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The use and efficacy of question type and an attentive interviewing style in adult rape interviews

Webster, William S., Oxburgh, Gavin E. and Dando, Coral J. (2020) The use and efficacy of question type and an attentive interviewing style in adult rape interviews. Psychology, Crime & Law, 27 (7). pp. 656-677. ISSN 1068-316X

Item Type: Article

Abstract

Police interviewers find the investigation of sexual crimes ‘technically difficult’ and ‘stressful’ to conduct by having to make sense of very powerful and painful emotions. In addition, such interviews often contain inappropriate as opposed to appropriate questions and interviewers often find it difficult to be ‘attentive’ to the specific needs of victims. Through the analysis of interviews with adult rape victims (N = 25) in England, we wanted to establish whether the ‘quantity’ and ‘quality’ of investigation relevant information (IRI) obtained would be impacted as a function of different question typologies (e.g. appropriate versus inappropriate), and overall interviewer attentiveness. We hypothesised that: (i) more inappropriate questions would be asked compared to appropriate questions; (ii) responses to appropriate questions would contain more items of IRI than responses to inappropriate questions; (iii) attentive interviews would contain more appropriate questions than non-attentive interviews, and; (iv) attentive interviews would contain more IRI than non-attentive interviews. Results found that interviewers asked significantly more appropriate questions that elicited significantly more items of IRI. However, there were no significant differences in the number of appropriate questions asked or the impact on the amount of IRI obtained between interviews as a function of interviewer attentiveness. Implications for practice are discussed.

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More Information

Uncontrolled Keywords: nterviewing strategies; rape; empathy; interviewer style; violence against women
Depositing User: William Webster

Identifiers

Item ID: 14921
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316X.2020.1849694
ISSN: 1068-316X
URI: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/14921
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1068316X.2020.1849694

Users with ORCIDS

ORCID for William S. Webster: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-8840-5288

Catalogue record

Date Deposited: 15 Jul 2022 17:02
Last Modified: 15 Jul 2022 17:02

Contributors

Author: William S. Webster ORCID iD
Author: Gavin E. Oxburgh
Author: Coral J. Dando

University Divisions

Faculty of Health Sciences and Wellbeing > School of Psychology

Subjects

Social Sciences > Criminology
Psychology

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