tional hurt that influenced their behavior in some way. By comprehend-
ing those hurts and putting them into your own words, you show that
you are deeply tuned in, and this expresses closeness and caring.
Controlling your negative feelings throughout an investigation and with
interviewees will be invaluable. Avoid being condescending or patronizing.
These feelings will only cause antagonist behavior. Keep in mind, your goal
Preparation and So Much More
21
is to get information that will help solve a case. Obtaining the facts and not
being judgmental will affect the outcome. If you have negative feelings, you
can change them if you really desire to change. As a professional, you can
make a commitment to modify your attitudes and thus change your behav-
ior to become a more effective interviewer. To change your attitudes, you
must first change your feelings or your thinking. Authoritarianism, which
breeds resentment, retaliation, and reluctance or refusal to cooperate, is
based on your biases and prejudices.
A significant challenge is to become aware of your own strengths and
limitations. The more aware you are of your good and bad qualities as an
investigator, the more likely it is that you will make changes to improve
yourself. Having a positive attitude is the first important step you will take
to prepare for interviews.
PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology plays an integral role in an interview. We need to prepare
psychologically for each interview, and we need to understand psychology
to help interpret and assess the interview as the interviewee speaks and
reacts.
Let’s start by talking about how to prepare psychologically. We discussed
attitude in the previous section; part of our attitude is to enter the interview with an open mind. We also discussed being accepting and nonjudgmental,
even when we are interacting with people we consider suspects. We have to
understand the psychology of human needs and understand how remaining
positive will go a long way toward achieving our success.
The effective interviewer sets the stage for eliciting accurate information
by knowing, accepting, and attempting to satisfy the emotional needs that
motivate all human activity. We have to be aware of the subliminal messages
we are sending as well the ones we are receiving. As stated earlier, commu-
nication is the way you get information, but communication is an extremely
complex process in which psychology plays a role. We will get information
only if we communicate effectively, form a rapport with the interviewee,
and understand the psychology behind why the interviewee will give us
information. Having knowledge of the psychology of interviewing will
make you a more effective interviewer.
The fundamentals of human personality are needs, emotions, thinking,
and the ability to relate thoughts and feelings. Our actions are a result and
composite of all these elements. Humans function mostly on feelings and
22
The Art of Investigative Interviewing
not logic. But most of all, it is the satisfaction of meeting essential and pre-
dictable needs that motivates every type of human behavior. Individuals try
to satisfy their needs by maintaining physical comfort, avoiding the unsafe,
attempting to gain understanding, detesting anonymity, desiring to be free
from boredom, fearing the unknown, and hating disorder. Underlying each
interview action is a desire to satisfy one of the basic human needs: food,
water, and shelter.
INTUITION
The heart has reasons of which reason has no knowledge.
—Pascal
Imagination, knowledge, and awareness combine to produce intuition.
Intuition has many other names: instinct, perception, gut feeling, hunch,
sixth sense, third ear, reading between the lines, quick insight. Intuition is
the power of knowing through the senses, without recourse to inference
or reasoning. As Edward Sapir (1884–1939), an American anthropologist
who laid the foundation for modern linguistics, wrote: “We respond to ges-
tures with an extreme alertness and, one might say, in accordance with an
elaborate code that is written nowhere, known by none, and understood by
all” (Sapir, 1949, pp. 533–543). Most people possess a remarkable sensitivity
to others, but their intuition remains dormant in the subconscious because it
is never brought into play. The seeds of intuition are probably within you to
be discovered, nurtured, and enhanced.
Although some people disregard intuition and consider its use unscholarly,
I believe it is a valuable asset in interviewing. Keen intuition is spontaneous, accurate, and helpful, although difficult to explain. In an interview, allow your intuitive judgment to help you select the investigative pathways you will pursue. Let your intuition direct the interview and guide your responses. When
you interact with interviewees, be alert to hints of facts and feelings revealed by a slip of the tongue, but conceal your interest. Subtle behavioral cues,
words, gestures, and body language can direct you if you listen to your intu-
ition. This is not to imply that you shouldn’t plan your approach. Rather, a
good balance is required. Acquiring a mental warehouse of information about
human behavior is a must. As Alexander Pope so aptly said, “The proper study
of mankind is man.” With that study comes greater success.
Try to achieve a careful balance of the scientific and the intuitive so that
you can avoid rigid procedures in your interviews. Listen to your intuition
Preparation and So Much More
23
during an interview, and allow it to guide you through sensitive issues. If you
don’t, you will be unprepared for the spontaneous developments that occur
in most interviews. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus proclaimed around
500 B.C., “If you expect not the unexpected, ye shall not find the truth.”
Since seeking truth is your primary objective, you must expect the
unexpected.
Trust yourself to understand what your intuition senses. Seemingly insig-
nificant nonverbal messages may help you develop the information you
need. Bodily tension, flushing, excitability, frustration, ambiguousness,
depression, and sadness can either confirm or contradict the interviewee’s
words. Actively listen by drawing on your knowledge and your experiences
stored in your subconscious. The subtleties of the interviewee’s behavior can
influence your judgment. Therefore, concentrate on using your intuition,
knowledge, and experience to capture every subtlety you sense.
At first, you may not understand the apparently arbitrary techniques used
by skilled interviewers. They frequently cannot explain the role of intuition
in their interviewing process. Still, proficient interviewers confidently nur-
ture their intuitive judgments and act on them. They sense the interviewee’s
tenseness and spontaneously select the words or actions that will encourage
truthful responses. If you want to follow their example, you will have to
learn how to trust your intuition. This will come through practice and expe-
rience. You will find that your total sensing of the situ
ation, along with your
common sense, is more trustworthy than your intellect.
In almost all worthwhile endeavors, the degree of your success is directly
related to the effort you make. This applies equally to using intuition. Ini-
tially, rely on your self-confidence to implement your intuitive judgments,
and be prepared to learn from your success or failure. Work through the var-
ious steps of interviewing, following the generally accepted concepts, but
also work on developing techniques that capitalize on your intuitive talents.
Use your intuition positively to read the interviewee’s psychological move-
ments, feelings, private logic or rationale, and any other signs that will help
you achieve your goal.
The Intuition of Interviewees
Interviewees, too, are intuitive, and it would be foolhardy to ignore their
ability to sense your judgments. In fact, through their exercise of their intu-
ition, perhaps to achieve less-than-positive ends, they may have become
quite skillful. Keenly alert to your signals, they respond positively or
24
The Art of Investigative Interviewing
negatively to what they sense about you and your presentation. They may
scrutinize your every move and gesture, the delivery of your questions, and
your reactions to their answers. Therefore, ask yourself these questions:
•
Have I fully researched everything possible prior to the interview?
•
Do I convey a positive, self-confident, calm composure?
•
Was my approach nondefensive?
•
Do I keep an open mind during the interview?
•
Do I demonstrate that I care about the interviewee, and am I respectful?
•
Do I understand that displaying an accepting attitude toward all inter-
viewees does not mean that I condone antisocial behavior and does
not compromise my personal values?
•
Do I understand that interviewees are secretly searching for a signal from
me that it is indeed okay to be open and reveal the information?
•
Do I consciously provide positive signals so that interviewees can count
on my acceptance and fairness?
•
Do I understand that I may subconsciously project my bias during
interviews, triggering hostile feelings, threatening rapport, and therefore
ending the interview?
FLEXIBILITY
Flexibility implies that you have the ability to change gears when and if
needed in the process of interviewing. This quality is extremely important
because no two interviews will ever be the same and there are no scripts for
interviews. During interviewing, you need to adapt to changes in question-
ing, strategies, tone, or behavior.
To obtain the cooperation of some interviewees, you might need to
temporarily modify your methods and thinking. You might have to do
or say things that you normally find objectionable. For example, if you
are neutral when interacting with the interviewee, I suggest figuratively
leaning in favor of the interviewee by giving the impression that if you were
in a similar circumstance, you might have done something similar to what
the interviewee did, even though you know that you would never engage in
that particular behavior. Treat everyone that you interview, even those you
suspect of involvement in the matter under investigation, with profession-
alism and neutrality. Your professional, calm, nonjudgmental methods signal
to victims, witnesses, and suspects that they can safely trust you.
Regardless of the style or styles of interviewing you have learned or may
use, keep an open mind and stay ready to adjust your style.
Preparation and So Much More
25
Without losing sight of your objective, try several methods of question-
ing with uncooperative interviewees. This is where the art of interviewing
enters the picture.
CURIOSITY
Curiosity or inquisitiveness is a trait that can be very helpful throughout the
investigative process and during the interview process. Certainly, as inves-
tigators we are driven by wanting the answers and the truth. We are also
suspicious by nature. However, questions full of genuine curiosity rather
than accusatory suspicion will further your investigation.
IMAGINATION
Imagination has a part to play in training interviewers as well as in preparing
for and conducting actual interviews. An excellent method for developing
practical interviewing skills is to pool your ideas with one or more other
imaginative interviewers. Group role playing can be used to test the ideas
you generate. This approach allows less imaginative and less assertive inter-
viewers to benefit from their more skilled peers. As general preparation for
interviewing, strive to broaden your knowledge and awareness of other peo-
ple in order to improve your ability to imagine the unimaginable.
Part of a successful interviewing venture is to try to consider why you
might have done the crime in question. Imagine the motivation of the per-
son you are interviewing while you conduct the interview. Don’t be sur-
prised by any basis for the event under investigation—people justify,
blame, and rationalize in ways that sometimes lack logic.
Imagination is a special quality not shared by all investigators. Those who
possess it naturally are fortunate, for it is questionable whether imagination
can be taught.
RESEARCH
We can never say enough about the importance of research in preparing for
an interview. Never before have we had such a powerful research tool as the
Internet. The Internet has changed the way we prepare and the extent of that
preparation. Before we conduct the interview, we can gather a wealth of
information to prepare for everything from the interview location to the
questions we ask. Thoroughly research the background of each interviewee.
26
The Art of Investigative Interviewing
It is critical to bring all important documents with you to the interview.
You want to be fully prepared for whatever possibilities arise.
As a corporate and private investigator, the one critical lesson I learned
one particular lesson I will talk about in other chapters because I think it is
worth discussing.
There are many reasons you might have only one shot at your interview,
but here are a few:
•
Immediately after the interview, the interviewee is remorseful as to what
they just told you
•
The interviewee suddenly wants to stop being cooperative.
•
The interviewee is still employed at the business you are investigating
and he has changed his mind as to how involved he wants to get.
•
The interviewee realizes that she just said something to implicate herself.
•
After the interview, someone talked to the interviewee and made him
see things differently than previously stated.
•
The interviewee has had a change of heart toward either the suspect or
the victim.
•
The interviewee has been asked not to cooperate with any investigation
or with one particular side of the investigation.
•
The interviewee doesn’t want to commit to any investigation.
Being prepared for all of these possibilities will determine the level of success of your interview.
STYLE
Someone said once that the hardest thing about conducting an interview is
the conducting of an interview. It takes practice, practice and more practice
before you can develop a style.
Using psychology, attitude, intuition, and the other qualities we’ve dis-
cussed, you will develop your own personal style.
In preparation, consider the following questions and pointers. In the
chapters ahead, these specific questions will be addressed:
•
What is your purpose in conducting this interview?
•
Determine whether this will be an interview or an interrogation.
•
What interview techniques will you utilize?
•
What qualities should you as the interviewer have to get the optimum
results?
•
Be confident in verbal and nonverbal indicators.
Preparation and So Much More
27
•
What indicators will you use for assessing verbal behavior and evaluating
nonverbal behavior?
•
Are there special circumstances that need to be addressed for this
interview?
•
What types of questions will you use for this interview?
•
In regard to the interview, know your local, state, and federal laws as well
as the companies involved, if this is a corporate internal investigation.
•
Where will your interview be conducted? If you are able to decide on a
setting, have you prepared accordingly?
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How does your attitude influence the outcome of an interview?
2. Identify and discuss the three main components of a positive attitude.
3. What is the first step in changing your attitude?
4. In what ways does flexibility help during an interview?