Essay on "Polygraph Testing in the Promotion of Integrity"

Essay 4 pages (1671 words) Sources: 4

[EXCERPT] . . . .

polygraph testing in the promotion of integrity among police officers.

The polygraph is a psychophysical recording instrument that is used to assess whether or not the person in question is lying. It works on the presupposition that when a person lies, his blood level will be aroused and other physiological symptoms will be noticed such as his or her heart rate will quicken. Proponents claim that experts applying the test will also notice differences in respiration rate and galvanic skin response (Garwood & Ansley, 1983. ). The test is widely used in Westernized countries such as the UK and America for hiring people in positions of responsibility, such as in government positions and in the police department. However, the instrument has been widely criticized in both the UK and in the U.S.A. For various reasons. Two primary reasons include the following:

Cause and effect are spurious-

There is no reason to believe that the instrument will stimulate the physiological galvanic response expected of it. Expert liers can fabricate in such a way that their deception may provide no overt physiological response. Some may, in fact, actually believe their untruths hence the lie will be facile and comfortable provoking no uncomfortable psychophysical response. Others, however, may be so concerned with not lying, or may be intimidated by the actual interviewing procedure itself, that psychophysical responses, allegedly symptomatic of deception, will be evoked.

Research shows conflicting restuls

The accuracy of the polygraph testing is instead uncertain since conducted studies on the method have shown contradictory results regarding the reliability of polygraph testing. To that end, it is not so simple whether polygraph testing is as scientific as government employers and police recruitment centers consider it to be (Saxe, Dougherty & Cross, 1983. )

More so, as Brett et al. (1986), pointed out, results of polygraph tests are dependent upon the specific age sampled. A 20-year-old youth will show different results than those recorded by a 60-year-old man, possibly suffering from the commencement of coronary disease. Results of the test will have nothing to do with their engaging in deception. Rather, health-related matters, to a great extent, determine results of test.

That this is so was tested by Brett et al. (1986) in a 2-step study. They firstly conducted a literature study of the polygraph test in order to determine the specificity and sensitivity of the test. Secondly, they used Bayes formula to investigate predictive value of the polygraph in various official settings.

In order to assess accuracy of the polygraph tool, the researchers approached it from the vantage point of criminals seeking studies where the following criteria was met:

The polygraph data was obtained from studies of criminals

Truth or falsehood was elicited by confession of criminal

Evaluators based their decision solely on the polygraph data

There was no basis in the selection of records

Two studies were found that fulfilled these criteria.

Bayesian test conducted by Brett et al. (1986).

The positive predictive value [PV (pos)] was calculated as follows:

PV (pos) = true positives ? true positives + false positives

= offenders with a positive test ? (offenders + non-offenders) with a positive test

The true positives refers to times when the candidates were indeed lying as indicated by Polygraph test. The false positive, on the other hand, refer to times when polygraph test indicates lying, but candidates are actually not doing so.

Researchers also calculated positive and negative predictive values at several specific instances when offenders were most apt to lie using figures for both average and extreme test performance. This would investigate the extent to which the Polygraph test erred (if indeed it did).

The researchers found that for every 10 positive results of Polygraph tests indicated, only 1 actually showed true results. This meant that 9 out of every 10 people convicted of being guilty were actually innocent, or, in other words, that the Polygraph test convicted innocent people in 9 out of 10 cases and, therefore, mostly failed than succeeded.

In fact, Bayesian calculations showed that the reality of candidates who actually committed some minor misdemeanor (such as previous theft) is actually as low as 10-28% of persons . However, false positives of the Polygraph test raise the figure to as high as 72-90% of these persons who will be falsely accused of lying. Similarly, in criminal investigation only 1 out of 20 suspects is likely to be an offender . Average polygraph results however show a figure of 67%, whilst more extreme tests raise the figure to 88%. What this indicates is that interviewers should be highly wary of even the average testing of polygraph detectors . Interviewers, however, and particularly those hiring ccandidates for official positions such as police and government positions often use extreme testing. These are even more unreliable.

Constructing that into a table, Brett et al. (1986) calculated that if polygraph testing were to be applied to a sample of 1000 prospective employers, the table will yield a total of 389 positive test results of which 38 will be true positives and 351 will be false positives!

Transferring this scenario to the hiring of police candidates, we may assume that either 351 potential candidates will be falsely rejected on the basis of the polygraph test and falsely tagged as lying, or 351 candidates will be accepted into the police agency, or into similar positions of responsibility, and some of these may have committed egregious misdemeanors as part of their past experience. Either way, the polygraph test is far from reliable and seems to deserve exclusion from being used for prospective hiring in any employment situation. Given the power, prestige, and responsibility of the police career, it is all the more important that polygraph testing be excluded from its inclusion as hiring arsenal.

Other studies, investigating the authenticity of polygraph testing, have shown even higher statistical results in regards to false positives with figures ranging as high as 94.1% (Saxe et al., 1983).

Furthermore, studies such as those by Kleinmuntz, (1994) have shown poor interobservor agreement when interpreting results indicating that the interpretation of the tests are biased ultimately relying on observor for interpretation and the observer more often than not errs and is subjective. Results of the acceptance of these tests vary as widely as 12.5% to 94.1% (Saxe et al., 1983). Any test that yields such disparate and wide results should be cautiously looked into before being ac accepted, or should be accepted only with extreme reservation. In fact, Lykken (1997) argued that tests that show statistical results in the 90% range indicate huge deficiencies in methodology. The fact that the polygraph test shows results that approach 95% is one that should trouble anyone who uses this test on the basis of executing serious results.

As Brett et al. (1986) conclude:

Polygraph testing in several settings will generate large numbers of false positive results, thus incriminating many truthful persons. In some circumstances truthful persons diagnosed as liars will outnumber actual liars by a wide margin. Furthermore, the idea of hoping to prove one's innocence by taking a polygraph test is misguided, since the false positive rate among truthful persons may be 37% (ie, 1-specificity) or higher (http://www.american-buddha.com/art.predictivepowerpolygraphbeary.htm).

Supporters of polygraph tests may argue that polygraph testing should be supplemented to other psychological tests, but Brett and colleagues rebut this with the observation that "that this position is unrealistic; the lure of investing a seemingly "objective" test with excessive confidence seems inescapable" (ibid.)

In conclusion, lying has no noted physiological response and liers manage to different degrees to overcome their response -- given that they sensed that they were lying. Psychophysical responses, on the other hand, may be evoked as reaction to the health conditions of the interrogated person leading employers to unwittingly perpetuate discrimination in hiring potential candidates… READ MORE

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