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RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 1
Using Disclosure, Common Ground, and Verification to Build Rapport and Elicit Information
Rachel E. Dianiska1, Jessica K. Swanner2, Laure Brimbal3, and Christian A. Meissner2
1University of California, Irvine, USA
2Iowa State University, USA
3Texas State University, USA
Accepted Manuscript, Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
Author Note
This work was funded by the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group – Federal Bureau
of Investigation contract DJF-15-1200-V-0010409 awarded to Iowa State University. Statements
of fact, opinion, and analysis in the paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official
policy of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group or the U.S. Government.
Portions of this work were presented at the annual meetings of the American Psychology-
Law Society (March 2017). All materials and data can be found on OSF
(https://osf.io/ywaf5/?view_only=ff2e86b9b93649209d21db1781947b0d).
Address correspondence to Rachel E. Dianiska, Department of Psychological Science,
University of California, Irvine, 4201 Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway
Irvine, CA 92697-7085; rdianisk@uci.edu.
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 2
Abstract
Rapport-based approaches have become a central tenet of investigative interviewing with
suspects and sources. Here we explored the utility of using rapport-building tactics (i.e., self-
disclosure and interviewer feedback) to overcome barriers to cooperation in the interviewing
domain. Across two experiments using the illegal behaviors paradigm (Dianiska et al., 2019),
participants completed a checklist of illegal behaviors and were then interviewed about their
background and interests (the interpersonal interview) as well as about their prior participation in
an illegal act (the illegal behavior interview). During the interpersonal interview, we manipulated
whether the participant’s disclosure was unilateral or reciprocal (Experiment 1; N = 124), and
whether the interviewer self-disclosed and/or provided the participant with verifying feedback in
response to the participant’s disclosures (Experiment 2; N = 210). Participants were then asked to
provide a statement about the most serious illegal behavior to which they had admitted. For both
experiments, participants provided more information about the prior illegal act when the
interviewer provided information about themselves. Further, there was a significant increase in
the amount of information elicited from the participant when the interviewer highlighted
similarity with the participant. In line with prior work, we found support for an indirect
relationship between the use of rapport-building tactics and disclosure that was mediated by the
participant’s perception of rapport and their decision to cooperate.
Keywords: reciprocal disclosure, self-disclosure, self-verification, common ground,
rapport, interviewing, information elicitation
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 3
Using Disclosure, Common Ground, and Verification
to Build Rapport and Elicit Information
Investigative interviewing in the United States has been dominated by an accusatorial
approach characterized by confrontational tactics and the goal of eliciting a confession (Kelly &
Meissner, 2015; Leo, 2008). More recently, however, practitioners and researchers have
demonstrated the benefits of a rapport-based approach (Vallano & Schreiber Compo, 2015) to
elicit information in both the United States (Meissner et al., 2017) and Canada (Snook et al.,
2010). Building rapport is also considered a principal component of the PEACE model of
investigative interviewing used in the U.K. and elsewhere (Milne & Bull, 1999).
A rapport-based approach has been shown to influence a number of interview outcomes.
Individuals may resist cooperating with an interviewer through the adoption of different counter-
interrogation strategies, such as remaining silent or saying “no comment” (Alison et al., 2014a).
However, the use of rapport-based interviewing tactics during interviews appears to be effective
in reducing such strategies (Alison et al., 2014b). In experimental studies, building rapport has
also been shown to increase cooperation and admissions from individuals in both Western
(Brimbal et al., 2019; Evans et al., 2014) and non-Western populations (Haung & Teoh, 2019;
Wachi et al., 2018). Field and observational data suggest that rapport-based tactics facilitate
information obtained from real-world suspects (Alison et al., 2013; Collins & Carthy, 2019;
Kelly et al., 2016; Walsh & Bull, 2012), human intelligence sources (Nunan et al., 2020), and
victims of crime (Kim et al., 2020).
Rapport has been variously defined as a working relationship or connection between an
interviewer and an interviewee (Kleinman, 2006) or a smooth, positive interpersonal interaction
(Abbe & Brandon, 2013). Precisely defining rapport has been a challenge for scholars, though a
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 4
review of the literature by Vallano and Schreiber Compo (2015) suggested that it is generally
believed to involve a positive or warm engagement that involves mutual respect and a productive
relationship. Professional interviewers have similarly demonstrated little agreement with respect
to defining rapport or identifying effective rapport building approaches (Russano et al., 2014).
One of the most prominent theoretical conceptualizations of rapport is the tripartite
framework of Tickle-Degnen and Rosenthal (1990) in which rapport is said to involve mutual
attentiveness, positivity, and coordination. Mutual attentiveness, or the degree to which the
interaction partners are focused on or interested in each other, contributes to the formation of a
coherent interaction. Positivity involves the affective nature of the interaction, including one’s
perception of another’s friendliness and caring. Coordination reflects the synchrony, balance, and
harmony of the interaction between the interactants. Duke and colleagues (2018) have also
proposed a five-factor model of rapport in the interview setting that expands upon Tickle-
Degnen and Rosenthal to include aspects of trust/respect (e.g., the interviewer appears to be
trustworthy and acts respectfully toward the interviewee), expertise (e.g., the interviewer seems
professional and does their job well), and cultural similarity (e.g., the interviewer and
interviewee share an ethnicity or culture).
The development of rapport is thought to be integral to gathering information from an
investigative interview (Abbe & Brandon, 2013). In their systematic review of rapport building
in the investigative interview context, Gabbert and colleagues (2020) proposed that professional
rapport-building represented the “intentional use of rapport behaviors to facilitate a positive
interaction that may, or may not, lead to establishing genuine mutual rapport” (p. 2). Herein, an
interviewer can leverage tactics such as revealing information about oneself (i.e., self-disclosure)
in order to elicit liking, which is likely to support the development of rapport in the context of an
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 5
interview (Collins & Miller, 1994). Seeking similarity between oneself and the subject (common
ground; Burger et al., 2004) and providing feedback that verifies the subject’s self-concept (self-
verification; Swann Jr., 2011) may also serve to facilitate rapport-building. The current studies
explore these three tactics in the context of suspect interviews.
The context of a custodial interview could render it difficult for an interviewer to develop
rapport with a subject. The interviewer and the subject are almost always previously
unacquainted, which may lead the subject to feel uncomfortable revealing information (Ignatius
& Kokkonen, 2007). Additionally, the interaction itself involves a power differential (the
interviewer having more power than the subject) and an adversarial goal (of acquiring sensitive
information from the subject that they might not want to provide; Abbe & Brandon, 2013). The
type of information that is sought from an investigative interview is also assumed to be
associated with some reluctance given that subjects may be asked to provide information that
implicates them or someone in their social network (Venetis et al., 2012). Subjects may also be
reluctant to disclose information due to concerns for their identity or self-concept, especially if
there is a risk of social rejection or, in the context of an investigation, a risk to one’s personal
freedom (Greene et al., 2006; Omarzu, 2000). In the present studies, we focus on several rapport-
based tactics that could appeal to such concerns, including self-disclosure, common ground, and
self-verification.
Self-Disclosure
Self-disclosure involves revealing personal information about the self to others. Such acts
of disclosure have been shown to reliably facilitate perceptions of liking (Collins & Miller,
1994). Specifically, meta-analytic data suggests three main effects of self-disclosure on liking.
First, self-disclosure increases liking of the person who discloses. Applied to an investigative
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 6
context, this suggests that an interviewer who discloses personal information to a subject will be
liked more by the subject, and a subject who discloses personal information to an interviewer
should be liked more by the interviewer. Second, liking produced by disclosure has been shown
to facilitate reciprocal disclosure. Accordingly, a subject who likes an interviewer will disclose
more information to that interviewer. Third, self-disclosure leads people to like those to whom
they disclose. If an interviewer discloses personal information to a subject, s/he will come to like
that subject more. The relationship between self-disclosure and liking thus appears to be mutual
between individuals, regardless of who is disclosing information or receiving information at a
point in the interaction.
Self-disclosure can affect liking because it reduces uncertainty about the discloser
(Sprecher et al., 2013a) or because it demonstrates one’s vulnerability to another (Sprecher et al.,
2015). In particular, self-disclosure that involves individuals who take-turns revealing personal
information about themselves has been found to lead to greater feelings of closeness, liking, and
perceived similarity – all of which are key components of rapport building (Sprecher et al.,
2013b). Therefore, to increase elicitation of critical, case-relevant information from a subject, an
interviewer may first need to disclose personal information in order to lay the groundwork for
cooperation.
A recent systematic review revealed that 40% of studies on the effects of rapport in
professional contexts included self-disclosure as a component of rapport-building (Gabbert et al.,
2020). However, in these studies self-disclosure was often manipulated in a present/absent
manner. That is, interviewers employed either self-disclosure as an interview tactic, or an
alternate approach such as applying psychological pressure (Duke et al., 2018) or emphasizing
the available evidence (Wachi et al., 2018). That is, few studies have examined what elements of
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 7
self-disclosure itself are most effective in enhancing rapport. One exception is Vallano and
Schreiber-Compo (2011), wherein interviewers asked participants to self-disclose information
about themselves, and then interviewers did or did not reciprocally disclose information as well.
Interestingly, Vallano and Schreiber-Compo found that interviewer self-disclosure did not lead to
an increase in perceived rapport over and above a participant’s disclosure. In the current study,
we offer an empirical test of which interviewer self-disclosure characteristics (reciprocity, as
examined by Vallano & Schreiber-Compo; emphasizing similarity; providing self-verifying
feedback) may be particularly effective in building rapport.
Common Ground
Related to self-disclosure is the notion of establishing common ground. People tend to
exhibit attraction to and a preference for those who are similar to them (Byrne, 1971), especially
when compared to those who are dissimilar to them (Rosenbaum, 1986). However, these
differences are often due to increases in liking for similar others, rather than a decrease in liking
(i.e., repulsion) for dissimilar others (Sprecher, 2019). Sharing beliefs and characteristics with
others can lead to feelings of validation of those characteristics (Singh et al., 2017) or to the
belief that one will be liked more by similar than dissimilar others (Greitemeyer, 2010; Hampton
et al., 2019). Self-disclosure that highlights similarities between individuals may thus be
especially effective at building rapport (Abbe & Brandon, 2013).
Finding common ground is frequently used by law enforcement and intelligence
collectors to build rapport. For instance, the majority of a sample of 123 law enforcement
interviewers reported discussing common interests as a tactic to establish rapport (Vallano et al.,
2015; see also Goodman-Delahunty & Howes, 2016; Russano et al., 2014). The use of common
ground manipulations, such as highlighting prior experience with a similar situation, have also
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 8
been shown to increase positive perceptions of an interviewer and perceived rapport in
experimental settings (Evans et al., 2014; Vallano & Schreiber Compo, 2011). Therefore,
common ground and highlighting similarity appear to be useful in facilitating rapport-building.
Though several studies have looked at establishing common ground to facilitate rapport (Evans
et al., 2014; Wachi et al., 2018), in Experiment 2 we empirically test whether self-disclosure that
seeks to establish common ground differentially affects rapport when compared to other types of
self-disclosure.
Self-Verification
Self-verification refers to people’s preference and motivation to have others see them as
they see themselves (Swann Jr., 2011). People desire this consistency between their social
environment and their internal self-conceptions because it provides a feeling of predictability and
control (Lecky, 1945). In order to maintain such consistency, people will selectively interact with
those who verify their beliefs about who they are and behave in ways that demonstrate aspects of
their self-concept to others (Swann Jr., 2011). Furthermore, people tend to self-verify by seeking
feedback from others that confirms their self-concept. To the extent that a person receives such
confirmatory feedback, they are more likely to reveal information and seek further interactions
with the listener. Self-verification may also serve a role in developing a close relationship by
way of activating a trust-building process (Burke & Stets, 1999).
Related to the notion of self-verification is that of affirmation. Derived from self-
enhancement theories, self-affirmation refers to the tendency for people to maintain a positive
self-concept or sense of self-integrity (Leary, 2007; Steele, 1988). People will thus respond
positively to individuals who express positive things about their identity because it allows them
to feel less vulnerable and boost their self-esteem. Theoretically, a resistant subject should be
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 9
more likely to reveal information if they believe the listener will verify their self-concept. An
interviewer could leverage a subject’s desire for self-verification and build rapport by conveying
a genuine and accurate understanding of who the subject is. Research suggests that an
interviewer who offers a subject self-affirming feedback may be able to leverage these positive
feelings to increase information disclosure (Davis et al., 2016) and reduce interrogative
suggestibility (Szpitalak & Polczyk, 2020). Here, we expand on previous survey-based research
on self-affirmation and offer an initial assessment of whether providing self-verifying feedback
to an interview subject is effective in improving perceptions of rapport. To our knowledge, our
Experiment 2 is the first experimental assessment of self-verification in an interview context.
Overview of Experiments
In the current experiments, we examined the effectiveness of rapport building tactics
based on theories of self-disclosure, common ground, and self-verification, and evaluated their
influence on perceptions of rapport, decisions to cooperate, and information provided in an
interview setting. Specifically, we assessed differences in the narratives provided by interview
subjects when an interviewer and/or subject disclosed similar and dissimilar information about
themselves (Experiment 1 and 2), and when an interviewer provided feedback that verified the
self-concept of the subject (Experiment 2) in an exchange that occurred before incriminating
information was requested. Video recordings of these interviews were coded for the provision of
critical event information. In Experiment 2, we also video recorded the interpersonal interview
and coded the presence of non-verbal correlates of rapport (Tickle-Degnen & Rosenthal, 1990).
All experiment materials and data can be found on the first author’s Open Science Framework
page (https://osf.io/ywaf5/?view_only=ff2e86b9b93649209d21db1781947b0d).
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 10
Both experiments used an adaptation of the disclosure of illegal behaviors paradigm
(Dianiska et al., 2019). Participants first completed an inventory of illegal behaviors and were
later interviewed about the most egregious illegal behavior they had committed. Prior to being
questioned about their illegal behavior, participants engaged in a preliminary interpersonal
interview with the interviewer, discussing the participant’s personality, character, and interests.
Previous research has shown that such an interpersonal interview can be used to increase
perceived closeness between two strangers (Aron et al., 1997; Sedikides et al., 1999). In the
present study, we use this induction of closeness as a platform from which we could manipulate
aspects of self-disclosure, common ground, and affirmation to facilitate relationship development
(i.e., build rapport).
Experiment 1
In Experiment 1, we examined how interpersonal disclosure during a preliminary
interview might increase information yield from a subsequent interview about a previously
committed illegal behavior. We manipulated the presence of interpersonal disclosure from the
interviewer (a trained research assistant) and the participant. We hypothesized greater perceived
rapport between a participant and an interviewer and an increase in information yield when either
person disclosed, compared to when disclosure was absent (Collins & Miller, 1994). We further
hypothesized that the greatest benefit to perceived rapport would be seen when both the
participant and the interviewer disclosed reciprocally (Sprecher & Traeger, 2015). Consistent
with prior research (Brimbal et al., 2019; Brimbal et al., 2021; Dianiska et al., 2019), we also
assessed the indirect effects of rapport on information yield via participants’ expressed level of
cooperation, and we evaluated the potential for mediated effects of our manipulations on
information disclosure via perceived rapport and cooperation.
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 11
Experiment 1: Method
Participants and design. A total of 124 undergraduate psychology students (43% male;
79% Caucasian; average age M = 19.17, SD = 0.95) at a Midwestern state university in the
United States participated in Experiment 1 for partial completion of course credit. Our target
sample size of n = 128 was based on power of .80 to detect a medium effect size on perceived
rapport (f = 0.25), a conservative estimate of the average effect size observed in studies of
reciprocal disclosure on interpersonal perceptions (e.g., liking and closeness; Sprecher et al.,
2013a; 2013b). To assess the reciprocal effects of disclosure (Collins & Miller, 1994), we used a
2 (Participant Disclosure: absent, present) x 2 (Interviewer Disclosure: absent, present)
between-subjects design. The four conditions created by this design included: no personal
disclosure (absent-absent), participant-only disclosure (present-absent), interviewer-only
disclosure (absent-present), and reciprocal disclosure (present-present). The primary dependent
variables included perceived rapport, perceived cooperation, and actual information disclosed
about the most serious illegal behavior they had engaged in. We used six interviewers in this
study, all female undergraduate research assistants.
Materials and procedure. We used an adaptation of the illegal behavior paradigm
(Dianiska et al., 2019). Participants were instructed that they would first complete an inventory
of illegal behaviors, indicating which behaviors they had committed in the past, and then would
be interviewed about themselves and a prior life experience. The inventory was a ‘yes’/‘no’
checklist of 20 illegal behaviors and misdeeds (e.g., transporting fireworks across state lines,
experimenting with illegal drugs, shoplifting, etc.; see Madon et al., 2013). After completing the
inventory, the experimenter informed participants that they would be interviewed about one of
the behaviors from the inventory and left the room. The interviewer then entered the room and
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 12
conducted the interview with the participant about the most serious behavior committed, based
upon the seriousness ratings from Madon and colleagues (2013). The experimenter listened to
the entire interview from a computer in a separate room and recorded any deviations from the
interview script (no major deviations were observed). All interviews began with the interviewer
introducing themselves and informing the participant that they would be interviewed about one
of their reported illegal behaviors. Participants in the no personal disclosure condition proceeded
directly to the illegal behaviors interview (discussed below), while all other participants began
with the interpersonal interview.
Part one: The interpersonal interview. The interviewer indicated that prior to discussing
their illegal behavior they would like to get to know them better, and to do so they would
conduct an interpersonal interview whereby the participants would answer a series of personal
questions. The interviewer then asked the participant a standardized set of 18 questions derived
from previous experimental work that promoted a sense of “closeness” between two
unacquainted individuals (Aron et al., 1997; Sedikides et al., 1999; see supplementary materials
on OSF). These questions were ‘ice-breaker’ type questions that one might encounter at a team-
building meeting or at the first day of class (e.g., “If you could invent a new flavor of ice cream,
what would it be?” “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”). Participants
were randomly assigned to the two disclosure manipulations associated with the interpersonal
interview – whether they self-disclosed information to the interviewer and whether the
interviewer self-disclosed information to them – and assigned to one of four conditions.
In the no disclosure condition, both participant and interviewer self-disclosure were
absent. This condition did not include an interpersonal interview and instead proceeded directly
to part two, the illegal behavior interview.
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 13
In the participant-only disclosure condition, the interviewer asked participants to disclose
information about themselves in response to the 18 interpersonal interview questions.
Interviewers were instructed to remain neutral and not to offer feedback in response to the
disclosure. The interviewer asked each of the 18 interpersonal questions, waited for the
participant to respond fully, and then moved on to the next one. Interviewer self-disclosure was
absent.
In the interviewer-only disclosure condition, participants listened to the interviewer
disclose information about himself or herself during the interview. The interviewer read each
interpersonal interview question aloud, answered it, and moved on to the next question.
Participant self-disclosure was absent.
In the reciprocal disclosure condition, both the participant and the interviewer answered
the 18 interpersonal interview questions. The interviewer waited for the participant to respond to
each question first and then provided his or her response before moving on to the next question.
Part two: The illegal behavior interview. After the 18-question interpersonal interview,
the interviewer transitioned to the illegal behaviors interview. The illegal behaviors interview
was the first part of the interview session for participants in the participant disclosure absent and
interviewer disclosure absent condition. All participants were provided with two scripted
requests for information, asking them to provide as much detail as possible. Participants were
instructed to think about a specific instance in which the illegal behavior occurred, and to
describe the event from beginning to end. After the participants completed their first description,
the interviewer then asked them to pause and reflect on the event again and to provide any
additional details that they could recall about the event. The interviewer reminded the
participants that it is important that they provide as much detail as possible. If the participant
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 14
asked for clarification on the type of details, interviewers responded with “any details you can
recall.”
Self-report items. At the conclusion of the interview, participants completed a post-
experiment questionnaire assessing their perceptions about the illegal behavior that they
described, as well as their perceptions of the interview and the interviewer. Most items were
assessed using a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely). Participants first answered items about
the importance and unpleasantness of the misdeed, the approximate month and year when it
occurred, and four items assessing negative emotion associated with the misdeed (regret,
personal responsibility, disappointment, guilt). Participants then responded to three items
assessing the perceived amount of information disclosed, how much pressure they felt to disclose
information, and how willing they were to disclose information. Additionally, participants
completed a self-report scale of perceived rapport with the interviewer (Bernieri et al., 1994).
The rapport items were assessed with a scale from 1 (not at all) to 9 (extremely), consistent with
prior research. After responding to the self-report items, participants were debriefed and
dismissed from the study. Here we focus on self-report items of perceived rapport, as well as
participants’ amount and willingness to disclose information. The remaining items can be found
on OSF.
Similar to other researchers (Houston et al., 2017), we extracted two rapport factors using
Principal Axis Factoring corresponding to what respondents believed to be positive and negative
perceptions of the interaction with the interviewer, accounting for 55.72% and 51.16% of the
variance, respectively. Both factors contained items with high loadings (i.e., 𝜆 > 0.70) or
acceptable loadings (𝜆 > 0.50; Comrey & Lee, 1992); the full factor structure and loadings are
available to interested readers on OSF. From these factors, we created two regression-based
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 15
factor scores for perceptions of positive rapport and negative rapport. Reliability analyses for
items associated with the positive factor (α = .89 [.85, .92]) and negative factor (α = .83 [.78,
.87]) suggest the measures have good reliability. A factor score of zero represented near-average
perceptions of rapport. Negative values of the factor score represented less than average
perceptions of rapport, and positive values represented higher than average perceptions of
rapport.
Finally, we created a construct to assess participant’s perceived cooperation by
generating a single regression-based factor score from two items (willingness to provide
information and amount of information provided; α =.36 [.09, .55]), with both items loading at >
.47 and the factor accounting for 22.16% of the variance. Factor scores greater than zero for
cooperation reflect greater than average cooperation, while scores less than zero reflect less than
average cooperation.
Statement coding. Two trained coders, blind to condition, watched participants’
responses from each illegal behavior interview and rated them for the presence and precision of
critical details (i.e., details regarding the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the event),
sensory details, and expressed negative emotion about the misdeed. Quantity of detail was
operationalized as dichotomous responses of 0 (absent) or 1 (present) to six critical components
to the event (i.e., Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How). Coders rated each component in
the participant’s statement as either a 1 (if information regarding that critical detail was present)
or 0 (if this information was not present). Quantity of information ranged from 0 to 6 critical
details. Precision of detail was rated separately for each detail that was judged to be present in
the statement. For each present judgment, coders rated how specific the detail was on a 1 (coarse
detail) to 3 (fine detail) scale. If a detail was judged as absent, the detail was given a precision
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 16
score of 0. We created an average precision score from each of the six details (0 to 3). Reliability
was adequate between coders (average AC1: 0.69; Gwet, 2008, 2012). Discrepancies between
coders were resolved by a third coder who was also blind to condition.
Because the quantity and precision estimates were highly correlated (r = .82 , p < .01),
we created a single regression-based factor score of information disclosure. Principal Axis
Factoring extraction was used and the factor solution accounted for 82.21% of the variance. A
factor score of zero represents information disclosure that approximates the average of our
sample; negative values indicate lower than average disclosure and positive values indicate
higher than average disclosure.
Experiment 1: Results
Descriptive statistics for all primary outcome measures (i.e., factor scores) by condition
are provided in Table 1. There were no interviewer effects on any of the outcome measures.
Perceptions of Rapport. We first investigated the influence of our disclosure
manipulations on perceived rapport. We have provided the full factor structure and loadings on
OSF, as well as analyses for both positive and negative rapport. Given that the positive and
negative rapport factors were correlated, the patterns are similar and therefore for brevity we
focus on the positively valanced measure here. A 2 (Participant Disclosure: Absent, Present) x 2
(Interviewer Disclosure: Absent, Present) between-subjects ANOVA was conducted on the
positive rapport factor. There was a significant main effect of participant disclosure, F(1, 120) =
4.32, p = .04, d = 0.37, 95% CI [0.02, 0.73]. Participants held a more positive perception of the
interaction with an interviewer when they disclosed information to the interviewer during the
personal interview. There was also a significant main effect of interviewer disclosure, F(1, 120)
= 5.18, p = .03, d = 0.41, 95% CI [0.05, 0.76]. Participants held a more positive perception of the
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 17
interaction with an interviewer when the interviewer disclosed information during the personal
interview. The interaction was not significant, F(1, 120) = 0.95, p = .33, η² < .01.
Cooperation. We also assessed the influence of our manipulations on a participant’s
decision to cooperate via a 2 (Participant Disclosure: Absent, Present) x 2 (Interviewer
Disclosure: Absent, Present) between-subjects ANOVA. There was a significant main effect of
participant disclosure, F(1, 120) = 7.10, p < .01, d = 0.48, 95% CI [0.12, 0.84]. Participants
reported greater cooperation during the interview when they had disclosed information during
the interpersonal interview, compared to when they had not disclosed information during the
interpersonal interview. The main effect of interviewer disclosure (F(1, 120) = 0.26, p = .61, d =
0.08, 95% CI [-0.27, 0.44]) and the interaction between interviewer disclosure and participant
disclosure (F(1, 120) = 0.21, p = .65, η² < .01) were not significant.
Information Disclosure. Finally, we assessed the influence of our manipulations on
information disclosure via a 2 (Participant Disclosure: Absent, Present) x 2 (Interviewer
Disclosure: Absent, Present) between-subjects ANOVA. There was no main effect of participant
disclosure, F(1, 120) = 2.90, p = .09, d = 0.31, 95% CI [-0.05, 0.66]), no main effect of
interviewer disclosure (F(1, 120) = 0.06, p = .81, d = 0.05, 95% CI [-0.31, 0.40]), and no
significant interaction (F(1, 120) = 0.09, p = .71, η² < .01).
Mediational path model. In the above analyses, we tested the direct effects of our
manipulations on key outcome variables – specifically, the extent to which the participant
perceived rapport with an interviewer, their willingness to cooperate with an interviewer, and the
amount of information disclosed about a prior illegal behavior. Conceptually similar to prior
studies (Brimbal et al., 2019; Brimbal et al., 2021; Dianiska et al., 2019), we also assessed the
potential indirect influence of our manipulations on information disclosure via perceived rapport
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 18
and cooperation. Specifically, we tested whether the presence of participant disclosure and
interviewer disclosure during the interpersonal interview would influence a participant’s
perceived rapport with an interviewer, leading to increased cooperation and ultimately increasing
the disclosure of critical information. We first tested a fully recursive model with all possible
direct and indirect effects of our manipulations on disclosure via rapport and cooperation using
the lavaan package in R (Rosseel, 2012). We then assessed a nested model including only the
significant paths from the first model.
The final model offered a good fit to the data (RMSEA = 0.027, p = .30; χ2 (4, N = 124) =
4.36; NFI = .91), accounting for 13.6% of the variance in cooperation and 11.9% of the variance
in disclosure. As displayed in Figure 1, there was both a significant direct effect of interviewer
disclosure on perceived rapport (
= .20, p = .02) and a significant direct effect of participant
disclosure on perceived rapport (
= .18, p = .04). Perceived rapport significantly predicted
perceived cooperation (
= .29, p < .01) and participant disclosure (
= .18, p = .03). Finally,
greater perceived cooperation predicted an increase in critical information disclosure (
= .35, p
< .01). We further observed significant indirect effects of interviewer disclosure on perceived
cooperation (
= .06, p = .01) and information disclosure (
= .02, p = .01). Similarly, participant
disclosure also indirectly increased perceived cooperation (
= .05, p = .02) and information
disclosure (
= .08, p < .01). Finally, perceptions of rapport indirectly increased disclosure (
=
.10, p < .01).
Experiment 1: Discussion
Experiment 1 assessed the influence of interviewer and subject self-disclosure on
perceptions of rapport, cooperation, and information disclosure. Our findings suggest that
manipulating interviewer disclosure influenced perceived rapport, such that interviewers were
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 19
able to build rapport with a subject by disclosing personal information about themselves.
Disclosure of personal information by the subject also facilitated perceptions of rapport and
additionally increased cooperation with the interviewer. Further, both interviewer and subject
self-disclosure indirectly increased the amount of information disclosed about an illegal behavior
via their effects on rapport and cooperation. This mirrors previous work finding an indirect effect
of rapport on information gain through cooperation (see Brimbal et al., 2019; Brimbal et al.,
2021; Dianiska et al., 2019). The direct effects of the disclosure manipulations on perceived
rapport were moderately sized. Other effects were smaller, notably the effects of interviewer
disclosure on cooperation as well as the indirect effects of our manipulations on information
disclosure. Although these small effects limit the strength of the potential rapport building tactics
in Experiment 1, such approaches represent only a subset of rapport building tactics that could be
used in conjunction with others to build rapport, increase cooperation, and facilitate information
collection. To build upon the most effective tactic found in Experiment 1 (subject disclosure), we
evaluated interviewer feedback to a subject’s disclosure as a means to successfully develop
common ground and verify the subject’s self-concept.
Experiment 2
During an investigative interview, an interviewer has the opportunity to provide
information about themselves to build rapport. Interviewers may further attempt to build rapport
by providing verbal and nonverbal feedback to a subject who discloses information to the
interviewer. In Experiment 2, we examined how interviewer feedback during the interpersonal
interview might facilitate participants’ information disclosure about prior illegal behaviors.
Specifically, we manipulated whether participants received verifying feedback and/or interviewer
self-disclosure that sought common ground or highlighted dissimilarity with the participant.
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 20
When tasked with providing verifying feedback, the interviewer provided positive,
confirming feedback about other aspects of the subject’s self-concept that are not relevant to the
illegal behavior in order to facilitate disclosure. By demonstrating that the interviewer viewed the
subject consistent with how they viewed of themselves, the interviewer might develop a
reputation as a verifier that would facilitate liking (Human et al., 2013). We expected that such
feedback, which suggested the interviewer viewed the subject accurately, would increase rapport.
When the interviewer was tasked with providing information about themselves, they
answered each question with either the same response the participant gave (similar condition) or
a different response than what the participant had provided (dissimilar condition). The
interviewer further sought coordination (in addition to engaging in reciprocal disclosure; see
Tickle-Degnen & Rosenthal, 1990) by showing interest and seeking more information about the
participant and demonstrating positive non-verbal behaviors, including leaning forward and
making eye contact, in order to increase warmth (Abbe & Brandon, 2013).
The same illegal behaviors paradigm was used as in Experiment 1. We hypothesized that
verifying feedback and interviewer self-disclosure would increase the amount of information
disclosed during the illegal behavior interview. We further hypothesized an additive effect for
the combination of verification and interviewer self-disclosure on information disclosure, should
these two techniques work in tandem.
Experiment 2: Method
Participants and design. A total of 212 undergraduate psychology students (54.7%
male; 77.4% Caucasian; average age M = 19.26, SD = 1.34) at a Midwestern state university in
the United States participated in the present study for partial completion of course credit. The
study conformed to a 2 (Verification Feedback: absent, present) x 3 (Interviewer Disclosure:
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 21
absent, present–dissimilar, present–similar) between-subjects design. Here, our target sample
size of n = 199 was based on power of .80 to detect a medium effect on perceived rapport (f =
0.20). As in Experiment 1, the primary dependent variables were the amount of perceived
rapport, decision to cooperate, and information disclosed about the most serious illegal behavior
committed previously. As a manipulation check, we also examined a dependent measure
reflecting observer ratings of participant engagement based on video recordings of the
interpersonal interview (discussed in detail below). Due to computer and video camera
malfunctions, a small number of dependent measures were missing from six participants.
Specifically, several participants had data missing from the self-report measures (n = 2), while
the interpersonal interview was not recorded for others (n = 3). In these instances, we used mean
substitution to replace the missing values as the most parsimonious method for accounting for
missing data. The results with and without these mean-substituted data points did not differ. In
addition to missing self-report data and interpersonal interview recordings, two additional
participants further did not have an illegal behaviors interview recorded. Given that the illegal
behavior interview was a critical part of the experiment, we opted to remove these two
participants in lieu of mean substituting the dependent measures that were derived from the
illegal behaviors interview. This resulted in a final total of 210 participants. Ten undergraduate
research assistants (three male, seven female) served as interviewers in Experiment 2.
Procedure. The procedures and materials were identical to Experiment 1, with the
exception of a few changes to the interpersonal interview. Each of the 18 items in the
interpersonal interview was randomly assigned as a verification, interviewer disclosure, or
control item. Interviewers never provided feedback for control items. Regardless of condition, all
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 22
interviews began with 2 questions in which the interviewer did not provide feedback; the
remaining 16 items were randomly presented to participants.
Verifying Feedback. Participants were randomly assigned to receive verifying feedback.
For those in the verification present condition, interviewers asked one of the six questions
designated as verification items and responded to participants in a confirmatory manner.
Specifically, they repeated the participants’ answers and expressed that those answers reflected
the participants’ self-concept. For example, the interviewer would ask a participant, “Do you
have a pet? If not, what sort of pet would you like?” The participant might respond with “a
golden retriever.” The experimenter would wait for the participant to respond and, then reply
with, “Yeah, you strike me as a dog person.” Participants assigned to the verification absent
condition did not receive this feedback and were only asked the question (i.e., “Do you have a
pet? If not, what sort of pet would you like?” only) similar to the control items.
Interviewer Disclosure. Some participants were randomly assigned to receive self-
disclosure from the interviewer during the interpersonal interview. When interviewers asked one
of the six questions designated as interviewer disclosure items, they responded to participants in
a coordinating manner that either highlighted similarity with the interviewer, or highlighted
dissimilarity with the interviewer. Specifically, in responding to a participant’s answer, the
interviewer would offer a question related to the response (to encourage the participant to
elaborate on their answers) and then answer the question themselves by saying they had a related
perspective or experience (similar) or by providing a response that was different from what the
participant provided (dissimilar). The interviewer then provided positive feedback about the
participant’s answer (both conditions). For example, the interviewer would ask a participant,
“What is your favorite thing to do to relax?” The participant might respond with “watching
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 23
Netflix.” An interviewer in the interviewer disclosure–similar condition would reply with, “I
really like to watch Netflix, too.”
1
In the interviewer disclosure–dissimilar condition, the
interviewer would reply with, “That’s nice. What is it that you like about watching Netflix? I
really like to read Science Fiction to relax.” Participants in the interviewer disclosure–absent
condition did not receive this additional information and were only asked the question (i.e.,
“What is your favorite thing to do to relax?” only), similar to the control items.
Self-report items. Participants completed the same post-experimental questionnaire used
in Experiment 1. Once again, we created two regression-based factor scores for perceptions of
positive rapport and negative rapport, accounting for 51.42% and 48.38% of the variance,
respectively. Both factors had items with a high loading (i.e., 𝜆 > 0.70) or acceptable loadings (𝜆
> 0.50). Reliability analyses for items associated with the positive factor (α = .87 [.82, .88]) and
the negative factor (α = .81 [.77, .85]) suggest the measures have good reliability. A factor score
of zero represented near-average perceptions of rapport. Negative values of the factor score
represented less than average perceptions of rapport, and positive values of the factor score
represented higher than average perceptions of rapport.
Finally, we created a construct to assess participants’ perceived cooperation by
generating a single regression-based factor score from two items (willingness to provide
information and amount of information provided; α =.45 [.28, .58]), with both items loading at >
.54 and the factor accounting for 29.41% of the variance. Factor scores greater than zero for
1
Interviewers were instructed in the similarity conditions to repeat the participant’s response
only if they agreed with it, in order to maintain the integrity of the interaction and prevent the
participant from perceiving the interaction as disingenuous. Experimenters monitored the
interviews and noted if and when these deviations occurred; none were reported.
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 24
cooperation reflected greater than average cooperation, while scores less than zero reflected less
than average cooperation.
Engagement ratings. As an exploratory analysis, two trained coders viewed participants’
interactions with the interviewer from the interpersonal interview and coded for the presence and
extent to which participants engaged in nonverbal behaviors that indicate rapport or
psychological interest in the interaction (derived from Tickle-Degnen & Rosenthal, 1990;
Bernieri et al., 1996). We coded this to assess the efficacy of our interviewer self-disclosure
manipulation. Unfortunately, we did not record the interpersonal interviews in Experiment 1 and
were thus unable to conduct a similar assessment. Here, we coded participant engagement by
examining the extent to which the participant: smiled at the interviewer, looked at the
interviewer, had a directed gaze, nodded their head, leaned forward, had a closed posture, faced
forward, fidgeted, matched the interviewer’s tempo, appeared bored, and had a harmonious
exchange with the interviewer. These items were coded on a scale from 0 (not at all) to 4
(completely), with items reverse coded in some instances to reflect positivity of the interaction.
Interrater reliability was assessed via intraclass correlation for a subset of 45 cases (average ICC:
0.71), after which discrepancies were resolved between the two coders via discussion. A single
coder then assessed the entire dataset. These data and analysis are available to interested readers
on OSF.
Statement coding. Two different trained coders, blind to condition, viewed participants’
responses from each illegal behavior interview and rated information disclosure as in Experiment
1. Reliability was adequate between coders (Average AC1: 0.74). Discrepancies between coders
were resolved by a third coder who was also blind to condition. We again created a single
regression-based factor score of information disclosure via Principal Axis Factoring (both items
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 25
loading > .85; 71.75% of the variance explained). A factor score of zero represented information
disclosure that approximated the average for our sample; negative values indicated lower than
average disclosure and positive values indicated higher than average disclosure.
Experiment 2: Results
Descriptive statistics for all primary outcome measures (i.e., factor scores) by condition
are provided in Table 2. As in Experiment 1, there were no interviewer effects on any of the
outcome measures.
Perceived Rapport. We first investigated the effect of verifying feedback and
interviewer self-disclosure on perceived rapport. A 2 (Verification Feedback: absent, present) x 3
(Interviewer Disclosure: absent, present–dissimilar, present–similar) between-subjects ANOVA
was conducted on the positive rapport factor. There was a significant main effect of interviewer
disclosure, F(2, 204) = 4.06, p = .02, η² = .04. Follow-up comparisons revealed that participants
had a more positive perception of the interaction after the interviewer provided self-disclosure
that highlighted similarity with the participant, compared to when the self-disclosure highlighted
dissimilarity with the participant (d = 0.32, 95% CI [0.01, 0.65]) and compared to when the
interviewer did not self-disclose at all (d = 0.46, 95% CI [0.13, 0.79]). There was no significant
difference in perceived rapport between the disclosure-absent and disclosure-dissimilar
conditions (d = 0.13, 95% CI [-0.23, 0.48]). Neither the main effect of verifying feedback (F (1,
204) = 3.10, p = .08, d = 0.23, 95% CI [-0.04, 0.50]) nor the interaction (F(2, 204) = 0.20, p =
.82, η² < .01) was significant.
Perceived Cooperation. We conducted a 2 (Verification Feedback: absent, present) x 3
(Interviewer Disclosure: absent, present–dissimilar, present–similar) between-subjects ANOVA
on perceived cooperation. There were no significant main effects for either interviewer self-
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 26
disclosure (F(2, 204) = 0.63, p = .53, η² = .01) or for verifying feedback (F(1, 204) = 0.22, p =
.64, d = 0.10, 95% CI [-0.26, 0.28]), nor was there a significant interaction between the two (F(2,
204) = 1.86, p = .16, η² = .02).
Information Disclosure. A 2 (Verification Feedback: absent, present) x 3 (Interviewer
Disclosure: absent, present–dissimilar, present–similar) between-subjects ANOVA was
conducted on the information disclosure factor. There was a significant main effect of
interviewer disclosure (F(2, 204) = 3.12, p = .05, η² = .03). Participants disclosed more
information during the subsequent illegal behavior interview when the interviewer highlighted
similarity during the interpersonal interview, compared to when no interviewer self-disclosure
was provided (d = 0.42, 95% CI [0.09, 0.75]). Neither the difference between disclosure-similar
and disclosure-dissimilar (d = 0.27, 95% CI [-0.06, 0.60]) nor the difference between disclosure-
absent and disclosure-dissimilar (d = 0.12, 95 CI [-0.23, 0.48]) conditions were significant. The
main effect of verifying feedback (F(1, 204) = 0.49, p = .48, d = 0.10, 95% CI [-0.17, 0.37]) and
the interaction between verifying and coordinating feedback (F(2, 204) = 1.17, p = .31, η² = .01)
were not significant.
Mediational path model. Similar to Experiment 1, we first tested a fully recursive model
with verifying feedback, interviewer dissimilarity, and interviewer similarity as exogenous
variables. We then tested a nested model including only the significant paths from the first
model. The final model offered a good fit to the data (RMSEA < .01, p = .95; χ2 (4, N = 210) =
1.18; NFI = 0.98) and accounted for 13.3% of the variance in cooperation and 12.2% of the
variance in disclosure (see Figure 2). Interviewer dissimilarity had no direct or indirect effects on
the outcome measures, and therefore the nested model contained only interviewer similarity and
verifying feedback as exogenous variables. There was a significant direct effect of interviewer
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 27
similarity on positive rapport with the interviewer (
= .19, p < .01) and on information
disclosure (
= .15, p = .02). Additionally, the provision of self-verifying feedback led to a small,
non-significant increase in positive rapport (
= .12, p = .07). Further, positive rapport had a
direct effect on perceived cooperation with the interviewer (
= .37, p < .01), which led to a
significant increase in information disclosure (
= .31, p < .01). Significant indirect effects were
observed for interviewer similarity on cooperation via rapport (
= .07, p < .01) and on
information disclosure via rapport and cooperation (
= .02, p < .01). Additionally, verification
indirectly increased cooperation via rapport (
= .05, p = .05) and increased disclosure via
rapport and cooperation (
= .01, p = .04). Finally, perceptions of rapport indirectly increased
disclosure via cooperation (
= .11, p < .01).
Experiment 2: Discussion
In Experiment 2, we manipulated the presence and type of interviewer feedback provided
during the interpersonal interview to assess whether interviewers who provide verifying
feedback and information about themselves (either similar or dissimilar to the interviewee)
would elicit more information from a participant about a prior illegal behavior. Our results
suggest that attempting to find common ground and highlighting similarity with a subject is a
more effective strategy than providing information about oneself that highlights dissimilarity
from the subject or verifying the subject’s self-concept. As expected, the largest effect on the
elicitation of information came when the interviewer used both verification and self-disclosure
tactics that highlighted similarity with the interviewer. By verifying the participant’s disclosure
of personal information, the interviewer demonstrated themselves as an accepting audience
which is a critical component of revealing a secret (Kelly, 2002). Further, by positioning
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 28
themselves as similar to the participant during the interpersonal interview, the interviewer
increased the likelihood that the subject would disclose information to them (Byrne, 1971).
General Discussion
Interviewers often encounter resistance from an interview subject who may be reluctant
to disclose sensitive information to authorities. Here, we tested several strategies that
interviewers could use to increase cooperation and elicit information. Based upon the long-
studied relationship between disclosure and liking (Collins & Miller, 1994), we hypothesized
that interviewer self-disclosure could serve as an effective and easily implementable tactic to
develop rapport. Across two experiments, we found that interviewers who provided information
about themselves increased participants’ perception of rapport with the interviewer, leading to
increased cooperation and information yield. Importantly, we observed the strongest effects on
disclosure when interviewers were able to call attention to similarities between themselves and
the subject. As such, the type of self-disclosure that an interviewer provides is important to
consider – building common ground appears to offer a simple yet powerful interview strategy.
Some interviewers may be hesitant to engage in self-disclosure with subjects given the
risks involved with sharing personal information. The level of disclosure used in the present
study, however, involved rather superficial items related to interests and hobbies (e.g., “What’s
your favorite thing to do to relax?” and “How did you celebrate last Halloween?”) that could
readily be offered as part of a preliminary conversation with a subject. We would also caution
interviewers against lying about oneself to feign such similarity, as sources may perceive this as
disingenuous and therein hinder any effort to develop rapport.
In both experiments we found a similar pattern in that techniques designed to increase
rapport between the subject and the interviewer rarely directly affected the amount of
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 29
information obtained from an interview. Rather, the impact of these techniques was apparent
when examining their indirect effect on information disclosure via improved cooperation. The
tactics studied here, including interviewer and participant self-disclosure, increased disclosure of
critical information about an event through participants’ perceptions of rapport and decision to
cooperate with the interviewer. While further research is necessary to fully understand the role of
rapport in overcoming barriers to cooperation, this pattern of indirect effects has been observed
across a number of studies (Brimbal et al., 2019; Brimbal et al., 2021; Dianiska et al., 2019).
Limitations and Future Directions
Despite promising theoretical support, our manipulation of self-verifying feedback did
not lead to direct increases in information disclosure; rather, verification only indirectly affected
cooperation and disclosure, as mediated by perceptions of rapport. One potential reason may be
due to the constraints associated with our experimental procedure. The interpersonal interview
comprised 18 questions about personal history and preference information, and only six of these
were associated with verifying feedback in the verification-present conditions. Thus, there may
have been an insufficient number of opportunities for interviewers to establish themselves as a
“verifier.” Alternatively, despite our attempts to vary the specific “verification” prompts that
interviewers used, it could be that the repeated verifications began to feel artificial, thereby
limiting the efficacy of this technique. Based on the effect size, it is also possible that the effect
of verification was overshadowed by the strength of our similarity manipulation. In fact,
participants may have perceived the verifying feedback as another form of similarity feedback -
that is, when the interviewer said that they saw the subject as they see themselves, the subject
may have taken that to mean they were similar (in their views, at least) to the interviewer.
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 30
When verifying feedback was present, the increase in perceived rapport failed to reach
conventional levels of significance (p = .07). We conducted a sensitivity analysis to detect the
minimum effect size that would be detectable with our sample size. Our observed effect size (d =
0.23) was smaller than that of the effect size obtained by sensitivity analysis (d = 0.38),
suggesting we did not have sufficient power to detect the main effect of verification on perceived
rapport. We also computed Bayes Factors (BF01) to determine the strength of our null effect. In
concert with the sensitivity analysis, the estimated Bayes Factor (BF01 = 1.64) suggested that our
study was likely underpowered to observe an effect of verifying feedback. As such, we believe it
is important to continue to examine self-verification as an avenue of rapport-building. In light of
these factors, future research is needed to examine the conditions under which, if any, verifying
feedback might affect rapport and disclosure.
Our illegal behavior paradigm allows for subjects to provide event reports of genuine,
episodic experiences. However, this means that we are only able to evaluate the quantity and
quality of information reported. While participants’ statements involve memories of their
experiences, we did not have the ability to assess the accuracy or completeness of the
information that was provided by participants given that we could not compare the statement
with ground truth. Studies that have examined rapport with respect to adult witnesses (rather than
suspects) suggest that witnesses provide more correct information and less incorrect information
about a witnessed event when the interviewer establishes rapport (Kieckhaefer et al., 2014; Nash
et al., 2016; Vallano & Schreiber Compo, 2011), though the benefits of rapport on memory
accuracy are not always observed (Sauerland et al., 2018). We also note that despite acceptable
factor loadings of our composite measures, some failed to achieve adequate internal consistency
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 31
(though this is common for two-item scales; Eisinga et al., 2013). Assessments of self-reported
cooperation may need to further refinement in the context of interviewing.
In Experiment 1, we examined how the presence or absence of interpersonal disclosure
during an initial interview might affect information yield during a subsequent interview. To do
this, participants in the no disclosure condition were randomly assigned to not complete an initial
interpersonal interview and instead proceeded directly to the interview regarding their past illegal
behavior. Participants in all other conditions had some exposure to the interviewer prior to their
illegal behavior interviews, and therefore increases in disclosure in Experiment 1 may also be
related to these differences in exposure time. Future work should investigate how exposure to the
interviewer might improve or impede rapport-building in investigative interviews.
We examined specific tactics that could be used to develop rapport with individuals prior
to eliciting a statement about an event. It is important to consider, however, that our test of these
tactics is primarily an initial theoretical test of whether self-disclosure is effective. To this end,
our sample included undergraduate students being interviewed about a previous misdemeanor
they had admitted to. Assessing whether these tactics are similarly effective in other populations
and contexts is critical to understanding the generalizability and limitations of tactics such as
self-disclosure.
Finally, we note that one of our conditions was not as ecologically relevant as others.
Specifically, it is unlikely that an interviewer would disclose information about themselves
unilaterally to a subject (in the absence of disclosure from the subject) as our interviewers did in
the interviewer-only disclosure condition in Experiment 1. At the same time, such an occasion is
not altogether unfathomable. As silence is a fairly common resistance strategy, an interviewer
could find themselves in a situation for which disclosure such as this could be useful.
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 32
Nevertheless, we included this condition to more thoroughly (and factorially) test the role of
reciprocal disclosure in facilitating information elicitation. Our data suggest that even this
unilateral disclosure may be beneficial to developing rapport.
Implications for Policy and Practice
Interviewers who are able to effectively build rapport with a subject are in an
advantageous position with respect to information elicitation. In the present experiments, the
quantity and quality of information obtained from interviews increased as a result of improved
perceptions of rapport on the part of the subject. Based upon the current findings, effective
tactics to build rapport could include interviewer self-disclosure (compared to no disclosure, or
participant-only disclosure) and seeking common ground and similarity between the interviewer
and the subject. Though the research tenuously supports the effect of self-verifying feedback, the
conditions under which it manifests warrants further research.
Interview subjects in the current study may have been more receptive to the interviewers’
rapport-building attempts given that they had admitted to having committed the misdemeanor in
a previous survey. As such, the current studies demonstrated that rapport building tactics
facilitated information disclosure from moderately reluctant subjects. Reluctance in our subjects
likely derived from the stigma associated with commission of the illegal behavior, rather than a
denial of guilt as might be expected in a legal context. Nevertheless, the current findings are
consistent with extant research in experimental interview studies (Evans et al., 2014; Vallano &
Schreiber Compo, 2011), and the use of self-disclosure to facilitate common ground with a
subject has been widely reported by law enforcement investigators and intelligence collectors
(Goodman-Delahunty & Howes, 2016; Russano et al., 2014; Vallano et al., 2015).
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 33
The current experiments were conducted to address the need for ethical and effective
alternatives to extant coercive tactics (Meissner et al., 2017). In line with other information-
gathering approaches like the PEACE method (Bull, 2020), here we experimentally
demonstrated benefits to interrogation outcomes with techniques that contrast with traditional
and problematic methods used in countries such as the United States and Canada. Given the now
substantial body of research demonstrating the utility of evidence-based interviewing in eliciting
reliable, diagnostic information (Brandon et al., 2018; Meissner et al., 2015), it is time that we
press for policies that explicitly prohibit the use of demonstrably problematic techniques and
instead require the training and use of evidence-based interviewing approaches (Snook et al.,
2020).
Taken together, these findings highlight the utility of a rapport-based approach for
investigative interviews. The use of simple, superficial questions, revealing personal information
largely unrelated to the misdeed, can increase rapport and lead participants to cooperate with an
interviewer’s requests for information. While operationalized for an experimental context in the
current study, the tactics we examined can be seamlessly incorporated into practitioner training
on evidence-based interviewing tactics (Brimbal et al., 2021).
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 34
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RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 44
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics for Perceived Rapport, Cooperation, and Information Disclosure,
Experiment 1
N
Positive Rapport
Cooperation
Information
Disclosure
No Disclosure
32
-0.28 (0.95)
-0.09 (0.58)
-0.14 (1.05)
Interviewer Only
31
-0.06 (0.97)
-0.19 (0.67)
-0.15 (1.03)
Participant Only
30
-0.10 (1.02)
0.15 (0.52)
0.10 (0.92)
Reciprocal
31
0.44 (0.73)
0.14 (0.58)
0.19 (0.76)
Note. Values represent factor scores for perceived rapport, cooperation, and information
disclosure. A factor score of zero for each measure represents a value that is close to the average
for our sample; negative factor scores indicate lower than average values and positive factor
scores indicate higher than average values. Values in parentheses represent standard deviations.
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 45
Table 2
Descriptive Statistics for Perceived Rapport, Cooperation, and Information Disclosure,
Experiment 2
N
Positive Rapport
Cooperation
Information Disclosure
Verifying Feedback-Absent
Disclosure-Absent
29
-0.39 (1.07)
-0.23 (0.69)
-0.37 (1.13)
Disclosure-Dissimilar
31
-0.18 (0.84)
0.10 (0.56)
0.02 (1.03)
Disclosure-Similar
43
0.13 (0.85)
0.10 (0.64)
0.12 (0.76)
N
Positive Rapport
Cooperation
Information Disclosure
Verifying Feedback-Present
Disclosure-Absent
32
-0.04 (0.81)
0.08 (0.73)
-0.03 (0.80)
Disclosure-Dissimilar
30
0.01 (1.13)
0.02 (0.75)
-0.15 (1.04)
Disclosure-Similar
45
0.29 (0.90)
-0.04 (0.66)
0.22 (0.77)
Note. Values represent factor scores for perceived rapport, cooperation, and information
disclosure. A factor score of zero for each measure represents a value that is close to the average
for our sample; negative factor scores indicate lower than average values and positive factor
scores indicate higher than average values. Values in parentheses represent standard deviations.
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 46
Figure 1
Mediational Path Model Demonstrating Standardized Direct Effects of the Interview
Manipulations, Experiment 1.
RAPPORT BUILDING AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE 47
Figure 2
Mediational Path Model Demonstrating Standardized Direct Effects of the Interview
Manipulations, Experiment 2.
