Rapport building and social influence in dyadic and multiparty forensic interactions

Rapport building is fundamental for effective interactions because it is significantly and positively associated with gaining trust, building relationships, and supporting the development of communicative alliances. In forensic interviews rapport is viewed as indicative of gold standard interviews. Indeed, formal guidance/training documents, worldwide, all mention rapport, rapport building, and its importance. Forensic professionals understand the importance of rapport building, and offenders/suspected offenders consistently indicate good rapport helps them to tell their ‘story’, which supports the prosecution of offenders, and reduces false confessions and miscarriages of justice (Bull & Soukara, 2010; Kassin et al., 2007). Good rapport during witness/victim interviews is also known to improve the quality and quantity of the information they recall (Collins et al., 2002).
The theoretical and empirical literature provides no guidance on what constitutes rapport, and how to go about building and maintaining rapport in forensic contexts. Because of a severe lack of psychological research, rapport in forensic contexts is not understood, and so is variously and loosely described. Much of the rapport literature emanates from clinical and counselling interviews, which occur in markedly differently contexts to that of forensic interviews. Currently a model of forensic rapport does not exist, so interviewers have no choice but to adapt/develop techniques by instinct, trial and error, or by watching peers, who may not be proficient. The proposed programme of PhD research seeks to move towards filling this gap, working in partnership with UK government organisations. ‘Affect’ is the general topic, and how accompanying behaviours (physical & verbal) impact on rapport and rapport building and the concept of an operational accord, whereby rapport is used to build and maintain a productive interviewer/interviewee relationship across forensic contexts. The project will include i) a review of the scientific literature on rapport and social influence in dyadic and multi-party interactions, ii) applied experimental work to model and manipulate a series of rapport variables including, gender, culture, age, power, temporality, linguistic content, and context with participants from the Police, other government organisations, and from the general population, iii) the development of a forensic model of rapport based on the data from the experimental work, and surveys. It is envisaged that this new forensic model would conceptualise rapport for different forensic purposes, across different contexts, and so will be dynamic in nature. The student will have the opportunity to work with partnership organisations to produce guidance for dissemination and will take part in the University Graduate School and Faculty Doctoral Research Development Programme; in addition to these training programmes and the subject specific skills listed above, the student will gain important transferable skills (e.g. presentation skills, scientific writing and employability skills) to aid in future career progression.