According to Navarro’s (2003) article, an individual’s level of comfort or discomfort should become a focus in the course of an interview since tension or stress during interrogation are usually inherent to a guilty person (p. 20). Thus, understanding comfort and discomfort will aid the interviewer in uncovering the disguise of an individual that is trying to give untruthful answers to simple questions posed by the interviewer. The physical signs of discomfort may be the following: quick heart rate, increased perspiration, faster breathing and increased blinking, hair standing up. Nonverbal signs of discomfort may include constant rearranging of the body, drumming fingers on the table, trying to move more.
How Understanding “Comfort” and “Discomfort” will Help a Criminal Justice Professional
Understanding comfort and discomfort is vital for a criminal justice professional since these two points of human behaviour may give information on whether a person has any direct relationship to the case discussed. Furthermore, it is also important to distinguish between the signs of comfort and discomfort in individuals separately since the seemingly uncomfortable behaviour of one person may be usual conduct for another.
How Information Can Be Lost During an Interview
When an interviewee is uncomfortable, he or she spends a lot of time and effort to create distance between him or her and the interviewer. This is usually achieved both physically and verbally. Thus, while an interviewee is trying to build a barrier that will become a ‘shield’ for interrogation, information is lost due to the inability of an interviewee to focus on the questions asked. The blocking mechanism an individual has does not only block mentally, but it also blocks important information from coming to the light.
What Distractions Can Occur when a Person is Uncomfortable
As already mentioned, an interviewee that is blocking herself or himself from the interviewer is occupied with creating a barrier thus distracting the interviewer. However, when an individual is uncomfortable, the apparent signs of the lack of comfort are often distracting. Sometimes individuals under stress can throw a temper tantrum to distract the interviewer from asking questions about the case and instead trying to calm the interviewee down. This can be done both intentionally with a mere purpose to distract from an important question or unintentionally when a person is uncomfortable and is under major stress. Both intentional and unintentional temper tantrums can be interpreted as signs of guilt (Navarro, 2003, p. 23).
How the Different Modes of Speech Can Affect the Interview
When people are comfortable around each other, they tend to have a similar mode of speech that indicates that there is nothing to hide or worry about. However, when a person is uncomfortable with a situation, their tone may change to high or low, the emphasis of their speech is delayed or unnatural. In many cases, when covering up a lie, a person may often shift the speech emphasis on an unimportant matter or repeat something already said before. Furthermore, the deceptive speech is accompanied by movements that are indicative of it, for example, cheek stroking, a movement often suggesting that a person is thinking about something. Thus, various modes of speech of a deceptive interviewee may greatly affect the process of interrogation since an interviewer that will notice the signs of deception will be able to make a conclusion that the interrogated individual may have something to hide. On the other hand, modes of speech can also confuse an interviewer since a deceptive individual will go to great lengths to cover up a lie with various methods.
References
Navarro, J. (2003). A four-domain model for detecting deception. Web.