Last December a Senate Intelligence Committee report revealed how two psychologists were involved in shaping the CIA's “enhanced interrogation” methods, using psychologist Martin Seligman's theory of learned helplessness to justify controversial practices such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation—something Seligman himself has repudiated.* The problem is that in addition to being morally reprehensible, interrogation methods based on force and intimidation don't work.
“Coercive, confrontational methods actually lead to the detainee shutting down,” says psychologist Christian Meissner of Iowa State University, who studies interrogation techniques. “More effective tactics rely on cooperation, which can be facilitated using principles of social influence that we know work very well.”
[For more of this story, written by Roni Jacobson, go to http://www.scientificamerican....onfession-ethically/]
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