Meetings Make Evidence? An Experimental Study of Collaborative and Individual Recall of a Simulated Police Interrogation

by G. M. Stephenson, N. K. Clark, and G. S. Wade

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Volume 50, Issue 6, pp. 1113–1122) 1986
  • Psychology

58 undergraduates listened to an audio recording of a simulated police interrogation of a woman alleging rape. Ss subsequently recalled and answered questions about the recording in 1 of 3 experimental conditions: individual, dyadic, and 4-person group. Dyads and groups were required to agree on all responses. A macropropositional analysis of the interrogation was used to classify propositions in each recall protocol in terms of their correspondence to those of the original. Although groups produced twice as many correct propositions as did individuals, the total number of recall propositions, and reconstructive and confusional errors, did not vary between conditions, and individuals gave nearly 5 times as many metastatements as did groups. Analyses of propositions correctly recalled suggested that groups gave conventional accounts of the evidence in contrast with individuals' evaluations of the interrogation. Groups and dyads were characteristically overconfident about wrong answers.