The Social Psychology of False Confessions

Inspired by DNA exoneration cases and other wrongful convictions of innocent people who had confessed to crimes they did not commit, and drawing from basic principles of social perception and social influence, a vast body of research has focused on the social psychology of confessions. In particular, this article describes laboratory and field studies on the “Milgramesque” processes of police interviewing an interrogation, the methods by which innocent people are judged deceptive and induced into confession, and the rippling effects of these confessions on judges, juries, lay and expert witnesses, and the truth-seeking process itself. This article concludes with a discussion of social and policy implications—including a call for the mandatory video recording of entire interrogations, blind testing in forensic science labs, and the admissibility of confession experts in court.