Making credibility determinations is a complex and challenging task. It involves weighing several factors that can be subjective and based on opinions rather than facts.
Fortunately, research-based credibility assessment techniques help investigators make more objective and accurate judgments. These include examining the content of statements Noblesville, IN, for verbal cues such as minimizing and intensifying adverbs, editing adverbs, changes in verb tense, unique sensory details, and equivocation.
Listening Skills
Research has shown that listening skills can be improved through various techniques. Understanding which listening styles you tend to employ in different situations can help you improve your ability to assess credibility. Examples of listening approaches include:
- Focusing on social cues.
- Evaluating information and making critical judgments.
- Empathizing with speakers.
- Remembering important details.
- Using questioning techniques to clarify what you’ve heard.
Listening can be difficult due to lack of concentration, visual or auditory distractions, physical discomfort, stress, bias, and personal interest in the topic. It’s also possible to miss information or jump to conclusions because you assume what the speaker means based on certain phrases and contexts of her statement.
To avoid these common mistakes, listen without interrupting or making judgments. Keeping a “listening log” is useful for evaluating your performance and identifying improvement ways. Asking open-ended questions, describing comparable experiences, and paraphrasing are effective ways to demonstrate your listening competence.
Facial Expressions of Emotion
As Darwin suggested, facial expressions are a form of nonverbal signaling that convey vital information about a person’s emotional state. He viewed these movements as innate, biologically based reactions with specific survival values. For example, when a baby smiles, it stimulates nurturing responses in parents.
However, these signals are not always dependable and can be affected by many factors, including cultural rules (e.g., Americans are more likely to show anger than Japanese people), physical conditions (e.g., parkinsonism produces a masklike countenance), and internal influences such as fear or anxiety.
Further, studies of the credibility impact of facial appearance have generally been conducted in controlled environments where faces are illuminated uniformly, and participants experience very limited head or body movement. In reality, the face is disproportionately represented in both the somatosensory and motor cortex of the brain and daily life facial expressions are typically accompanied by head and body movement.
Word Usage
Word usage is important for credibility in emails, social media posts, or written articles. Although many people claim that grammar and word usage don’t matter, obvious errors in diction are hard to ignore. This can affect your audience’s perception of you and trust in your information.
Words have denotative meanings that can be derived from dictionary definitions and connotations that carry emotional implications. For example, the words “house” and “home” both have the same denotative definition (a shelter in which one or more people live), but they have different connotations.
For instance, you can use the word “house” to convey a sense of stability and comfort, but you would probably use the word “home” to convey a more welcoming or intimate feeling. Knowing your purpose and audience can help you select appropriate diction.
Physical Evidence
Physical evidence is any tangible object that helps to link a suspect or crime scene to a victim. It may include fingerprints, a bloody knife or shirt, spent bullet casings, or even a lipstick impression on a napkin.
Similarly, an impression on the back of a business card can be matched to a shoe print at the crime scene. This type of class evidence may also be useful for establishing the time of an incident and linking a witness to a crime scene.
The techniques discussed here help identify credibility issues, but no single behavior indicates deception. For example, a lack of eye contact and attempts to change the subject should be evaluated carefully to ensure that investigators aren’t jumping to conclusions. It’s always best to look at supporting behaviors when deciding on credibility. Then, the investigators can use the best information available in making their decisions.