An Investigator's Guide to the Science & Psychology of Investigative Interviewing, Pt. 6 - Telephonic Interviews

           When conducting investigative interviews, are you at a disadvantage when you are doing the interview over the telephone as opposed to doing the interview in person? Is it harder to develop rapport with the interviewee when you can’t sit across from each other? Also, how much do you miss out by not seeing the interviewee’s expressions and non-verbal behaviors? Surprisingly, telephonic interviews are not nearly as disadvantageous as you might think?

While most interviewers would prefer to do in-person interviews, there are times when either budget and circumstances do not allow for such a thing to happen. As such, interviewers have to adapt. Building rapport and creating a connection between the interviewer and interviewee have to be done without the normal physical and visual cues to which we so frequently rely upon. Yet in spite of your trepidation, the inability to see how an interviewee reacts may reduce bias in the interview process. Science has shown that interviewers, even those who have taken advanced training, are not very reliable at detecting deception through non-verbal behaviors with the average rate of lie detection hovering around 54%.[1] Without you looking to decipher these visual cues, you may actually be able to focus more clearly on what is actually being said.

When interviewing another person, you rely on not only what is being said, but also how the message is being conveyed by the interviewee.  Things such as facial expressions, hand gestures, body movements, and body positioning help to clarify meaning and intent. When engaging in a telephonic interview, you lose the visual cues that are a major part of understanding your interviewee. This could lead to a clear misinterpretation of the message as evidenced by a hilarious comedic skit created by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele for Comedy Central (Warning: Adult Language included in embedded clip) (https://www.cc.com/video-clips/1nwt2i/key-and-peele-text-message-confusion---uncensored). 

Emotions and expressions are an important component of generating rapport between the interviewer and the interviewee, especially as we tend to mimic the emotions and movements of those we like. Telephonic interviewing, as opposed to texting, provides you with a few more tools to build rapport and connection in the form of voice inflection, tone, and well-timed pauses. One of the best ways to develop the bond and connection with your interviewee is to apply the concepts of active listening in your telephonic interview.

Active listening is designed to not only gather information from the interviewee, but also to encourage conversation while building rapport between the interviewer and interviewee. “Effective listeners generally project more positive impressions than ineffective listeners and are perceived to be more trustworthy, friendly, understanding, and socially attractive.”[2] All of these are important ingredients to rapport-building. Active listening consists of eight different components, which are as follows:

·     Minimal Encouragers

·     Open-ended questions

·     Reflecting/mirroring

·     Emotional labeling

·     Paraphrasing

·     “I” messages

·     Effective pauses

·     Summary

In an in-person interview, minimal encouragers would include nodding your head and some other physical gestures to show approval to the interviewee. Since you have no visual cues in a telephonic interview, you must assert your approvals through verbal responses such as “uh-huh”, “I see”, and “yes” while indicating you would like the interviewee to continue speaking. 

By asking open-ended questions such as “what happened” and “tell me more about that”, you allow the interviewee to tell his/her story on their own terms, which can be very valuable if you utilize statement analysis to determine what the interviewee has really said. Even though you cannot mimic the body language exhibited by the interviewee in the telephonic interview, you can still reflect the tone, pace, content, and cadence of the interviewee’s verbal responses, which will assist in creating rapport. In addition, the use of effective pauses can elicit more information from the interviewee. “Most of us are uncomfortable with pauses and what we may consider awkward silences. But in those pauses we can reflect on the meaning of what a person has just said.”[3] Pauses also allow an interviewee time to collect himself/herself, which may be necessary if he/she is talking about an emotional event. Offering words of encouragement can generate empathy, which can lead to trust and rapport.

Emotions play a part in most interviews and using emotional labeling and “I” messages such as, “It appears to me that you were hurt by what happened” are effective in helping the interviewee work through his/her emotions in a non-adversarial and non-accusatorial manner.   If the interviewee is swallowed by the emotional impact of the event, then it hinders his/her ability to explain what happened. “Once we get past emotion, we have a better chance of developing facts.”[4] As the interviewee navigates through his/her emotions, an interviewer can paraphrase and periodically summarize what the interviewee has said. Doing so indicates the interviewer is listening to what the interviewee has to say while also giving the interviewee the chance to clarify any point that has been understood incompletely.  

If the interviewee perceives that you are hearing and responding to what he/she has been saying, the psychological dynamic changes. “The premise of interpersonal psychology is that in any conversation, the participants are asking for status – to feel respected and listened to – and communion – to feel liked and understood.”[5] In a study of 115 participants, those who entered into conversation with people using active listening skills reported that they felt much more understood and were more satisfied with their interview.[6] In a telephonic interview, an interviewee will eventually develop some level of rapport with an interviewer who he/she perceives to be authentic in his/her interest.

           One of the issues in applying active listening techniques is that many interviewers are not really listening, but instead, waiting for their turn to speak. In a telephonic interview, listening is essential in determining what and how things happened. How many times have you seen or heard an interviewer interrupt an interviewee as he/she was responding to a question or delivering a narrative? Active listening is designed to get and keep the interviewee talking. While you will certainly be justified to cut off an interviewee at times, listening should remain paramount. Continuous interruptions and rapid-fire questions can damage the interviewee’s perception that you are truly empathizing with them, and instead, allow the interviewee to perceive that you are trying to trap them or pursue a personal agenda. “Research in other fields has shown that empathy plays an important role in developing rapport, rapport plays an important role in developing trust, and trust plays an important role in creating a cooperative atmosphere in which mutually beneficial outcomes can be crafted.”[7] Active listening is a gateway to greater dialogue. 

There are times when an interviewee is not interested in participating in an interviewer’s attempt at developing rapport.  Sometimes, the interviewee simply wants to know why you are asking questions. Instead of viewing this as an obstacle, an interviewer can use this to his/her advantage. Follow-up questions such as, “You seem concerned about why I am here. Can you share with me what your concerns are,” can potentially deescalate the conflict and begin to change adversarial perceptions. Occasionally, an interviewer who does what an interviewee least expects results in building greater rapport. In a study done by Laurence and Emily Alison, repeatedly emphasizing that the interviewee does not have to talk made the interviewee much more likely to speak. “The more pressure you put on a person, the less likely they are to speak to you. You need to make them feel responsible for their choices.”[8] In this manner, you are sharing control of the interview process, which leads the interviewee to perceive the interview as non-adversarial.  When an interviewee senses he/she has some level of control in the interview process, he/she will be likely to share more information.[9]

Rapport and trust can also be gained through a technique referred to as the rule of reciprocation, the idea that once you are given something by someone, you will compensate this person in return by giving something of equal value.[10] It is important to note that compensation does not have to be monetary. Rather, alerting the interviewee to accommodations you made to fit an interview into the interviewee’s work schedule as opposed to your own can invoke the rule of reciprocation. Sharing stories can also be used to invoke the rule of reciprocation, especially in telephonic interviews. At certain points in the telephonic interview, either in the rapport, information gathering, or closing process, a well-timed personal story about the emotions at hand can lead the interviewee to respond in kind. For example, if the interview gets to a point where the interviewee needs to admit something embarrassing or damaging, you could offer an embarrassing personal story of your own to relieve the tension and invoke the rule of reciprocation. If you add a caveat such as, “I normally don’t tell people this story, but I think you can relate,” there is a greater chance that the interviewee will respond in kind because he/she will think that you are letting him/her in on something that others do not get.

Similar to the rule of reciprocation is something referred to as moral equilibrium, a psychological phenomenon best described as a mental accounting ledger that you maintain in regards to your personal behavior. On any given day when you do something you perceive to be good or bad, your moral equilibrium is tilted out of balance. Depending on what you did, your mind will then unconsciously seek to compensate for your previous bad behavior or give license from your good behavior to do something bad in order to return to the balanced state.[11] If you can devise a question, statement, or story to use during the interview where you can invoke a memory of an interviewee’s past transgression, he/she will have an unconscious urge to restore moral equilibrium. What you hope for is that compensation will come in the form of truthful answers to your questions.  

Scientific research has also established a method to improve an interviewee’s honesty, which can easily be applied in a telephonic interview. Ninety-six participants were incentivized to create a convincing insurance claim based on a hypothetical loss scenario, but also instructed to offer as many truths and lies as they desired. When participants were asked to recite an honesty statement prior to reporting their fictitious claim, the participants were significantly more truthful than when participants were asked to provide evidence or provided no other conditions when reporting their fictitious claim.[12] Prior to starting information gathering stage of your interview, asking the interviewee to either recite a pledge of honesty or make an oral commitment to being honest could lead to more truthful details from the interviewee. The key to all three of these techniques is that when the interviewee delivers an honesty oath, makes a statement, or is reminded of a past transgression, the interviewee has to be focused. If the interviewee’s response is reactive in nature, the methods will not be nearly as effective.

Eventually, you will move to the information gathering stage of the interview. When this happens, a technique referred to as statement analysis?, which is where you listen and derive information from the words chosen by the interviewee, will be instrumental in a telephonic interview. Inasmuch as statement analysis? requires a close review of the statements made by your interviewee, it would be prudent if you recorded the interview when legally possible. If you cannot record the interview, you can always ask the interviewee to write his/her own statement and provide such statement to you. In any instance, statement analysis? will require you to listen closely to the words being chosen by the interviewee, especially if you have no means to make a record of what is said during the interview process.

The words we choose reveal much about us as well as what occurred.  “In an open statement in which a person can say anything he wants to, most people will not tell a lie. They will tell you what they saw or what they did. What they will not tell you is something that is incriminating. In other words, they will not tell you everything they saw or everything they did. They will give you a lot of truthful statements and leave out the damning information.”[13] Look at this example from the Enron hearings in Washington D.C.:

Representative Edward Markey: Why is it that you had begun unloading your stock pretty heavily before that date, and yet led the employees to think they should keep buying stock? 

Jeffrey Skilling: Mr. Senator, I have been a major shareholder in Enron Corporation. I am currently a major shareholder in Enron Corporation. Enron Corporation has constituted virtually 90% of my net worth. From the entire time I worked for the company, I was a strong believer in Enron Corporation. You can take the videotape to mean what you want it to mean. I was a supporter of Enron Corporation.[14]

           Looking at what was said reveals much about Skilling. The question calls for a yes or no answer, but Skilling never responds in that manner. Rather, he begins to justify his actions, which as described, are probably somewhat truthful. Skilling also avoids providing any incriminating information in his response. While Skilling told us some things, he chose not to tell us everything. When you are conducting telephonic interviews, you are going to face similar circumstances. An interviewee will appear cooperative by providing all kinds of information, while still avoiding the true nature of the question. If an interviewee interprets the answer to mean one thing instead of carefully listening to what was actually said, important facts can be overlooked.

If you parse apart Skilling’s statement further, you see a sentence where Skilling discusses his net worth.  This is an example of truth mitigated. While Enron surely represented a sizeable chunk of Skilling’s net worth, it is doubtful that it represented 90% of Skilling’s net worth. How do we know this?  A truthful person would say the following:

“Enron Corporation has constituted 90% of my net worth.”

Instead, Skilling replied, “Enron Corporation has constituted virtually 90% of my net worth.” Skilling was hedging against the truth. Words such as “virtually” are referred to as equivocations and are a linguistic attempt to modify commitment. According to Don Rabon and Tanya Chapman in their book, Investigative Discourse Analysis, these are some of the other phrases you might hear if an interviewee is trying to equivocate:

                                   from what I recall                  I think             I believe

                                   may have                               kind of            I guess

                                   to the best of my knowledge                         like

                                   from what I can recall            sort of            about

                                   maybe                                    may have       somewhat

                                   perhaps                                  somewhere    something

                                   possibly                                  around            a little[15]

Based on what Skilling said, it is likely that Enron Corporation represented less than 90% of his net worth based on his “virtually” equivocation. This is where mistakes can be made if you are not listening carefully during your telephonic interview.

           Take a look at this example:

           My wife and I were going on vacation to the Caribbean. We had bought a boat right after we retired. Everything was going great and we were enjoying our new freedom. It was a cloudy day when a rogue wave hit the boat. I see Maria fall overboard and smash her head against the anchor. She falls deep into the water. I jump in, but it is too late. I sailed the rest of the way to our home port because Maria was dead anyway. We were going to have a great life.

           What were the things that stood out to you? Notice the word “we” is used consistently until it came to the accident, where the narrator adjusts the narrative to reflect what he did. “Many times deceptive people will change the pronouns in their statement without realizing it.”[16] By changing the pronouns from “we” to “I” and from “my wife” to “Maria”, the husband is creating psychological distance from the action, which could be indicative of deception. 

As you read the passage, did you notice that the verb tense changed as the story was told. When things are well, the narrator uses the past tense, but in the moment of crisis, the narrator changes to the present tense. “If someone is questioned about his past but he gives an answer in the present, he is being deceptive.”[17] Lastly, the narrator attempted to justify his actions when using the word, “because.” When you hear and see words such as “because” or “since”, it can indicate that the interviewee feels extra pressure to explain why he/she took the action in question whereas honest people normally state what they did without justification.

Another thing to listen for in telephonic interviews is euphemisms, which is how our brains automatically soften things that make us feel or look bad. Instead of telling lies, we provide “alternative facts.” Instead of firing someone, we insist that we were “right-sizing”, ”down-sizing”, or effecting a “human surplus reduction.” In a telephonic interview, listening specifically for euphemisms and similar masked statements are essential because the use of euphemisms can indicate that an interviewee is at least slightly uncomfortable discussing the topic. While euphemisms do not necessarily equate to deception, there is a reason, conscious or unconscious, why the interviewee has chosen to apply them in this conversation and is something that an astute interviewer should explore further.

How an interviewer frames questions is almost as important as listening to the interviewee’s answers. An improperly phrased question can allow an interviewee to appear to be evasive. Some interviewers inadvertently use compound questions, which can be very beneficial to the interviewee who wishes to deceive. “The interviewer will ask two questions, but the subject will only answer one of them. The interviewer focuses on the answer given and may move on without realizing the person didn’t answer the second part of the question.”[18]  An interviewer should address each question separately and allow the interviewee to provide distinctive answers to each question.

In addition, a poorly phrased question can lead an interviewee to provide a vague, but honest answer instead of revealing the complete truth about an event. Look at the following question and answer from an interview of Patsy Ramsey, mother of JonBenet Ramsey. To provide context, it appears that the interviewer is trying to tie various references in the ransom note to Patsy watching certain television shows: 

Interviewer: All righty. Um, tell me about some of the TV shows you guys watch. You specifically. Uh, say in recent history, last, the last year. What kind of TV shows do you guys watch?

Patsy Ramsey: I don’t watch TV much.[19]

The idea behind the question may be sound, but questions that are poorly worded can impact statement analysis. Even though this question is poorly worded, you can still learn things from it such as how she responds with a singular pronoun even though the question that was asked was posed from the perspective of her and her husband.[20] Still, a better worded question(s) such as “What movies or television shows have you watched in the last year? What movies of television shows has your husband watched in the past year,” are likely to provide better information for the interviewer.

           As you can imagine, keeping track in real time of what is being said by an interviewee is difficult. This is why maintaining an audio record of the telephonic interview could be very useful. In many organizations, interviewers are tasked with doing multiple interviews, often on the same day and in quick succession. The ability to focus is essential for telephonic interviewing, yet focus is a limited and scarce resource in your brain. The more you focus on something, the more exhausted you become. This mental exhaustion can inadvertently lead you to misinterpret, substitute, or incorrectly summarize what the interviewee has stated. Sleep, proper rest, and occasional breaks are essential to doing good interviews. Many times, interviewers are required to travel to other locations to do multiple interviews at the same workplace in order to complete a case or because of budgetary constraints.  If so, be aware of the time you are spending with each interviewee. At certain points in the interview process, especially in longer interview, it may become beneficial for both you and the interviewee to take a short break. “When faced with long tasks, it is best to impose brief breaks on yourself. Brief mental breaks will actually help you stay focused on your task.”[21] 

           Doing in-person interviews is preferred by most interviewers, but just because you have to do a telephonic interview doesn’t mean that you cannot employ certain techniques to make the telephonic interview equally as effective as the in-person interview. Techniques such as active listening, honesty declarations, moral equilibrium, and statement analysis? give you tools that will help you obtain a more accurate statement from your interviewee. What matters, especially in telephonic interviews, is developing a bond between you and your interviewee without the benefit of visual cues. If the interviewee perceives a connection to you, then the information will follow….whether you are there in person or not.

 See why so many people are calling Michael "Bret" Hood’s unique approach to leadership, financial crimes, interviewing, and ethics training as the "some of the best training I have ever taken!" With limited or no power point, you are the focus of the learning. Bret has a unique, interactive, and fun way to take difficult concepts and tie them into your experiences so you can move past theory and directly into application. If you want training designed to make you and your colleagues think, contact Bret at [email protected] and see why Bret was the top-rated instructor at the ACFE's Global Fraud Conference as well as the FBI Academy.

Bret is a founding partner in 21st Century Learning & Consulting, LLC, a group that offers leadership, ethics, interviewing, diversity, & financial crimes training, investigative consulting and expert witness services. Bret is also the author of the critically acclaimed leadership books, Eat More Ice Cream! A Succinct Leadership Lesson for Each Week of the Year, and Get Off Your Horse: Fifty-Two Succinct Leadership Lessons from U.S. Presidents, available at www.amazon.com

[1] Vrij, A.; Granhag, P.A.; Mann, S.; & Leal, S. (2010). Outsmarting the Liars: Toward a Cognitive Lie Detection Approach, Association for Psychological Science, 2010. Accessed September 24, 2018 at https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/files/112382/Current_Directions_Vrij,_Granha,_Mann,_&_Leal.pdf

[2] Weger, Jr., H., Bell, G.C., Minei, E. M., Robinson, M.C. (2014). The Relative Effectiveness of Active Listening in Initial Interactions, International Journal of Listening, Vol. 28(1), 2014. Accessed April 19, 2019 at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10904018.2013.813234

[3] Osten, C. (2016). Are You Really Listening or Just Waiting to Talk?, Psychology Today, October 5, 2016. Accessed July 6, 2019 at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-right-balance/201610/are-you-really-listening-or-just-waiting-talk

[4] Hardiman, T. (2017). Eight Ways Police Can Improve Their Active Listening Skills, IN Public Safety, August 17, 2017. Accessed July 6, 2019 at https://inpublicsafety.com/2017/08/eight-ways-police-can-improve-active-listening-skills/

[5] Leslie, I. (2017). The Scientists Persuading Terrorists To Spill Their Secrets, The Guardian, October 13, 2017. Accessed July 7, 2019 at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/13/the-scientists-persuading-terrorists-to-spill-their-secrets?CMP=share_btn_tw

[6] Weger Jr.; Castle Bell, G.; Minei, E.; & Robinson, M. (2014). The Relative Effectiveness of Active Listening in Initial Interactions, International Journal of Listening, Vol. 28(1), January 2014. Accessed July 6, 2019 at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10904018.2013.813234

[7] Boyle, A. (2018). Some Questions About Empathy and Rapport, The Australian Dispute Resolution Research Network, April 24, 2018. Accessed on April 19, 2019 at https://adrresearch.net/2018/04/24/some-questions-about-empathy-and-rapport/

[8] Leslie, I. (2017). The Scientists Persuading Terrorists To Spill Their Secrets, The Guardian, October 13, 2017. Accessed July 7, 2019 at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/13/the-scientists-persuading-terrorists-to-spill-their-secrets?CMP=share_btn_tw

[9] Ibid.

[10] Cialdini, R. (2016). Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, p.152.

[11] Bialobzeskyte, A. (2012). Moral Licensing: How Being Good Can Make You Bad, Pick The Brain, August 18, 2012. Accessed July 6, 2019 at https://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/moral-licensing-how-being-good-can-make-you-bad/

[12] Leal, S.; Vrij, A.; Nahari, G.; & Mann, S. (2016). Please Be Honest and Provide Evidence: Deterrents of Deception in an Online Insurance Fraud Context, Applied Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 30, July 19, 2016. Accessed July 6, 2019 at https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/files/6950501/Leal_et_al_2016_Applied_Cognitive_Psychology.pdf

[13] McLish, M. (2001). I Know You Are Lying: Detecting Deception Through Statement Analysis, The Marpa Group, Winterville, NC, p. 19.

[14] C-SPAN. C-Span video library : a digital archive of C-SPAN video, created by cable, offered as a public service. [s. n.] :National Cable Satellite Corporation.

[15] Rabon, D. & Chapman, T. (2012). Investigative Discourse Analysis: Statements, Letters, and Transcripts, Durham, NC Carolina Academic Press.

[16] McLish, M. (2001). I Know You Are Lying, p. 47.

[17] Ibid. p. 111

[18] McLish, Mark (2001) – I Know You Are Lying, The Marpa Group, Winterville, NC.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Vozza, S. (2015). 8 Ways To Improve Your Focus, Fast Company, August 26, 2015. Accessed July 9, 2019 at https://www.fastcompany.com/3050123/8-ways-to-improve-your-focus