The Role of Emotion in Witness Interviews

Just the facts, ma'am.

That quote's been attributed to Sergeant Joe Friday from the old TV show Dragnet.

And while that's actually not what he actually said in the show, when it came to witness interviews, Sgt. Friday wanted a straight retelling of the factual information, without emotion.

But is that approach really the best way to conduct a witness interview? No. And in this piece we’ll explore why emotion is critical to an effective witness interview.

Hi, I'm Mike Corwin, and I spent 30 years conducting witness interviews for civil and criminal litigation, as well as for internal investigations, including employment matters like workplace violence.

If you're interested in learning more about improving the effectiveness of the witness interviews that you conduct, I've got a great resource for you. It's my 6 Steps to More Effective Witness Interviews. 

So let’s dive in and discuss emotion’s role in witness interviews.

People are not robots. Emotions play a part in the way that we remember things.

As a matter of fact, there's some science behind that. According to an article in Frontiers in Science, “The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory” (August 2017), people recall information better, when emotion is involved. Especially when they can feel the emotions that they experienced at the time of the incident.

And that’s because emotion helps with encoding memory, and in the efficient retrieval of it too.

When we do witness interviews, whether it’s for an employment related incident, such as sex harassment, or it’s for a litigation related incident, such as a catastrophic accident.

The reality is that you're going to bring the witness back emotionally to where they were at the time that they witnessed this incident.

You're basically giving the witness a version of PTSD.

I used to do a lot of criminal defense homicide cases, and a lot of tragic cases on the civil side as well. And those types of emotionally charged matters lead to very emotional witness interviews.

But there’s emotion even when you're dealing with people in a workplace setting. There’s all kinds of fears related to a workplace investigation including the fear of losing a paycheck.

There's even fears about the interpersonal dynamics of the workplace and how being a witness in the situation will impact them.

And when we try to remove emotion from the interview process, using the just the facts ma’am approach, we're actually lessening our ability to get good information.

We don't want to do that.

So, there's a couple of key points to remember about the role of emotions and witness interviews.

The underlying element here is that the emotions experienced by the witness during the interview, especially when they're connected to the emotions experienced during the incident itself, serve to help witnesses recall what they observed and experienced.

So when we conduct interviews, we don't want to downplay emotion. We want to embrace it.

There’s a right way and a wrong way of doing that.

We don't want to force emotion on witnesses.

We actually want them to bring themselves to that place all on their own. Without us making a show of it, or making it too prominent from our perspective.

Here's how we actually begin that process.

When we first start up a witness interview, we always want to build rapport with the witness. It's probably the most important aspect of a successful witness interview.

And when we're building rapport, we're making that connection on an emotional level.

We're not making it on an intellectual level, on a cerebral level. We're trying to make a real connection with the witness, and connection is done from the heart, not from the head.

By doing that, we're letting the witness know that it's okay that emotions play a role in the interview process, and that the interview will be conducted on a more human level than the just the facts ma’am approach.

There’s a couple of things to really think about as we do the interview. You’re kind of giving the witness permission to run with emotional feelings. You have to do that because otherwise the witness won’t know that having emotions bubble up during the interview is okay.

We want to be careful not to shut the witness down when connecting with emotions.

One of the things that I like to do at the start of an interview is to tell the witness that I understand that “what you experienced was pretty difficult to go through”.

And apologize for putting the witness through that experience again. But it's unfortunately a part of the process, and to let the witness know that it’s common to experience these emotions again during the interview.

This lays the groundwork for emotion to play a role in the interview by getting the witness to see that feeling emotions is pretty normal during an interview about something difficult.

And that I’m mindful that I’m the one making the witness experience it all over again.

As an aside, I don’t like to use the term interview when discussing the process with a witness. It’s too formal. I prefer to say we're talking about, or discussing instead.

Next thing to do to bring emotion into the interview to help recall is to let the witness go where the witness wants to go. Don’t try to steer the witness to where you want the witness to go, at least not that early in the interview.

Because an uninterrupted narrative is where the emotions will really help with recall.

So let the witness take the lead on the narrative.

And to get that process started, I like to ask the witness, “what made you realize something was happening?”

Now, at that point, that's when you're going to be quiet and you're going to let the witness do all of the talking so that the witness will really feel the experience. This allows the witness to be back in their head. What it felt like for them at that time, as they start to recount this.

Now, this may be difficult to do, but you really don't want to interrupt this process.

Yes, they may go off on tangents.

They may not cover all of the specific things that you want to cover for your interview, but you can get there later.

For now, you want the witness to experience being there, and to recount what the witness saw, felt, and did at the time of the incident.

If you need to break into the narrative to get some clarification, that's fine.

If you need to have them go back over something that wasn’t clear, that's fine too.

Just don’t do it often.

The more the witness talks, and the more the witness sits with the feelings that were experienced at the time, the better their recall is going to be, and the more effective a witness they’ll be.

Which means better quality information for you.

And that matters since information is a tool. One that helps to make decisions.

One of the things that we want to do is to help the witness recreate the scene.

So after the witness has done an initial run through, you could say something like, “let me make sure that I understand all that you told me.” And then paraphrase what the witness said.

So you were sitting in your car at the traffic light.

When all of a sudden you saw a car come screaming through the intersection, And the car in front of you had already started up because that car had a green light.

This gets the wtness to feel the emotions of the incident, and then return to the narrative.

When you do that, the witness will likely start to add more detail to the initial narrative.

So you're focusing the witness on important information, but you're doing it by placing the witness in their mind’s eye back when the situation occurred.

And then, once again, you're going to be quiet.

As they feel the emotion they experienced at the time, and recall it, they’ll again provide more detail.

And then to elicit any remaining information, you can say “so let me back you up for a second.”

Or, “so what you're saying is …”

This time paraphrase the information you want to lock down, and in response, they’ll provide even more detail.

But when you do so, you’re not interrupting their flow. You’re opening the door for the witness to walk through, and then you focus on listening.

By going silent, you’re letting them stay in that place where the emotions were.

Because again, that's what's going to really help the witness with the recall of the incident.

Once the witness is done, you can make one more step to get that last bit of information from the witness by asking, “is there anything else that you think that I should be aware of?”

Keep in mind, the witness has been sitting in that emotional space for a while and that should really help the witness to recall anything not covered earlier during the interview.

If the witness missed something early, that’s the time, the witness will provide you with that last little bit of information.

Interviews are not science. Maybe just a bit. And a little bit of art too., But really what makes an effective interview is connection.

It's the rapport you build with the witness.

It's about the witness trusting you enough to feel like the witness can be themselves, and doing so helps to put them into the place where it’s easier to recount the information.

If you found this interesting, I’ve got a great guide for you.

It's my 6 steps to more effective witness interviews, and it can really help you to get your witness interviews to be where you want them to be so that they're the most effective they can be.