Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale

The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale was created in 1983 by Icelandic psychologist Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson. Given his large number of publications on suggestibility, Gísli was often called as an expert witness in court cases where the suggestibility of those involved in the case was crucial to the proceedings. To measure suggestibility, Gísli created a scale that was relatively straightforward and could be administered in a wide variety of settings. He noticed that while there was a significant body of research on the effects of leading questions on suggestibility, less was known about the effects of "specific instruction" and "interpersonal pressure". Italian, Dutch, and Polish. Method The GSS involves reading a short story to the subject, followed by a general recall activity, a test, and a retest. It begins with a short story being read to the subject. The subject is instructed to listen carefully to the story being read to them because they will have to report what they remember afterward. After the researcher reads the story aloud to the participant, the subject is asked to engage in free recall in which they report everything remembered of what was just read. Subjects may be asked to report these facts after a delay in addition to immediately following the story. This part of the assessment is scored based on how many facts the subject recalls correctly. This version is referred to as the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale 2, or GSS2. Scoring Scoring can be broken down into two main categories: memory recall and suggestibility. Memory recall refers to the number of facts the subject correctly remembered during the free recall. Each fact is worth one point, and the subject can earn a maximum of forty points for this section. Other scores were significant. nor interrogative suggestibility and anxiety. Immediate recall and delayed recall correlated negatively with all suggestibility scores. ==Uses in the justice system==

Use in criminal proceedings The GSS is used most often in criminal justice systems. The human memory has been known to be unreliable, as is eyewitness testimony. But Western countries rely strongly on such testimony, and wrongful convictions based on incorrect eyewitness testimony have been publicized, raising this as an issue to the wider public. There is evidence that GSS scores vary between inmates and the general population. In the general population, high scores on the GSS are associated with an increased likelihood of false confession. Pires (2014) studied 40 Portuguese prisoners and found that inmates had higher suggestibility scores than the general population. for example, the Massachusetts Appeals Court stated that the case was "devoid of evidence demonstrating either the scientific validity or reliability of the GSS as a measure of susceptibility to suggestion or appropriate applications of the test results." Despite these decisions, the GSS has been permitted to be used in several court cases. For example, in Oregon v. Romero (2003), the Oregon Court of Appeals held that the testimony of a defense expert about the results of a Gudjonsson suggestibility test—offered in support of the defendant's claim that her confession to police was involuntary—met "the threshold for admissibility" because "It would have been probative, relevant, and helpful to the trier of fact." Experts have linked GSS suggestibility to the voluntary aspect of Miranda waivers during legal proceedings. Despite this, there are very few appellate cases in which the GSS has been presented to a court with any reference to whether a waiver of Miranda rights by a suspect was voluntary. Rogers (2010) specifically examined the GSS in terms of its ability to predict people's ability to understand and agree to Mirand rights. This study found that suggestibility, as assessed by the GSS, appeared to be unrelated to "Miranda comprehension, reasoning, and detainees' perceptions of police coercion". Their answers to the leading questions, however, were no more affected by suggestibility than their adult cohorts. A study comparing delinquent adolescents to normal adults found the same results Researchers suggest that police interviewers not place adolescent suspects and witnesses under excessive pressure by criticizing their answers. ==Critiques==

Use with people with intellectual disabilities Use of the GSS with people who have an intellectual disability has been met with criticism. The study was conducted using 80 undergraduate students, each of whom were assigned to one of four conditions from a combination of instruction type (genuine or instructed faking) and concurrent task (yes or no). To test this, Mastroberardino (2013) conducted two experiments. In the first, participants were administered the GSS2 and then immediately performed a "source identification task" for the items on the scale. In the second experiment, half of the participants were administered this identification task immediately while the other have were administered it after 24 hours. The results of this study showed that those who had recovered memories had a lower average suggestibility scores than those who did not have a history of sexual abuse – 6.7 versus 10.6. These results suggest that suggestibility does not play as large a role in the formation of memories than previously assumed. ==References==