An investigation into the relationship between the reported experience of negative life events, trait stress-sensitivity and false confessions among further education students in Iceland

• Published in: Personality and Individual Differences
• Main Authors: Drake, Kim E., Gudjonsson, Gisli H., Sigfusdottir, Inga Dora, Sigurdsson, Jon Fridrik
• Other Authors: 1 Univ West London, London W5 5RF, England 2 Kings Coll London, Inst Psychiat, London SE5 8AF, England 3 Reykjavik Univ, IS-101 Reykjavik, Iceland 4 Columbia Univ, Teachers Coll, New York, NY 10027 USA 5 Univ Iceland, Landspitali, IS-101 Reykjavik, Iceland
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd. 2015
• Subjects: Lygi; Streita; Deception; Life Change Events; Stress; Psychological; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2336/565824; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.09.007

To access publisher's full text version of this article click on the hyperlink at the bottom of the page This study investigates the interplay between the reported experiences of negative life events, reported levels of nerves, fear and tension experienced over the past 30 days, and reported false confessions. Data were obtained from 11,388 students in further education in Iceland, out of which 5439 participants were male and 5837 were female. Single level, random intercept, structural equation models were fitted showing that latent stress-sensitivity, indicated by levels of nerves, tension, fear, and the number of negative life events experienced exerted a significant direct effect on the likelihood of false confessions. Stress-sensitive interviewees (those reporting high levels of nerves, fear, tension and negative events) may be more susceptible to environmental influences, due to heightened physiological responsiveness towards and a negative perception of situations and social encounters, with false confessions being a direct consequence of this. A suggestion from the findings is that the type of false confession (the reason for it) may possibly dependent upon which contextual trigger has influenced the interviewee the most those within the police interview itself and/or pressures from the wider environment within which they reside.