One hundred alleged false confession cases: Some normative data

Abstract

This paper describes the psychological characteristics of individuals who retract self-incriminating admissions made during police interviewing. A group of 100 alleged false confessors was compared with 104 other forensic referrals on four psychological variables. The two groups differed significantly on tests of intelligence, suggestibility, compliance and acquiescence. Normative data are provided for clinicians to evaluate test scores when assessing the psychological characteristics of individuals who claim to have made false confessions.