Short-sighted confession decisions: the role of uncertain and delayed consequences.

Suspects have a propensity to focus on short-term contingencies, giving disproportionate weight to the proximal consequences that are delivered by police during an interrogation, and too little consideration to the distal (and often more severe) consequences that may be levied by the judicial system if they are convicted. In this research, the authors examined whether the perceived uncertainty and temporal distance of distal consequences contribute to this propensity. Using the repetitive question paradigm (Madon et al., 2012), participants (N = 209) were interviewed about 20 prior criminal and unethical behaviors and were required to admit or deny each one. Participants' denials and admissions were paired with both a proximal consequence and a distal consequence, respectively. Results indicated that the distal consequence had less impact on participants' admission decisions when it was uncertain and temporally remote. These results provide evidence that the perceived uncertainty and temporal distance of future punishment are key factors that lead suspects to confess to crimes in exchange for short-term gains.

嫌疑人倾向于关注短期的意外情况，过度重视审讯期间警方所给予的近期后果，而很少考虑如果被定罪司法系统可能施加的远期（且往往更严重的）后果。在这项研究中，作者检验了远期后果的感知不确定性和时间距离是否导致了这种倾向。使用重复问题范式（马登等人，2012年），参与者（N = 209）接受了关于20种先前的犯罪和不道德行为的访谈，并被要求对每一种行为进行承认或否认。参与者的否认和承认分别与一个近期后果和一个远期后果相匹配。结果表明，当远期后果不确定且在时间上遥远时，它对参与者的承认决策影响较小。这些结果提供了证据，表明对未来惩罚的感知不确定性和时间距离是导致嫌疑人以承认犯罪来换取短期利益的关键因素。