Date of Award
January 2015
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Thomas V. Petros
Abstract
Interrogative suggestibility is the individual's tendency to yield to misleading questions and negative feedback. Individuals who exhibit this tendency have been found to be more likely to falsely confess to a crime, a decision with often severe negative consequences. Many individual differences in cognition, emotion, and personality have been linked with interrogative suggestibility. These individual differences have also been found to be related to an individual's decision-making ability. However, the relationship between interrogative suggestibility and decision-making has not been investigated. The current project sought to determine how decision-making abilities, cognitive ability, memory, and anxiety predict variability in interrogative suggestibility. Results indicate that cognitive ability is a strong predictor of interrogative suggestibility. Furthermore, cognitive ability significantly interacted with the decision-making ability of consistent risk perception in predicting suggestibility. Future research should focus on the underlying processes important for both suggestibility and decision-making as these both have important forensic applications.
Recommended Citation
Van Dyke, Darci, "The Relationship Between Interrogative Suggestibility And Decision-Making" (2015). Theses and Dissertations. 1848.
https://commons.und.edu/theses/1848