Falsche Geständnisse: Über die möglichen Auswirkungen von Voreinstellung, Vernehmung und Verständigung

May a witness challenge the conviction? (Some) Confirmation bias in legal experts

Criminal investigations and trials are always guided by assumptions such that a suspect or defendant has committed a certain crime. Research on confirmation bias suggests that such prior assumptions bias subsequent information processing, fostering a confirmation of those assumptions. Biased information processing, in turn, would pose a severe threat to legal decision-making. Since previous evidence regarding professional decision makers is sparse and inconsistent, the present paper investigated whether legal experts showed evidence of confirmation bias. Specifically, we provided case materials pointing to a certain suspect and investigated evaluations of subsequent eyewitness evidence as a function of whether it was consistent or inconsistent with the initial suspicion. Although identical, witnessing conditions were rated as significantly poorer for inconsistent (vs. consistent) statements, thus, indicating confirmation bias. The effects were rather small, but this finding did not hinge on professional training, as another study with (law) students suggested. We argue that even small effects may threaten fair judgments and that our findings likely underestimate real-world effects.

From Hohenschönhausen to Guantanamo Bay: Psychology's role in the secret services of the GDR and the United States

This paper presents a historical analysis of the genesis, context, and function of "Operative Psychology," a little-known branch of applied psychology developed by employees of the Ministry of State Security in the German Democratic Republic. For 25 years, theories and practices of Operative Psychology were taught to elite agents at the Juridical Academy in Potsdam, introducing them to various "silent" psychological techniques of persuasion, interrogation, and repression. After highlighting the economic and political context that increased the need for "silent" techniques of observation and repression, an overview of the topics that were taught and researched at the chair for Operative Psychology is given. Examples of how these techniques were put into practice are provided and the consequences for the victims of Operative Psychology are discussed. Furthermore, commonalities and differences between Operative Psychology and the use of psychological torture by the CIA during the "war on terror" are discussed and questions regarding the relation between methodological and moral strategies of justification are addressed.