The Effect of Rapport in Forensic Interviewing

By R. Collins, R. Lincoln, Mark G. Frank. 2002

191 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The psychological literature suggests that establishing rapport between interviewer and subject — whether in clinical, experimental or forensic settings — is likely to enhance the quality of the interaction. Yet there are surprisingly few studies that test this assumption. This article reports a study of the effect of rapport on eyewitness recall of a dramatic videotaped event by creating three interviewer-attitude conditions — “rapport”, “neutral” and “abrupt”. Participants were randomly assigned to the three conditions, and recall was elicited by two methods — free narrative and a semi-structured questionnaire. The results indicate participants in the rapport interview recalled more correct information, and the same amount of incorrect information as participants in the other two conditions. However, prompting via the semi-structured questionnaire yielded additional correct as well as incorrect information for the neutral and abrupt conditions. The results are discussed for their relevance to interviews conducted in forensic settings, and to highlight the need for more specific and improved interview training for police and other justice personnel.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, General Health Professions, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0408ad30feeea7d9e8a36b4534e2d4cd0986f769

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

1. Aldert Vrij
2. S. Brandon
3. A. Abbe
4. R. Fisher
5. Lorraine Hope
6. J. Vallano
7. Ray Bull
8. N. S. Compo

In General Health Professions

1. Aldert Vrij
2. J. Vallano
3. Ray Bull
4. N. S. Compo

In Social Psychology

1. Aldert Vrij
2. R. Fisher
3. S. Brandon
4. A. Abbe
5. Ray Bull
6. Lorraine Hope
7. J. Vallano
8. N. S. Compo

Citations in the corpus

• Building and maintaining rapport in investigative interviews (2014, background): “Others have emphasized active listening (Milne & Bull, 1999), attentiveness, and friendliness (Collins et al., 2002).”
• Exploring the use of rapport in professional information‐gathering contexts by systematically mapping the evidence base (2020, unknown): “For example, Collins et al. (2002) developed a rapport-script for their interviewer to follow, recommending use of a gentle voice tone, relaxed body posture, personalization, and use of the interviewee’s name.”
• A comfortable witness is a good witness: rapport‐building and susceptibility to misinformation in an investigative mock‐crime interview (2008, background): “One exception is a recent study by Collins, Lincoln, and Frank (2002), who investigated the effects of rapport-building on the accuracy of cooperative adult witness reports.”
• Examining Rapport in Investigative Interviews with Suspects: Does its Building and Maintenance Work? (2012, background): “Several studies have pointed out that interviews either prefaced or characterised by good rapport development generally produce fuller accounts from suspects (Clarke and Milne 2001; Collins et al. 2002; Griffiths and Milne 2006; Holmberg and Christianson 2002; Walsh and Bull 2010a).”
• Rapport-building with cooperative witnesses and criminal suspects: A theoretical and empirical review. (2015, background): “Further, building rapport before and during a criminal interview may benefit adult witness recall under certain conditions (Collins et al., 2002; Holmberg & Madsen, in press; Vallano & Schreiber Compo, 2011).”
• Eliciting Reliable Information in Investigative Interviews (2014, background): “Successful nonverbal techniques include having a relaxed posture (Collins et al., 2002) and mimicking the interviewee (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).”