Short-Interpreted Conduct Research

Introduction (purpose of article/ why important / main hypotheses)
Suspects make short-sighted confession decisions by focusing on proximal consequences rather than distal ones. Recent research suggests that this predisposition is worsened by conditions within the suspects’ police interrogation. A confession is arguably one of the most valuable and convincing forms of evidence. Thus, it is important to understand what influences suspects to confess to crimes they do not commit. In the two experiments conducted, factors that could influence the likelihood of a suspect to overlook the distal consequences in their decision to confess or not were: the duration of the interrogation, the perceived severity of the crime committed, and the suspects’
The experiment also supported the idea that this inclination was more likely when a behavior was perceived as less serious by a participant. The results of the experiment suggest that long-lasting interrogations and techniques used by police that act to minimize the punishment of a crime’s punishment causes suspects to focus on short term consequences. In Experiment 2 the results further support the researchers’ hypothesis that the duration of an interrogation increased the likelihood of a participant to disregard future consequences when deciding whether or not to confess. In addition, participants who expected a long interview were more likely to give the alternative answer to avoid the direct consequence (repetitive questions) even though it meant they were more likely to have a future consequence (meeting with the police officer). These results suggest that techniques used by police during interrogations that alter a suspects’ perception of the duration of the interrogation can cause the suspect to escape the immediate situation, while jeopardizing their long term interests (not being incarcerated) and undermining the value of confession evidence in the criminal justice system. One limitation within this study is that the repetitive questions were the direct consequence and the meeting with a police officer was a future consequence. Meaning that if these consequences were switched (police officer as direct and repetitive questions as future) or others were used, the results could be different. Therefore, it is possible that the effects observed were a result of the characteristics of these consequences rather than when they would occur in time. In addition, the participants were not placed in a mental state or physical environment similar to a