The Psychology of Investigative Interviewing with Suspects of Serious Offences: An Examination of Empathy

This thesis focuses on the psychology of investigative interviewing with regard to how empathy is defined, understood, displayed and effective within the context of investigative interviewing. Investigative empathy has here been examined through four new, empirical studies. The first study examines police interviewers’ definitions of and employment of empathy in seven European countries. The second study builds on this by examining types of empathy in actual digitally recorded police interviews with suspects and the relationship between empathy displayed by interviewers with information provided by suspects. In the third study the effect on suspects of appropriate versus inappropriate question types when combined with empathy is examined. In Study 4, police interviewers’ responses to questions about one of four vignettes, in which the interviewer’s style are varied, are examined to determine whether officers in Germany (where there is as yet no nationally agreed upon interviewing protocol) produce data in line with other countries that have an interviewing protocol (in line with the evolving literature). In this final study, the possible effect of participants’ own levels of empathy on their responses is also examined. Overall, the findings underline the importance of appropriate types of empathy and how training in this area should be carefully and purposefully conducted. Although the present thesis builds on the theoretical knowledge of investigative interviewing, it may also be beneficial to those working in clinical/therapeutic settings in establishing and maintaining a strong therapeutic relationship between client and the professional.