentives can motivate behavior. For example,
employees who are paid based on individual yield instead
of salary are more productive (for meta-analyses on productivity due to pay see Jenkins, Mitra, Gupta, & Shaw,
1998; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1997). Also, education
research demonstrates that student grades serve as both
intrinsic and extrinsic incentives that motivate better performance (Deci, 1975; Reeve, 2001). However, incentives
have differential effects depending upon the person, the
situation, and the outcome. More specifically, an incentive
is more likely to lead to a behavior if the incentive is
relevant to goal achievement—especially if the goal is
important (for a review, see Brendl & Higgins, 1995).
Arguably for an inmate, receiving a reduced sentence is an
incentive likely to be related to the achievement of an
important goal. Therefore, the incentive of reduced obligation to serve time may motivate informants to testify
against another person.
Indeed, the incentive of getting out of a required second experimental session is sufficiently powerful to
motivate secondary confessions among undergraduate
students (Swanner et al., 2009). Unfortunately, this ‘‘getout-of-jail-free-card’’ incentive motivated only false rather
than true secondary confessions. Swanner et al. (2009)
modified the original computer crash paradigm (Kassin &
Kiechel, 1996) designed to investigate false primary
confessions (i.e., confessions from a suspect) in order to
investigate false secondary confessions. Participants witnessed a simulated computer crash after which a
confederate either confessed to or denied hitting the forbidden TAB key causing the computer to crash. From the
participant’s perspective if he provided a secondary confession after he heard a primary confession his secondary
confession could be considered true. However, if he provided a secondary confession after he heard a denial, his
secondary confession could be considered false. Offering
an incentive (i.e., telling participants they would not have
to come back for a second session) increased secondary
confession rates only when the participants heard a denial.
In other words, incentives only increased false secondary
confessions and had no impact on true ones (Swanner
et al., 2009).
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420
However, it might be argued that the participants in the
previous study were not in the situation of many potential
informants, who have an allegiance to the accused that
inhibits them from providing incriminating secondary
confession evidence. Therefore, in the present study we
chose to examine whether the effect of incentive would be
different if an incentive was offered in exchange for a
secondary confession about an allied other. Perhaps an
allied informant would be more reluctant to provide a true
secondary confession than the participants in the Swanner
et al. (2009) study, necessitating an offer of incentive to
convince them to inform on the other. In order to investigate reluctance due to allegiance, we operationalized
allegiance as interpersonal closeness. Interpersonal closeness entails overlap between the self or cognitive
representation of one’s identity and the other, implying a
reluctance to see bad outcomes (such as imprisonment)
befall that close other (Aron et al., 1991). In order to
investigate the effect of incentives on reluctant informants,
we used a new paradigm for the false confession literature
adapted from the procedure from Aron, Melinat, Aron,
Vallone, and Bator (1997) in which participant dyads
answered one of two different sets of questions. One set of
questions required the participants to reveal self-relevant
yet not self-defining information (e.g., ‘‘What did you do
this summer?’’), resulting in mere acquaintanceship. The
other set of questions required the participants to reveal
personal and self-defining information (e.g., ‘‘What is your
most treasured memory?’’), resulting in interpersonal
closeness. Therefore, in the present study we operationalized those randomly assigned to answer the closeness
questions with a confederate as having an allegiance to her
that might lead to reluctance to sign a confession.
As in Swanner et al. (2009), the participants were paired
with a confederate who either confessed to or denied
crashing the computer in the study the previous week.
However, neither the participant nor the confederate ever
witnessed or experienced the simulated computer crash.
The mentioning of the computer crash was part of the cover
story of the experiment and a means by which the participant could hear a confession or a denial. Although the
confederate never participated in a previous study and
never crashed the computer, the secondary confession the
participant was asked to sign was phrased ‘‘The other
participant admitted to crashing the computer.’’ Therefore,
if a participant heard a confession and signed the secondary
confession statement that statement was a true secondary
confession, accurately reporting what the confederate had
said. If she heard a denial and signed the statement that
statement was a false secondary confession, contradicting
what the confederate had said.
Unlike the participants in the Swanner et al. (2009)
computer crash study, the participants in the present study
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Law Hum Behav (2010) 34:418–428
were not present at the time of the alleged misdeed, so they
resemble the informants in the Peterson case (i.e., the
coworkers). Legally, such informants may be subjected to
the same pressuring interrogation tactics (e.g., maximization, minimization, and offer of incentives; for a review of
interrogation techniques see Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004)
that are used with suspects (Inbau, Reid, Buckley, & Jayne,
2001). Instead of a negative incentive—the offer of a
reduced ‘‘sentence’’ of another experiment session—participants in the present study were offered a positive
incentive—the offer of extra credit and a monetary prize—
in exchange for a secondary confession. This change was
necessitated by the fact that the participant was not present
at the time of the alleged misdeed and therefore could not
logically be asked to return with the accused confederate
for a make-up session. In other words, participants in the
present study were in a similar situation to uninvolved
informants who simply hear a primary confession and who
may be brought forward by the offer of a monetary reward
for the secondary confession.
Thus, for the present study two sets of hypotheses are
proposed. The first is based upon the prosecutorial
assumption that the offer of incentive will bring forward
truthful but reluctant secondary confessors (e.g., United
States v. Cervantes-Pacheco, 1987; United States v.
Reynoso-Ulloa, 1977; United States v. Singleton, 1998).
The prosecutorial assumption therefore predicts that (a)
participants who hear a confession should be more likely to
sign a secondary confession than those who hear a denial (a
main effect of confederate information); (b) participants
made close to the accused confederate should be less likely
to sign a secondary confession implicating her than those
not made close (a main effect of closeness); and (c) the
offer of incentive should offset this reluctance; that is,
incentive should increase the rate of signing secondary
confessions particularly for participants made close to the
confederate who heard a confession (a three-way interaction, with a significant effect of incentive only for those
made close who heard a confession, and no effect of
incentive for those made close who heard a denial or for
those not made close).
The second set of hypotheses is derived from previous
research showing that the offer of incentives increases the
rate of false but not true secondary confessions (Swanner
et al., 2009). Swanner et al. proposed that incentives activate an opportunistic motive, which operates mainly in
cases where participants have no valid information to
share. Participants in that research were not made to feel
close to the accused confederate; closeness theoretically
should produce some reluctance to implicate a person
(Aron et al., 1991). Yet, opportunism seems no more likely
to operate when implicating a close other than an
acquaintance; if anything, opportunism is probably more
Law Hum Behav (2010) 34:418–428
likely for an acquaintance. We therefore predicted that that
(a) participants who hear a confession should be more
likely to sign a secondary confession than those who hear a
denial (a main effect of confederate information); (b)
participants made close to the accused confederate should
be less likely to sign a secondary confession implicating
her than those not made close (a main effect of closeness);
and (c) the offer of incentive should increase the rate of
signing secondary confessions only when the participant
hears a denial, regardless of closeness (a two-way interaction, with a significant effect of incentive only for those
who hear a denial).
Method
Participants
A total of 207 University of Arkansas students participated
in exchange for partial fulfillment of a course requirement.
The data from 15 participants were not used in the analyses
below because a total of five participants did not complete
the protocol, with one being a non-native speaker of
English, two experiencing experimenter error, and two
becoming overly emotional during interrogation (the
experimenter ended the session early and immediately
debriefed the two). A total of ten participants completed
the protocol but were excluded from analyses below due to
prior knowledge or suspicion about the protocol,1 leaving a
total of 192 participants (59 males and 133 females).
Design and Measures
The study conformed to a 2 (Informant Relationship: Close
vs. Acquaintance) 9 2 (Confederate Information: Confess
vs. Deny) 9 2 (Incentive: Incentive vs. No Incentive)
design. The primary dependent measures of interest were
whether or not the participant signed a secondary confession statement and the number of prompts required to
obtain the confession (ranging from 1 to 11, with a value of
12 assigned to those who refused to sign at every prompt).
In addition, manipulation checks of the closeness manipulation (the Inclusion of Other in Self Scale, IOS; Aron,
Aron, & Smollan, 1992) and recognition of the information
provided by the confederate (confession or denial) were
included.
1
The university was closed due to inclement weather for 1 week,
causing all five participants the next week to be suspicious about the
confederate’s role in the study because his or her response occurred
after the question, ‘‘What were you doing at this time last week?’’
421
Procedure
Pre-session set-up. For every participant the
experimenter filled out an experimental packet which
contained the script for the protocol. Before each piece of
information in the script was a space in which the
experimenter placed a check mark to signify that he or
she accurately presented that information. The script was
designed specifically to make adherence to the script easy
for the experimenters. The following is an example from
the script demonstrating spoken lines and place for a check
mark:
_____Now I have a few more questions but before
that I just wanted to let you know that to be a
responsible participant, you must be honest about all
aspects of the experiment. I need your help,
Before experimenters conducted any sessions, they were
required to fully memorize the script. In order to demonstrate their adherence to the script, all experimenters ran
the first author through the protocol. Further, experimenters
were instructed to record any inconsistencies in their ability
to adhere to the script. To ensure that the confederates
would follow the script exactly, the confederate did not
learn until immediately prior to each session whether he or
she was to present a confession or a denial—requiring the
confederate to review his or her lines (i.e., confession or
denial) prior to each session.
Before participants arrived for the session, the experimenter placed an experimental packet on a clipboard to
have with him or her during the session. Experimenters
were instructed to make sure the participants did not see
what was on their clipboard.
Closeness induction. As part of the cover story for the
experiment, part…
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