Why Would They Falsely Confess?
Why on earth would an innocent personfalsely confess to committing a crime? To most people, it just doesn't seemlogical．But it is logical, say experts, if you understand what can happen in apolice interrogation (审讯) room.
Under the right conditions, people's mindsare susceptible (易受影响的)to influence,and the pressure put on suspects during policequestioning is enormous．__________(46)'Thepressure is important to understand, because otherwise it's impossible to understandwhy someone would say he did something he didn't do．The answer is: to put anend to an uncomfortable situation that will continue until he doesconfess.'
Developmental psychologist Mary Redlichrecently conducted a laboratory study to determine, how likely people are toconfess to things they didn't do．__________(47) The researchers thenintentionally crashed the computers and accused the participants of hitting the'alt' key to see if they would sign a statement falsely takingresponsibility.
Redlich's findings clearly demonstrate howeasy it can be to get people to falsely confess: 59 percent of the young sin the experiment immediately confesseD．__________ (48) Of the 15- to16-year-olds, 72 percent signed confessions, as did 78 percent of the 12- to13-year-olds.
'There's no question that youngpeople are more at risk,' says Saul Kassin, a psychology professor at Williams College, who has done similar studieswith similar results.__________ (49)
Both Kassin and Redlich note that the entire'interrogation' in their experiments consisted of a accusation--not hours of aggressive questioning--and still, most participantsfalsely confesseD．__________ (50) 'In some ways,' says Kassin,'false confession becomes a rational decision.'