describing your personality type and how it will affect you as an interviewer

I. Psychological and Personality Dynamics – General Overview.

A. What is personality?

Personality is the sum of what we are emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and to a certain extent, even physically. It is the very essence of who we are. It determines the way we relate to people and how they relate to us. It is derived from our genetic inheritance/pre-disposition and the sum of our experience to date. Personality is unique to each one of us and though there may be overarching personality types; none of us fits completely into any category. Personality can potentially change within limits, but not often or radically. It is also enables us to know one another and to distinguish one person from the other.

B. Personality types – The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality inventory developed beginning around World War II by Katherine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs-Meyers and is based on the work of the pioneering psychologist, Carl Jung. www.wikipedia.org.

By classifying people according to their type on four scales of opposites, the indicator places people into one of 16 personality types. The terms for these types such as extraversion, sensing, feeling, etc, have specific technical meanings related to the MBTI that differ from their popular everyday usage. In each of the four pairs of opposites described below, every person has a preference for one end of each pair or the other. The four scales of opposites are:

1. Attitudes – Extraversion (Meyers-Briggs spelling of the word) vs. Introversion. This is the overall psychological attitude the person takes toward the external and internal worlds.

a. Extraversion – Operates in the external world of behavior, actions, etc. Extraverts prefer to focus on the world outside of them. They draw energy from action – they tend to act, then reflect on those actions, then act again. Inactivity tends to lower their energy level and motivation – being around people and activity energizes them.

b. Introversion – Operates in the internal world of ideas and reflections. Introverts prefer to focus on the internal world inside of themselves. Action, activity, and people tend to drain them – they prefer to reflect, then act, then reflect again. They need time alone to reflect to re-energize themselves.

2. Perceiving Functions – Sensing vs. Intuition. These are information gathering (perceiving) functions and describe how new information is understood, processed, and interpreted.

a. Sensing – These people have a preference for information that is present, tangible, and concrete – information that can be understood and perceived by the five senses. They distrust hunches and prefer details and facts. The meaning is in the data – God is in the details.

b. Intuition – These people have a preference for information that is more abstract or theoretical and that is associated with other information as part of a wider overall pattern. They tend to be more interested in future possibilities rather than present realities. They trust to flashes of insight or “intuition.” The meaning is not in the data itself, but in how it relates to the overall pattern or theory.

3. Judging Functions – Thinking vs. Feeling. These are decision-making functions. They are used to make decisions based on the information received from the perceiving functions (sensing and intuition).

a. Thinking – These people have a tendency to decide things from a more detached standpoint. They make the decision along the lines of what seems reasonable, logical, and consistent. Preferably the decision is made according to an accepted and understood set of rules.

b. Feeling – These people tend to make their decision by associating or empathizing with the situation. They want to look at the situation from the inside and they want the solution they choose to be the one that brings the greatest harmony, balance, and fit to the situation.

4. Lifestyle Preference – Judgment vs. Perception. People have a preference for using either the judgment functions (thinking vs. feeling) or the perception functions (sensing vs. intuition).

a. Judgment – Those people with a preference for judging tend to appear to the world as logical and they have a definite preference for wanting to have issues settled. They want to deal in the concrete and conclusions.

b. Perception – People with a preference for perception will usually appear to be empathetic and understanding. They will have a preference for the abstract and for keeping options and decisions open rather than settled.

II. Interviewer Psychological and Personality Dynamics. - Why should I be concerned with my own psychological and personality dynamics as an interviewer. Good question. There are several reasons for you to be concerned with this:

A. We all see and perceive the world through our own values and filters. We have all seen this at scenes when we get three different stories from three honest witnesses who all saw the same thing, but filtered it through their own perceptions and experiences and thus came to different conclusions about what actually happened. If we don’t know our own dynamics, perceptions, and biases, how do we ensure that we have not misunderstood or wrongly perceived something.

B. Just as we try to evaluate, assess, and use our subject’s strengths and weaknesses against him, so our subject (especially an experienced criminal) will attempt to “read” us and use our strengths and weaknesses against us. If we know ourselves, then we can guard effectively against this.

C. As a supervisor, I always tried to make sure that round pegs went in round holes. What I mean by this is that I always tried to play to the strengths of my personnel and away from their weaknesses. For example, if I had a detective who was really good on the forensic end and not so good on suspect interrogations, I would use him at the crime scene and use someone who was good at interrogations to interview the suspect. The same principle works for you as an interviewer – play to YOUR strengths and away from your weaknesses. Yes, you should try to improve your weaknesses, but many people waste a lot of time trying to improve their weaknesses instead of playing to and using their strengths. If you don’t know what your strengths and weaknesses are, you can’t play to them or avoid them. As the philosopher said “Know thyself.”

III. Interview Subject’s Psychological and Personality Dynamics.

A. The core of the criminal personality - In one form or another, there are three basic interpersonal needs that seem to lie at the core of the criminal personality: Yeschke, p. 69.

1. Control – the need for security and the drive to dominate and control the person’s environment.

2. Belonging – the need for inclusion and affiliation. This also includes the desire for recognition, social approval, fair treatment, a chance for advancement, prestige, and a sense of accomplishment.

3. Intimacy – the need for love, affection, understanding, and approval. It is the desire for meaningful relationships with others.

We could legitimately argue that all of us have all of these needs whether we are criminal or not. What sets the criminal personality apart is the pathological way in which it seeks to fill these needs and its willingness to go “outside the lines” to fulfill them.

B. Personality dynamics to be considered. There are a number of personality dynamics related to the person you are interviewing that need to be considered and evaluated:

1. Self-Image and esteem – You need to understand and evaluate how your subject sees himself. Does he perceive himself as a good guy? As a tough guy? Etc. You can then use this to obtain information from him. For example, if he sees himself as a heroic person, you might talk with him about his actions “saved the day”, etc. and thus pry a lot of information out of him he would not otherwise give you. Another example similar to this is the suspect who sees himself as exceptionally intelligent. You can express your admiration for his brains and how he fooled you and how you just don’t understand how he accomplished it and could he please explain it to you so that you can admire it that much more?

2. Satisfaction of needs – Humans tend to function much more on emotion than they do on logic. As part of this, they have a very strong drive to fulfill their basic needs. If you can understand your particular interview subject’s needs, then you begin to understand what he will do to meet those needs and you can use them against him.

3. Fear of self-disclosure – Humans are usually very reluctant to share their inner selves and thoughts with strangers and will often go to great lengths to avoid self-disclosure in an interview. This is where the time spent in establishing the rapport at the beginning of the interview can pay big dividends. Another technique is for the interviewer to disclose some personal weakness or vulnerability that will show he too is human. Now, this personal weakness does not have to be a real weakness. I have made up problems and weaknesses that I supposedly had (yes, I lied to the suspect about these) that would help relax the subject and establish a rapport.

IV. Indicators of Deception – There any number of deception indicators and we are only going to cover a few of them here as a refresher.

A. Definition of deception – Deception is a noun and is derived from a Latin verb “decipere” that means “to deceive.” Rabun, Don. Interviewing and Interrogation. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1992. p – 131.

It is to lie or give a false impression.

B. Change as an indicator of deception – There are many times when it is not any one behavior that indicates deception, but the change in behavior. If the subject is exhibiting certain behaviors during the parts of the interview where you know he is telling the truth and then the behavior changes when you move into other subject areas, you have to consider the reason for the change as it may indicate deception.

C. Physical symptoms that may indicate deception: Rabun, p – 139.

1. Mouth dryness.

2. Restlessness such as frequent changes in position; tapping of feet; fidgeting; gripping the arms of the chair; elbows held close to the body; running hands through the hair; and chewing of fingernails, pencils, or other objects.

3. Excessive sweating.

4. Pulsation of the carotid artery.

5. Pallor, flushing, or change in complexion, color.

6. Excessive swallowing.

7. Avoiding direct gaze.

8. Appearance of being disturbed and/or very tense.

9. Audible turbulence in the stomach.

The presence of these physical symptoms does not absolutely indicate deception. We should never conclude that a subject if being deceptive based on only one symptom or set of symptoms. You should look for a cluster of symptoms together and especially where those symptoms represent a change in behavior from what you have been observing when you know the subject is being truthful.

D. Verbal responses as deception indicators – there are a number of these type responses that may indicate deception:

1. Attempts to evade the question and not answer it.

2. Vague and non-committal answers and statements in which entire blocks of time are summed up in such unrevealing phrases as “I messed around for awhile”, “I talked for a while”, etc.

3. Conflicting information.

4. Different answers to the same question.

5. Lack of conviction about his own assertions – may be indicated by phrases such as “I thought I heard”, “I thought I did”, “I don’t know if I really said this”, “I think”, etc.

6. Use of the present tense when talking about a past occurrence. The reason this happens is that when the subject is being deceptive, he is making up his deceptive story in the present time and thus may slip into present tense when supposedly talking about a past event.

7. Reduced or eliminated self-references – this is especially apparent where the subject drops pronouns that reference himself such as “I”, “me”, etc. Dropping these indicates that psychologically he is trying to remove himself from the story.

There are many other verbal indicators of deception (so many in fact that a number of books have been written about them). Again, one of the important facts to note are the changes in the verbal responses as well as the responses themselves.

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