Rapport: Little effect on children’s, adolescents’, and adults’ statement quantity, accuracy, and suggestibility

Abstract

Rapport building is widely recommended in eyewitness interview situations and is a critical component in some interview protocols. However, empirical evidence on the effectiveness of rapport building on memory performance is scant. The current experiment examined the effects of different levels of rapport (none, minimal, extensive) on children's, adolescents', and adults' memory (N ¼ 229). Participants viewed a video of a mock theft and received one of three possible rapport manipulations. They then provided a free narrative of what they had seen, followed by 18 cued (suggestive and nonsuggestive) questions. In general, we found limited evidence of positive effects of rapport building on statement quantity and accuracy across age groups. Adolescents did profit more from extensive rapport building compared to no rapport. In line with the idea of a linear development of memory measures with age, adolescents generally fell in-between the other two age groups across different memory measures. The current study encourages systematic experimental research on the effect of rapport building on eyewitness memory.

Facing away from the interviewer: Evidence of little benefit to eyewitnesses' memory performance

“…indeed, when we directly manipulated rapport in Experiment 3, the effect on their rapport ratings, although statistically significant, was small. This account might also explain why we found no main effect of rapport-building on memory performance in Experiment 3, although we note that such rapport effects seem less consistent in the literature than previously believed (e.g., Sauerland, Brackmann, & Otgaar, 2018). This inconsistency in results seems partly due to the lack of a reliable definition and operationalising of rapport in research and practice, suggesting the need for further research and replications (see Vallano & Schreiber Compo, 2015).…”

Protecting Against Misinformation: Examining the Effect of Empirically Based Investigative Interviewing on Misinformation Reporting

“…Next, the NICHD Protocol has incorporated a rapport building phase in which children are asked about an activity they enjoy. The idea behind this is that establishing rapport will make children more open to talk about traumatic experiences (e.g., Brubacher et al 2019;Price et al 2016; but see also Sauerland et al 2018). Furthermore, following the rapport building phase, children receive a brief training in episodic memory in which they practice retrieving an autobiographical memory.…”

Finding the right fit: Mock victims' preferences for police interviewer characteristics

“…Evidence‐based interviewing protocols such as the cognitive interview (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development protocol (Lamb et al., 2007), and the PEACE model of investigative interviewing (Milne & Bull, 1999; Snook et al., 2014) all emphasise the need to build rapport and include a series of tactics designed specifically to build this relationship with the interviewee (e.g., meet their needs, show respect and understanding, discuss mutual interests unrelated to the case; see Vallano et al., 2015). The assumption underlying these approaches is that purposely creating a comfortable and meaningful personal relationship with the interviewee will lead them to disclose more information regarding the event—an assumption that has generally been supported by empirical research on rapport building (e.g., Collins et al., 2002; Vallano & Schreiber Compo, 2011; but see Sauerland et al., 2019).…”