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The Humintell Blog March 31, 2020

Rapport in Investigative Interviews

Humintell Director Dr. David Matsumoto recently conducted a webinar on “Understanding Rapport and its Possible Components” for the International Association of Interviewers (IAI).

Please enjoy this recording of the recent webinar as well as the outline he wrote that preceded it.

 

Anyone and everyone who expounds an ethical, non-confrontational, empirically-based approach to interviewing acknowledges the importance of rapport. And for good reason: Rapport has been documented in basic social psychological research for decades as a crucial element in any successful human interaction involving coordination and cooperation among interactants. Recent empirical studies have increasingly demonstrated it is also critical to investigative interviewing. Anyone who does investigative interviewing can attest to its importance.

Of course, I am preaching to the choir. As I write this I am reading the IAI February 2020 Featured Blog entitled “Successful interviews: Why rapport is crucial to policing.” It, along with IAI’s recent webinar on rapport, are excellent examples of the importance of rapport in investigative interviewing.

As I have been researching, thinking about, and struggling with this important topic, I have come to realize that we still don’t have good answers to some really fundamental questions about rapport. These include what exactly is rapport? And what is it not? Is it necessary or sufficient for successful investigative interviews? Are there other equally if not more important concepts that are crucial to successful interviews?

Answers to these very basic, but very important, questions are not found in the scientific literature, either.

Still, it seems to me that we should seek answers or clarity to these questions because how we land on them can influence many things, including our understanding about the nature and function of rapport in interviews; how to establish, maintain, and repair it; and whether there are other concepts that we should also keep in mind when conducting interviews.

In this webinar, I will raise these questions, bringing examples from the scientific literature as well as practical applications. I won’t provide a recipe for how to establish and maintain rapport in investigative interviews, because there are so many extremely competent interviewers, especially those certified in the CFI/IAI method! But I would like to raise awareness of some important questions, and possible limitations, of the concept of rapport, and bring to bear whatever scientific evidence there is to address these issues.

The overall goal of the webinar will be to raise awareness about and critical thinking related to this incredibly important concept to investigative interviews.

Filed Under: Nonverbal Behavior, rapport, Science

The Humintell Blog March 25, 2020

An important message from Dr. David Matsumoto

Dear Humintell Family,

As everyone knows, we are all facing an unprecedented challenge regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our thoughts are with all our Humintell family members, friends, affiliates, and colleagues during this time of crisis. We hope that you and your loved ones are and remain safe and healthy. We also deeply appreciate the countless healthcare workers, officials, scientists, and law enforcement officials who are on the frontlines to fight this virus.

This is a challenging time for all. Humintell is first and foremost a community, and while we all need to do our individual part to overcome, please don’t hesitate to reach out if there is anything in our realm of expertise in which we can be of assistance.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the World Health Organization.

Stay safe,

David Matsumoto, Ph.D.

Filed Under: General

The Humintell Blog February 24, 2020

Body Language: Validated and Non-Validated Indicators

Hey everybody, it’s David Matsumoto from Humintell. I wanted to thank everybody for the tremendous response that we have received about our last 2 videos.

One was on the introduction to what is body language and the other one was about whether you can tell the difference between fake and genuine emotions.

One of the things that I had talk about in the body language video was the difference between validated and non-validated indicators. Some of you had asked for us to go and discuss that a little more, so I thought I’d do that today.

What are Validated Indicators?

Validated indicators are those indicators that have been tested in research and found to reliably differentiate truth tellers from liars across studies, investigators and laboratories. And, they have also been vetted in the field.

What are Non-Validated Indicators?

Non-validated indicators are those indicators or behaviors that have been tested in laboratory studies but have not been found to reliably differentiate truth tellers from liars.

We also think about what are called unvalidated indicators. These are behaviors that have not even been tested yet. In our research and in our training work, we always focus on validated indicators. Again, validated in the science and vetted in the field. We believe these are the most important ones interviewers and investigators and anyone who’s reading people should be focused on.

Fake vs Genuine Emotions

So now let’s move our attention to the other video, the fake vs genuine emotions. I saw everybody’s great responses and for the most part, everybody was correct in differentiating which video or which person was telling the truth and which one was lying.

But it’s really interesting to take a look at what behaviors people’s were focusing on to make that kind of determination.  We actually tallied the various behaviors that people had mentioned and one of the most frequent behaviors that people had mentioned were the “shifty eyes” or what we call gaze aversion– where a person does not look one straight in the eye when answering the question.

Gaze Aversion: Validated or Non-Validated Indicator?

Actually, gaze aversion is a behavior that has been tested many times in laboratory studies to determine whether it reliably differentiates truth tellers and liars. As of a few years ago, of the 25 studies that I knew at that time that tested that hypothesis, 24 of those studies did not find evidence to support that hypothesis. And we in our research have never found that also.

So to tell you the truth, gaze aversion as an indicator of lying is more of a myth that a reality. In fact, there have been studies by other people that have shown that that myth is believed by many people around the world. So it kind of makes sense that people think that that’s true but in reality that’s not a validated indicator nor has it been vetted in the field.

If you take a look at those two videos, one has more of the shifty eyes, in addition to the other indicators, while the other one did not, but in reality there are many people who also tell the truth and not necessarily look other people in the eye or have shifty eyes when they’re doing so.

So when you look across people at that one particular indicator or behavior, you find that really that indicator does not really differentiate truth tellers from liars. Now, it does indicate a certain type of mental state and we leave that kind of information for our training, but it’s not indicative of truth telling and lying. It’s not a reliable or validated indicator of truth telling vs lying.

What makes Humintell unique

One of the things that we do here at Humintell that we’re very proud of is that we focus solely on the validated indicators. Again, validated in science, vetted in the field because we believe these are the most important ones to train others in. That’s why we do the research and we know the research not only on our findings, but we also know the findings of all the other researchers in the field. We have a really good idea of what’s been validated in science then when we train people, we get the feedback of what’s been vetted in the field.

What do you think about these examples?

We’re going to introduce you to some other videos of people who are actually telling the truth but also not looking one in the eye or shifting away in their gaze. Just take a look how that happens there as well. Remember most of these people you’re about to see are telling the truth.

Example 1

Example 2

Now we have a question for you after you take a look at the videos above. Chime in and let us know what other behaviors do you think have been validated or not in science and in the field. Maybe we can talk a little more about validated vs non-validated or unvalidated indicators with regard to truth telling and lying

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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