Moving beyond semantic taboos to embrace ethical communication in science-based interviewing.
Our journey here continues to shine a light on procedural justice and science-based interviewing practices — and their absolute need to be implemented across the board in the practice of interviewing. We’ll keep focusing on specific issues, but the key is getting these practices into the hands of interviewers. In this piece, I want to explore the importance of an ethical focus not on words, but on intent, in science-based interviewing methodology.
As we look at these science-based practices, there are a couple of foundational concepts each of us must consider. What is your organizational mission? Are you in the interview to get the greatest quantity and quality of accurate information in an ethical manner? If the number one reason interviewees tell us their truth is the confidence and credibility of the interviewer, what are the results of using legacy and outdated practices with no evidential support? The result is the antithesis of our organizational mission and goals. With the research and knowledge now available, it’s time to implement the best practices possible. So let’s examine another to improve our techniques.
There’s an elephant in the interview room that nobody wants to acknowledge. While the science-based interviewing community has rightfully moved away from coercive interrogation techniques, we’ve created an odd linguistic taboo around perfectly legitimate communication concepts. Terms like “persuasion” and “rationalization” have become professional profanity, whispered about in hushed tones as if they were inherently unethical.
Yet here’s the rub: the very techniques we champion most enthusiastically rely fundamentally on these same psychological mechanisms. The Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique, widely accepted as the gold standard in science-based interviewing — and it is — is built in great measure on persuasion and rationalization. It’s time we had an honest conversation about this contradiction.
The Strategic Use of Evidence technique is an interview method aimed at eliciting cues to deception by exploiting the different counter-interrogation strategies employed by liars and truth-tellers. Granhag and Hartwig found that interviewers trained in this strategy detected deception with an accuracy rate of 85.4 percent, compared to untrained interviewers at 56.1 percent.
But let’s examine what SUE does beneath its scientific base:
The irony is palpable: we embrace SUE precisely because it’s effective at generating detailed information and plausible confessions, yet it relies on the same psychological mechanisms we’ve demonized in other contexts and applications. The stark difference is that the psychological manipulation is balanced by an enhanced introduction of autonomy.
While SUE provides a clear example of this contradiction, the reality is that persuasion and rationalization permeate every aspect of science-based interviewing. Rapport building is fundamentally persuasive — you’re convincing someone you’re trustworthy and worth talking to. Questioning strategies inherently provide rationalization opportunities by allowing explanations for problematic behavior after it’s already been disclosed. Even active listening serves persuasive functions by making people feel heard and valued, which encourages continued disclosure. The entire methodology depends on moving someone from a defensive, guarded state to an open, cooperative one. That transformation is, by definition, persuasive.
The fundamental difference between ethical and unethical interviewing isn’t the absence of persuasion and rationalization — it’s the intent behind their application.
The distinction lies not in the mechanism, but in the motivation and methodology.
Beyond persuasion and rationalization, there are many other terms that have suffered similar semantic exile:
This semantic chaos has created a situation where “rapport” has become a catch-all term for any positive interviewer-interviewee interaction, making objective assessment nearly impossible. The irony is that while everyone agrees rapport is essential for successful interviews, nobody agrees on what it actually means.
But the definitional problem runs even deeper — terms like “rapport” and “trust” are genuinely almost impossible to define with precision. When we advocate for building “trust,” are we referring to cognitive trust — the interviewee’s rational assessment of the interviewer’s competence and reliability — or affective trust, the emotional bond and comfort level between interviewer and interviewee? Both types of trust are ultimately necessary for effective interviewing, but the distinction matters enormously for practical application.
Until we clarify whether we’re primarily seeking cognitive trust, affective trust, or some specific combination, exhortations to “build rapport” remain frustratingly vague. Rather than abandoning these terms, we need to acknowledge that effective rapport-building is fundamentally persuasive — you’re convincing someone you’re trustworthy and worth talking to — while working toward clearer definitional consensus about what specific psychological mechanisms we’re actually targeting.
To advance the field of science-based interviewing, we need to:
The transition from confession-based to information-gathering methodologies represents more than a technical shift — it’s a fundamental reimagining of the investigative interview’s purpose. Previous laboratory studies have demonstrated that innocent participants in mock crime experiments are highly forthcoming with information and highly consistent with the evidence, suggesting that ethical approaches naturally facilitate truthfulness.
The old paradigm focused on breaking down resistance to extract confessions. The new paradigm focuses on building cooperation to gather reliable information. Both use persuasion and rationalization, but with vastly different intents and outcomes.
The science-based interviewing community has made tremendous strides in developing ethical, effective methodologies. But we’ve created an unnecessary intellectual blind spot by treating fundamental communication concepts as taboo. The widespread acceptance of the SUE technique proves that we already understand the value of ethical persuasion and rationalization — we just need the courage to acknowledge it.
Moving forward, let’s focus on teaching practitioners how to apply these universal communication dynamics ethically rather than pretending they don’t exist.
The elephant in the interview room isn’t going anywhere. It’s time we stopped pretending it’s not there and started having honest conversations about how to work with it ethically and effectively.
So much of what we’ve addressed here — and address almost every week — has to do with mindset. As part of this transition to science-based practice, there has to be a transformation of our mindset. Many discussions I engage in come back to this same subject. If we adjust that, the techniques and knowledge follow.
Training is a first step. It is what moved me beyond my blind spots, at least some of them. I can provide the training or recommend providers teaching science-based techniques. Do your research, find the right provider, and maximize your training dollar investment. If you are a practitioner or a leader, don’t settle for the same old legacy-based methods that have no empirical evidence supporting them. If you are in leadership, you carry the same responsibility to know and apply these standards and to find training content that maximizes your team’s effectiveness and accomplishes your mission.
Anderson Investigative Associates is positioned to custom-tailor training to your specific needs. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the subject of this imperative transition, or any training need, please reach out. Additional issues pertaining to interviewing, auditing, and investigations can be found in other blogs and videos that we have produced and are contained in most blocks of instruction that our company presents.
If you have additional questions, comments, or an interview topic you would like me to address, just let me know. In the meantime, be well, stay safe out there, and start investing in a transition that is ethical and effective. It will improve everything you do. It’s time to improve your interviewing and communication skills, not just in interviews, but throughout your life. If you need help getting ready, I know who could help.