Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

example, by pressing eyewitnesses to answer ques-

tions about events that they are unsure of. Kathy

Pezdek and her colleagues conducted several studies

to examine this issue. In this study, individuals viewed

a crime video and then answered open-ended ques-

tions that included answerable and unanswerable

questions about the video. Half the participants were

in the “spontaneous guess” condition; the “Don’t

know” response option was available to them, so they

did not need to guess any answers. The other half of

the participants were in the “forced guess” condition

and did not have a “Don’t know” response option.

One week later, the same questions were answered

with a “Don’t know” option available for everyone.

The primary finding concerns the following ques-

tion: If participants were forced to guess answers to

unanswerablequestions at Time 1, were the answers

they generated likely to be recalled 1 week later at Time

2, when they all had the option of responding, “Don’t

know”? The responses to unanswerable questions are

the most revealing in this study, because we know that

the individuals did not actually observe the information

relevant to answering those questions. The mean pro-

portion of responses that received the same answer at

Time 1 and Time 2 was significantly higher in the spon-

taneous guess condition (M=.54) than in the forced

guess condition (M=.40). This result suggests that

although false confabulation does occur, false informa-

tion that resulted from forced confabulation is less

likely to persist in memory than false information

that individuals spontaneously provided because they

thought they had observed it. Furthermore, when the

same answer was given to an unanswerable question

both times, the confidence expressed in the answer

increased over time both for answers that were sponta-

neously guessed and those that were forced guesses.

Thus, erroneous memories that occur from self-

generated false confabulation are confidently held. This

is of course problematic from the point of view of

assessing the veracity of eyewitness memories because

it suggests that it may be difficult to differentiate

between true and falsely confabulated memories.

This topic is relevant to the specialty of psychology

and law because virtually 100% of all eyewitnesses to

crimes who eventually testify in court are interviewed

by police officers at least once, and typically multiple

times. Forced confabulation can occur in police inter-

views when officers press an eyewitness to answer a

question even though the eyewitness has indicated

that he or she does not know or is unsure of the answer

to the question. In addition, police interrogation typi-

cally involves techniques to pressure witnesses to

answer questions they are reluctant or unable to

answer. It is important to recognize that such tech-

niques are likely to generate forced confabulations—

even confidently held forced confabulations—as well

as true information. Although no data exist document-

ing how frequently this practice occurs in real police

interviews, Richard Leo has reported that this is not an

unusual practice, that, in fact, forced confessions

commonly occur under these circumstances.

Kathy Pezdek

See alsoDelusions; Eyewitness Memory; False Confessions;

False Memories; Postevent Information and Eyewitness

Memory

Further Readings

Ackil, J. K., & Zaragoza, M. S. (1998). Memorial

consequences of forced confabulation: Age differences in

susceptibility to false memories. Developmental

Psychology, 34,1358–1372.

Leo, R. A. (1996). Inside the interrogation room. Journal of

Criminal Law and Criminology, 86,266–303.

Pezdek, K., Sperry, K., & Owens, S. (in press). Interviewing

witnesses: The effect of forced confabulation on event

memory. Law & Human Behavior.

FORCIBLEMEDICATION

This entry discusses the involuntary administration of

psychotropic medication, which continues to be one

of the most controversial issues in mental health law.

Whether mental patients in hospital, the community,

jail, prison, or the judicial process may refuse psy-

chotropic medication that the government would like

to administer raises complex legal, clinical, moral,

and social issues. Psychotropic medication is by far

the leading treatment technique for patients diagnosed

with mental illness. Although demonstrably helpful

for many patients, it often imposes serious direct,

often debilitating, and unwanted side effects that are

beyond the patient’s ability to resist and that may be

long lasting. As a result, involuntary administration of

these drugs raises serious constitutional questions.

Most states now have statutory and administrative

restrictions on involuntary treatment. The limits

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