THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FALSE CONFESSORS, A STUDY AMONG ICELANDIC PRISON-INMATES AND JUVENILE-OFFENDERS

In this study the psychological characteristics of 62 prison inmates, who claimed to have made a 'false confession' during a police intervie w, were compared with those of other inmates. The personality rests ad ministered were the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), the Gough Socialisation Scale, the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS 1), the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale (GCS), and the self-deception (SDQ) and o ther-deception (ODQ) questionnaires of Sackeim and Gur. In addition, R avens' Standard Progressive Matrices were administered. The results sh owed that the 'false confessors' were significantly more antisocial in their personality, compliant and emotionally labile, than the other i nmates and had lower self-deception and other-deception scores. A subg roup of coerced-internalized 'false confessors' was identified and the y differed from the others in terms of elevated suggestibility and con fabulation scores as measured by the GSS 1. In a parallel study of 108 juvenile offenders it was found that none of them reported having mad e a 'false confession', in contrast to 12% of the prison inmates. Over all, the results indicate that 'false confession' in Iceland may be la rgely confined to persistent offenders who possess antisocial personal ity characteristics.