A systematic review on the relationship between self-esteem and interrogative suggestibility

Abstract

Some factors, such as age, learning disability and mental health difficulties, have been identified as making police suspects more vulnerable to suggestibility and false confessions during interview. However, there has been no systematic review on the association between self-esteem and suggestibility. Seven electronic bibliographic databases and reference lists of previous literature reviews of suggestibility in children were searched. Selected studies were quality assessed using pre-defined criteria before data were extracted. Electronic searches yielded 1914 hits. Of these, 685 duplicates, 1181 irrelevant references and 39 references that did not meet the inclusion criteria were removed. Nine publications were included in the review. Significant correlations between self-esteem and suggestibility, most notably on the Yield 1 subscale of the GSS, were found but four of the nine studies found no significant correlation. The prevalent use of self-report measures and lack of clarity in defining self-esteem limit the validity of those studies.

Keywords:

• Criminal procedure
• legal aspects of psychiatry
• systematic review
• risk factors
• suggestibility

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Enderdeep Garcha, Forensic Psychologist in Training on Doctorate in Forensic Psychology at the Centre for Forensic & Family Psychology for her independent second reviewing in the quality assessment process of this review.