The Interview Room Archives

Classic Articles on Investigative Interviewing

The Interview Room Archive banner showing a two-way mirror view of an investigative interview room with table and case file as a female investigator observes, representing classic investigative interviewing articles by Stan B. Walters.

For many years Stan B. Walters published The Interview Room, an international electronic magazine read by investigators, law enforcement professionals, and interview specialists around the world.

The articles in this archive explore investigative interviewing, interrogation strategy, deception detection, and behavioral analysis—ideas that helped challenge outdated assumptions and shape modern thinking in the field.


Confession Motivators: Gain or Pain

Citation: Originally published in The Interview Room
January 2008 (Volume 7, Number 1) — by Stan B. Walters.

For each of us, the only reason we change our minds about a decision that we have already made is when someone or something convinces us to abandon our first decision and a new or different point of view. In our mind in some measurable one when see the new position we have taken is being more rewarding or satisfying than the old. We have made the change after we have been motivated by our perception of "gain" or "pain." The same evaluation process is being made in the mind of our interview or interrogation subject while we are persuading them to change their current position and begin to cooperated with us and comply with our requests for information or even confession. If you can understand the "gain" or "pain" motivation of your subject and demonstrate to your subject a big distinction between the two, you'll have a better chance at gaining compliance, cooperation and confession.

In the Gain vs. Gain scenario, you subject has already concluded that he has much more to gain by remaining consistent with the position he has already assumed. First you have two hurdles to overcome, your subject's commitment to staying consistent with his decision and second demonstrating to him or her the position you want them to choose will provide them even more to gain than they may realize. In this case you'll need to acknowledge that you subject does have some things to gain by sticking with their decision and point out that the new point of view may also have those very same rewards. That it itself however, is not enough to move your subject. You'll have emphasize the advantages your subject has overlooked or has undervalued in terms of their importance to him and his "gain" objective.

In the second scenario which is Pain vs. Pain, there is the possibility that your interviewee has seen no gain for them at all by accepting your conclusions and you'll have a long road of persuasion ahead of you. It that case you'll need to demonstrate to the subject that they have overlooked some pain issues with their point of view and to accept your proposition. Your recommended position may also afford the subject some "pain" but not nearly as much as what they had not anticipated if they decided to "stand" by his initial choice. In most cases, carefully listening to your subject and their reasons for rejecting your proposal, you'll hear the gain-pain issue or issues that is driving your subject's resistance. You'll need to focus on those issues because their are important to your subject but may not be that important to you.

The final scenario is usually the easiest to deal with and that's the Pain vs. Gain format. In this case, it is much easier to convince your subject to abandon their choice to resist your recommendations to solve the issue. They already see themselves has having to deal with some level of "pain" as a result of their behavior and all you have to do is show them the "light" and get them to look forward and see to "gains" they can make by reevaluating their current pain-filled situation. In many cases, just pointing out what may be obvious "gain" to you is all that is needed because your subject is "blinded" by their current state and has missed the benefits of changing they judgment about the possible outcomes of cooperation.

In any of the three scenarios above, the interviewer has to realize that their subject is motivated by "their" perception of Gain vs Pain. The evaluation by the subject as to what they define as gain or pain may not even be close to what you as the interviewer think is worth gaining or avoiding. Once the interviewer recognizes their subject's gain or pain motivation he can key in on those issues. The greater the distinction you can make between Gain - Gain, Gain - Pain, and Pain - Pain, the more likely and the more quickly you'll get the subject to come to the conclusion to abandon their current preferred decision and accept the interviewer's recommendation.

© 2008 Stan B. Walters / Third Degree Publishing. All rights reserved.
This article is part of The Interview Room Archive Series, preserving classic writings on investigative interviewing and interrogation strategy.

Many of the concepts introduced in these early articles continue to evolve today through Stan Walters’ work on the Cognitive Reliability Framework and evidence-based interview practices.

Cognitive Reliability Framework

Interview Tips and Techniques – Memory

Ethics of Lying to Subjects About Evidence.

Interrogation techniques taught to investigators run the gamut of styles and philosophies. Certain styles have a higher tendency of showing up in false confessions cases. One of the characteristics of those flawed techniques is the use of false evidence as a tool to get the subject to confess.

There are numerous “problem” interrogation techniques that teach and support the use of false evidence to put pressure on the subject. Suspect techniques tend to also recommend tactics that include suggesting unnamed witnesses, the presence of surveillance cameras when none exist, DNA, fingerprints, footprints, making up file folders purportedly filled with evidence, labeling DVD’s of video tapes with the subject’s name and more. This is typical of high pressure interrogation methods which in and of themselves have a high correlation with false confession.

A documented tactic used by some problem interrogation methods that has been shown to have a very strong correlation to false confessions is the use of the high pressure tactic of suggesting that the subject has a memory problem. There is empirical evidence that one of several common denominators found in false confessions is referred to as “memory distrust syndrome.” In many of these cases the subject need not have a “high suggestibility rating” as described in extensive research on false confessions. Using high pressure tactics, guilt assumptive techniques dominated by leading questions, interrupting the subject, short answer questioning techniques, combined with the interviewer suggesting the subject may not be able to trust their memory is a deadly combination.

Empirical studies of interrogation techniques that capitalize on false evidence do promote false confessions. Such tactics will also contaminate the statements of uncooperative victim’s and witnesses.

Our law enforcement training academies and corporate loss prevention training associations would do well if they would familiarize themselves with the techniques that promote such tactics. They are exposing themselves, their academies, their investigators and their companies to the risk of liability by training their personnel in methods and interrogation techniques that are now being made illegal in many countries.

I think it’s time we paid more attention to the interrogation methods we teach. Are we just training our personnel in a technique because of the name or more importantly, are we really aware of the the moral and legal ethical problems that exist due to the content of their training?

Of course, this is just my opinion on the topic.

Stan B. Walters, CSP
“The Lie Guy®”
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