Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences· 2016Q1
Sleep deprivation and false confessions
- 138citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2016year
Short summary
Sleep-deprived individuals are 4.5 times more likely to falsely confess to a crime after a single request compared to those who are rested.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Sleep-deprived participants were 4.5 times more likely to sign a false confession statement than rested participants.
- The study adapted a procedure where participants were warned against pressing the 'Escape' key, then falsely accused of doing so.
- Participants were asked to sign a summary statement that falsely alleged they pressed the 'Escape' key.
- The findings suggest sleep deprivation significantly impairs judgment and increases susceptibility to false confessions.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
False confession is a major contributor to the problem of wrongful convictions in the United States. Here, we provide direct evidence linking sleep deprivation and false confessions. In a procedure adapted from Kassin and Kiechel [(1996) Psychol Sci 7(3):125-128], participants completed computer tasks across multiple sessions and repeatedly received warnings that pressing the "Escape" key on their keyboard would cause the loss of study data. In their final session, participants either slept all night in laboratory bedrooms or remained awake all night. In the morning, all participants were asked to sign a statement, which summarized their activities in the laboratory and falsely alleged that they pressed the Escape key during an earlier session. After a single request, the odds of signing were 4.5 times higher for the sleep-deprived participants than for the rested participants. These findings have important implications and highlight the need for further research on factors affecting true and false confessions.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016 · DOI ↗
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Field: Social Psychology
Social PsychologyPsychology