Building Trust to Enhance Elicitation

Abstract

Drawing on the scientific literature on trust and the experiences of distinguished interviewers, two primary trust-building tactics with potential application in investigative and intelligence interviewing were identified and assessed for their efficacy in this context. Trust-building tactics that demonstrate trustworthiness and demonstrate a willingness to trust portray the interviewer as reliable and dependable (i.e., perceptions of cognitive trust) as well as convey goodwill and warmth (i.e., perceptions of affective trust) were viewed as likely to increase a source’s willingness to disclose critical information. Across three experiments, both tactics were found to be influential in engaging the reciprocity principle in a manner that elicited the sources’ cooperation and enhanced information yield. However, perceptions of cognitive trust were found to function as a direct encouragement to reveal information. In contrast, perceptions of affective trust first facilitated a willingness to cooperate that had the potential for subsequently manifesting as an instrumental form of cooperation.

This article is related to:

The Psychology of Intelligence

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

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5 Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman, “An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust.”

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

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22 Stone, Shoemaker, and Dotti, Interrogation.

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24 Meissner, Surmon-Böhr, Oleszkiewicz, and Alison, “Developing an Evidence-Based Perspective on Interrogation.”

25 Stone, Shoemaker, and Dotti, Interrogation.

26 Robert McFadden, personal communication, 25 January 2019.

27 Raymond Toliver, “The Interrogator: The Story of Hanns Joachim Scharff,” in Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe (Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 1997).

28 Ibid.

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32 Berg, Dickhaut, and McCabe, “Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History.”

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Simon Oleszkiewicz

Simon Oleszkiewicz is an independent research scholar at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden). His research has been funded by the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats. In 2018, Dr. Oleszkiewicz received the Early Career Award of the European Association of Psychology and Law. The author can be contacted at [email protected].

Dominick J. Atkinson

Dominick J. Atkinson holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Iowa State University (2019). His research focuses on investigative interview tactics, including rapport and trust building, tactics that facilitate memory retrieval, assessing cues to deception and credibility, and investigating individual differences in lying ability. The author can be contacted at [email protected].

Steven Kleinman

Steven Kleinman began his career with the Central Intelligence Agency, and rose to the rank of Colonel in the United States Air Force. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of California, Davis, and a Master of Science from the National Intelligence University, Washington, DC. He is a founding member and chair of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group’s Research Advisory Committee. The author can be contacted at [email protected].

Christian A. Meissner

Christian A. Meissner is a Professor of Psychology at Iowa State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive and Behavioral Science from Florida State University (2001). He has published more than 125 peer-reviewed publications. His research contributions to interviewing and interrogation practice have been recognized by such organizations as the International Investigative Interviewing Research Group, the American Psychology-Law Society, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The author can be contacted at [email protected].