science

Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale

Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale rather than just read about it. In short: The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS) is a psychological test that measures suggestibility of a subject. It was created in 1983 in England by psychologist Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson, who had been a detective in Iceland.

Key takeaways

Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS) is a psychological test that measures suggestibility of a subject. It was created in 1983 in England by psychologist Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson, who had been a detective in Iceland. It involves reading a short story to the subject and testing recall. This test has been used in court cases in several jurisdictions but has been the subject of various criticisms.

History The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale was created in 1983 by Icelandic psychologist Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson. Given his large number of publications on suggestibility, Gísli was often called as an expert witness in court cases where the suggestibility of those involved in the case was crucial to the proceedings. To measure suggestibility, Gísli created a scale that was relatively straightforward and could be administered in a wide variety of settings. He noticed that while there was a significant body of research on the effects of leading questions on suggestibility, less was known about the effects of "specific instruction" and "interpersonal pressure". Previous methods of measuring suggestibility were primarily aimed at "hypnotic phenomena"; however, Gísli's scale was the first created to be used specifically in conjunction with interrogative events. His test relies on two different aspects of interrogative suggestibility: it measures how much an interrogated person yields to leading questions, as well as how much an interrogated person shifts their responses when additional interrogative pressure is applied. The test is designed specifically to measure the effects of suggestive questions and instructions. Although originally developed in English, the scale has been translated into several different languages, including Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, and Polish.

Method The GSS involves reading a short story to the subject, followed by a general recall activity, a test, and a retest. It begins with a short story being read to the subject. The subject is instructed to listen carefully to the story being read to them because they will have to report what they remember afterward. After the researcher reads the story aloud to the participant, the subject is asked to engage in free recall in which they report everything remembered of what was just read. Subjects may be asked to report these facts after a delay in addition to immediately following the story. This part of the assessment is scored based on how many facts the subject recalls correctly. The second part of the assessment consists of twenty questions regarding the short story. The target questions can be separated into three types: leading questions, affirmative questions, and false alternative questions. Their purpose is to measure how much a participant "yields" to these questions. Additionally, there are five neutral questions. After 1987, the GSS was altered so that these five questions were included in the shift score as well. This version is referred to as the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale 2, or GSS2.

Scoring Scoring can be broken down into two main categories: memory recall and suggestibility. Memory recall refers to the number of facts the subject correctly remembered during the free recall. Each fact is worth one point, and the subject can earn a maximum of forty points for this section. The suggestibility section is broken into three subcategories-yield, shift, and total. Yield refers to the number of suggestive questions answered incorrectly, based on the original story. With each question being worth one point, subjects can score up to fifteen points on this section. If the subject engaged in two recall activities, the score for the second trial is not included in the scoring. Shift refers to any notable significant change in the participant's answers after they were told to go over their original answers and correct their mistakes. Subjects can also score up to fifteen points on this section. The total score refers to the sum of both the Yield and Shift scores. In a sample of 195 people, the Yield 1 mean score was 4.9, with a standard deviation of 3.0. The Yield 2 mean score was 6.9, with a standard deviation of 3.4. The average Shift score was 3.6, with a standard deviation of 2.7. For total suggestibility (Yield + Shift), the average score was 8.5, with a standard deviation of 4.3. The average memory recall score was 19.2, with a standard deviation of 8.0.

Measures of reliability and validity Internal consistency scores between Yield 1 and Shift for the GSS range from −.23 to .28. Internal consistency for the fifteen Yield and fifteen Shift questions were reportedly 0.77 and 0.67, respectively. The GSS2 showed higher internal consistency than the GSS1. Test-retest reliability was reportedly 0.55. Overall, Shift scores showed the lowest internal consistency, at 0.11. Other scores were significant. External validity, tested with the Portuguese version of the GSS, showed no correlation between interrogative suggestibility and factors of personality, nor interrogative suggestibility and anxiety. Immediate recall and delayed recall correlated negatively with all suggestibility scores.

Uses in the justice system

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Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale

In research: Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Interrogation techniques, Psychological tests and scales, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale in simple terms?

Why does Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale.