Department of Psychology, Iowa State University, W112 Lagomarcino Hall, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
Law Hum Behav. 2012 Feb;36(1):13-20. doi: 10.1037/h0093962.
Drawing on the psychological principle that proximal consequences influence behavior more strongly than distal consequences, the authors tested the hypothesis that criminal suspects exhibit a short-sightedness during police interrogation that increases their risk for confession. Consistent with this hypothesis, Experiment 1 showed that participants (N = 81) altered how frequently they admitted to criminal and unethical behaviors during an interview to avoid a proximal consequence even though doing so increased their risk of incurring a distal consequence. Experiment 2 (N = 143) yielded the same pattern, but with a procedure that reversed the order of the proximal and distal consequences, thereby ruling out the possibility that it was the unique characteristics of the consequences rather than their proximity that influenced the admission rate. The authors discuss the supported psychological process as a potential explanation for several well-established findings reported in the literature on confessions.
借鉴近因比远因更能强烈影响行为的心理学原理，作者检验了这样一个假设，即在警察讯问中，犯罪嫌疑人会表现出一种短视，从而增加他们认罪的风险。与这一假设一致，实验 1 表明，参与者（N=81）改变了在面试中承认犯罪和不道德行为的频率，以避免近因，尽管这样做会增加他们承担远因的风险。实验 2（N=143）得出了相同的模式，但采用了一种颠倒近因和远因顺序的程序，从而排除了影响承认率的是后果的独特性而不是它们的接近程度的可能性。作者讨论了所支持的心理过程，作为对文献中报告的几个关于认罪的既定发现的潜在解释。
