Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

["Christopher Kilmartin" <>]

You also don't have to be a sociopath to beat a polygraph.  50% of 
undergraduates were able to do so with only one hour of training.  Because 
everyone's physiological levels are different, the examiner has to establish 
a baseline by asking neutral questions that he/she knows the answer to (what 
is your name, where do you live, etc.).  Then the examiner looks for a change 
in the levels when asking the critical question.  If you create physical pain 
during the baseline question (e.g., by curling your toes underneath your feet 
or tensing the sphincter muscle, neither of which an examiner could detect), 
you can artificially inflate heart rate, GSR, etc.,  and then you relax when 
you hear the critical question, which makes you stand a good chance of 
looking like you're telling the truth.

and you can look like you're lying when you're telling the truth, as the 
critical question can evoke anxiety, even if one is innocent.  I can't 
remember who called the polygraph "an insidious Orwellian torture device"  
There's a good reason why they aren't admissible in court.

The important thing is that the subject BELIEVES that the polygraph will 
expose lies, and of course there's no way to know.  Polygraphs can be used 
successfully with naive subjects, like unsophisticated sex offenders when 
you're trying to find out their true histories of offending (as opposed to 
just what they've been caught for).  Social psychologists have used a device 
called the "bogus pipeline" which is a sham machine (like Milgram's famous 
"shock generator") that experimenters tell subjects is a lie detector, and 
you get different results with social desirability self reports when you hook 
people up to it than not.

chris

Christopher Kilmartin, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of Mary Washington
Fredericksburg, VA 22401
(540) 654-1562  



>>> "Foubert, John" 
>>> <>
>>>  6/1/2009 5:17 PM >>>
I don't have an article to cite on this issue of polygraphs and rapists, but 
this may give you a start....

Polygraphs rely on individuals to have a nervous response to lying.  A 
sociopath and/or someone who does not get nervous when lying will pass a 
polygraph just fine because he/she sees no problem with lying because he/she 
lacks a conscience to say "you shouldn't lie, it is wrong."  That, to may 
understanding, is one reason why polygraphs are not admissible as evidence in 
court.   There are, I am sure, many perpetrators who lack a conscience, and 
thus could easily pass a polygraph and then claim vindication.  What the 
polygraph would really show is that they are either a sociopath and/or that 
they have no conscience; something we basically so often already know (unless 
there is a case of mistaken identity) from the fact that they raped someone.  
You might start searching in Google Scholar for articles about rape and 
polygraph and see what you come up with.  Just a thought.

John Foubert

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John D. Foubert, Ph.D., LLC
Associate Professor and Program Coordinator
College Student Development Master's Degree Program
Oklahoma State University
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