Psychological assumptions underlying credibility assessments in Finnish asylum determinations

Abstract

Credibility assessments are an important but complex part of asylum procedures. The current study investigated psychological assumptions underlying credibility assessments in Finnish first-instance asylum procedures and how these assumptions fit with widely accepted psychological science. Following previous research, we categorized assumptions in 56 real-life asylum cases from the Finnish Immigration Service. We found that asylum officials held assumptions about how truthful applicants present their claims, the plausibility of individuals’ behavior in their home countries, and applicants’ knowledge about asylum procedures. The assumptions were only partially in line with psychological science on memory, trauma, intercultural communication, and decision-making. To improve decision-making, training programs for asylum officials should include relevant findings from psychological science. To increase the transparency and combat bias, the written determination letters should also include explicit information about the decision-makers’ reasoning processes.

Keywords:

• Asylum seeker
• asylum procedure
• credibility assessment
• credibility indicator
• decision-making

Availability of data

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from Waldemar von Frenckell’s Foundation to the first author (J.S), a grant (decision number: 151173) from The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland to the third author (J.A), and a grant from Sundell’s Foundation to the last author (J.K).