Mechanisms of Self-Regulatory Decline in Accusatorial Interrogations

Abstract

Confessions carry substantial weight in criminal investigations, yet little is known about the psychological mechanisms underlying suspects’ confession decisions. This research tested the hypothesis that situational pressures inherent to accusatorial interrogations deplete suspects’ self-regulatory resources, impairing their ability to make rational, self-protective decisions. We examined three potential mechanisms of self-regulatory depletion in accusatorial interrogations: (1) decision-making pressure, (2) fatigue, and (3) depleted self-regulatory reserves. Participants were interviewed about minor (Experiment 1; N = 154) or serious (Experiment 2; N = 486) prior criminal and unethical behaviors under conditions that manipulated whether they experienced both decision-making pressure and fatigue, fatigue alone, or neither. We operationalized decision-making pressure through a response-contingent consequence structure and fatigue through extended questioning. We measured self-regulatory capacity by assessing time spent on an unsolvable anagram task after the interview. Experiment 2 also manipulated whether participants’ pre-interview self-regulatory reserves were depleted by having some complete the unsolvable anagram task before, as opposed to after, the interview. The results suggested a role of decision-making pressure—alone and in combination with fatigue—in producing self-regulatory depletion but provided no evidence for the effect of experimentally depleted self-regulatory reserves. These findings offer empirical support for theories linking interrogation pressures to self-regulatory decline.