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iDEA: DREXEL LIBRARIES E-REPOSITORY AND ARCHIVES

iDEA: DREXEL LIBRARIES E-REPOSITORY AND ARCHIVES

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Gender, suggestibility, and self-reported likelihood of false confessions

Details
Title
Gender, suggestibility, and self-reported likelihood of false confessions
Author(s)
Mesiarik, Constance M.
Advisor(s)
Goldstein, Naomi E. Sevin
Keywords
Clinical psychology; False Confessions; Juvenile delinquency--Psychological aspects
Date
2008-07
Publisher
Drexel University
Thesis
Ph.D., Clinical Psychology -- Drexel University, 2008
Abstract
Confessions are readily admissible in court and are extremely powerful in convicting a defendant. A large body of research has focused on the role of suggestibility during the interrogation process and on the relationship between suggestibility and false confessions. However, little research exists on the relationship between gender and suggestibility. Nevertheless, research has revealed that girls in the juvenile justice system display more mental health symptoms than do boys, and research with adults has suggested a relationship between suggestibility and mental illness. The current study examined the relationships between gender, IQ, mental health symptoms,suggestibility, and self-reported likelihood of offering false confessions. The study hypothesized that girls would be more likely than boys to say that they would falsely confession during hypothetical interrogation scenarios. Furthermore, this study hypothesized that suggestibility would mediate the relationships between: (1) gender and self-reported likelihood of offering false confessions; (2) mental health symptoms and self-reported likelihood of offering false confessions; and (3) IQ and self-reported likelihood of offering false confessions. Finally, this study hypothesized that mental health symptoms and IQ would each mediate the relationships between gender and suggestibility and between gender and false confessions. Although results indicated that girls were more likely to report that they would falsely confess, the hypotheses examining mediating variables were unsupported.
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1860/2897
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