TY - JOUR
T1 - Eliciting intelligence with the scharff technique
T2 - Interviewing more and less cooperative and capable sources
AU - Granhag, Pär Anders
AU - Oleszkiewicz, Simon
AU - Strömwall, Leif A.
AU - Kleinman, Steven M.
PY - 2015/2/1
Y1 - 2015/2/1
N2 - The objective was to compare the efficacy of the Scharff technique (conceptualized as 5 tactics) with the direct approach (open and direct questions) as a means of eliciting intelligence from human sources. The interview techniques were used with 4 different types of sources varying in their levels of both cooperation and capability to provide information as follows: (a) less willing/less able, (b) less willing/more able, (c) more willing/less able, and (d) more willing/more able. The sources (N = 200) were given information about a notional planned terrorist attack and instructed to strike a balance between not revealing too much or too little information in a subsequent interview. Overall, the Scharff technique resulted in significantly more new information than the direct approach, particularly for the less cooperative sources. Furthermore, sources interviewed with the Scharff technique had a more difficult time reading the interviewer's information objectives and consistently underestimated how much new information they revealed. The study substantiates the Scharff technique as an effective humanintelligence gathering tool.
AB - The objective was to compare the efficacy of the Scharff technique (conceptualized as 5 tactics) with the direct approach (open and direct questions) as a means of eliciting intelligence from human sources. The interview techniques were used with 4 different types of sources varying in their levels of both cooperation and capability to provide information as follows: (a) less willing/less able, (b) less willing/more able, (c) more willing/less able, and (d) more willing/more able. The sources (N = 200) were given information about a notional planned terrorist attack and instructed to strike a balance between not revealing too much or too little information in a subsequent interview. Overall, the Scharff technique resulted in significantly more new information than the direct approach, particularly for the less cooperative sources. Furthermore, sources interviewed with the Scharff technique had a more difficult time reading the interviewer's information objectives and consistently underestimated how much new information they revealed. The study substantiates the Scharff technique as an effective humanintelligence gathering tool.
KW - Direct approach
KW - Human-intelligence gathering
KW - Information elicitation
KW - scharff technique
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U2 - 10.1037/law0000030
DO - 10.1037/law0000030
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84925678878
SN - 1076-8971
VL - 21
SP - 100
EP - 110
JO - Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
JF - Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
IS - 1
ER -