Committee Chair

Warren, Amye

Committee Member

Ferrier, David E.; Shelton, Jill

Department

Dept. of Psychology

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Police officers use the Behavior Analysis Interview (BAI) to detect deceit, but it is based on faulty indicators of lying and may be problematic for juveniles due to developmental immaturities. This study compared juveniles’, young adults’, and adults’ reported willingness to engage in truthful and deceitful responses during a hypothetical BAI. Regardless of guilt condition or age, participants were more willing to engage in truthful, suggesting they can manipulate their behaviors to appear innocent. Guilty participants were more willing to use strategies to manipulate their behaviors to appear truthful, while innocent participants said they would behave naturally. Juveniles were somewhat more likely to engage in deceitful responses and they agreed less with stereotypical cues of deception than adults. Juveniles may be worse at differentiating between truthful and deceptive behaviors that police officers observe for, which may put them at risk of being mistakenly judged as guilty in a police interview.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my mentor, Dr. Amye Warren, for her extreme patience and endless encouragement. Thank you for guiding me through this process and keeping me focused, while also sharing in laughter during the hard times. You’ve pushed me to be more than I ever imagined, and for that I am eternally grateful. I would also like to thank my other committee members, Drs. Jill Shelton and David Ferrier, for giving their time and expertise to help with this thesis. A huge thank you to the members of the Psychology-Law Lab for their time and support in the many projects we’ve tackled together, specifically Stephanie George, Julianna Schau, Andrea Martinez, and Andrew Barczak. Thank you to the Scholarship, Engagement, the Arts, Research, Creativity, and Humanities (SEARCH) Award Program for funding this project. Finally, I would like to thank Stephanie Wells and Akera Williams for their unwavering support throughout this journey – thank you for always having my back!

Degree

M. S.; A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science.

Date

5-2021

Subject

Police questioning; Reid technique

Keyword

juveniles; Behavior Analysis Interview; Reid Technique; police interviews; interrogations

Discipline

Psychology

Document Type

Masters theses

DCMI Type

Text

Extent

ix, 119 leaves

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Psychology Commons

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