posted 03-30-2009 12:11 PM            

There is a lot of information on the internet about “How to Beat the Box” For the most part, this information is offered by disgruntled people who have failed their own polygraph examinations and somehow believe that they were wronged by the system.

I encourage you to be completely honest and truthful with your background investigator and your polygraph examiner and avoid following bad advice about how to pass your test. Please read the following before you decide.

For an applicant, to even consider countermeasures, suggests hyper vigilance, lack of trust, lack of confidence, and a willingness to engage in deceptive behavior considered by most as contraindicated in being a law enforcement officer or holding any position of responsibility in government employment. Who knows what such a potential employee might fake, lie, or make up, right? I think most reasonable persons would agree to this as well.

There is no scientific proof that a truthful person can engage in countermeasures and increase the probability of passing their polygraph. There are studies that show a truthful person who attempts to alter the results of their polygraph examination can actually reduce their probability of passing for a wide variety of reasons. I think the main reasons are that the information available on the internet about how to do it is inaccurate or incomplete and the process of manipulating ones physiology to mimic natural responses isn’t as uncomplicated as they make it sound.

It is amazing to me, that people who are so paranoid about simply telling the truth and passing their exam don’t appear to have any skepticism or distrust regarding the accuracy of material provided by strangers in an internet forum, especially since these same strangers tell their readers that lying and cheating is acceptable behavior.

If you try countermeasures and get caught or try them and fail your test, both of which, in my opinion, are vastly more probable than successfully using countermeasures, don't expect a sympathetic ear when you try to use excuse your behavior, as the examiner escorts you to the door.

Doesn't trying to explain that you were only lying and cheating to insure the test established your honesty sound a bit odd? If it doesn't, it should.

posted 03-30-2009 02:13 PM            

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For an applicant, to even consider countermeasures, suggests hyper vigilance, lack of trust, lack of confidence, and a willingness to engage in deceptive behavior considered by most as contraindicated in being a law enforcement officer or holding any position of responsibility in government employment. Who knows what such a potential employee might fake, lie, or make up, right? I think most reasonable persons would agree to this as well.

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As stated, this is a non-sequitur. Ask yourself this: is it conceivable that a normally vigilant (ie., non-paranoid), reasonably-confident, person with intact and balance trust boundaries (e.g., trust vs. mistrust – in an Ericksonian kind of way) might consider using Cms after looking online in preparation for a polygraph test. Sure. It's conceivable. It is an unstudied assumption that the consideration of using Cms suggests a willingness to engage in deceptive behavior that would render one unsuitable or contraindicated LE employment. If this were a simple matter, then ou'd think some smart person would have already mapped out the empirical correlation. Instead, we're stuck with the reality of our anecdotal experience which tells us that deceptive people sometimes attempt to use Cms. Our experience also tells us that truthful people sometimes attempt to use Cms. The correlation is still unstudied and unknown, and it is therefore difficult to interpret the meaning of Cms attempts by themselves. This leaves us back at the old clinical approach of considering all the information, the whole person, and the contextual background... Then consider that LE officers in the US are permitted to engage in deception in the course of their investigations. (It is my understanding that this is not the same in all countries.) Deceptiveness itself is therefore not a quality that singularly renders one unsuitable for LE. As to “such a potential employee might fake, lie or make up,” this type of slippery-slope argument is useful for posttesting and other verbal stagging maneuvers, but is unlikely to impress critical thinkers.

The rest is OK.

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I think the main reasons are that the information available on the internet about how to do it is inaccurate or incomplete and the process of manipulating ones physiology to mimic natural responses isn’t as uncomplicated as they make it sound.

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Do we really want to coach them on how to think more critically about this?

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It is amazing to me, that people who are so paranoid about simply telling the truth and passing their exam don’t appear to have any skepticism or distrust regarding the accuracy of material provided by strangers in an internet forum, especially since these same strangers tell their readers that lying and cheating is acceptable behavior. If you try countermeasures and get caught or try them and fail your test, both of which, in my opinion, are vastly more probable than successfully using countermeasures, don't expect a sympathetic ear when you try to use excuse your behavior, as the examiner escorts you to the door.

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This argument is interesting, but you'll loose the applicant's attention when you call him names like “paranoid.”

Just my .02

r

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."
--(Stanley Kubrick/Peter Sellers - Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

posted 03-30-2009 05:26 PM            

While Law Enforcement Officers in the US are permitted to engage in deception in the course of their investigations, this is a very narrow road they are permitted to travel in order to extract admissions and confessions. Even so, I don’t know any investigators who lie to their suspects very often. The practice is rarely required by skilled interviewers. Law Enforcement Officers are not permitted to engage in deception during any phase of the application process including polygraph nor are they permitted once hired to lie to their chain of command regarding their behavior as it relates to the performance of their duty in any aspect. The former can result in not being hired and the latter is grounds for sanctions up to and including termination from employment. They are also not permitted to engage in deception in the filing of official reports or courtroom testimony at the risk of termination and or jail. In fact, if they lie to a suspect, information regarding the lie should be included in their report to avoid embarrassing moments on the witness stand.

Someone attempting countermeasures or engaging in deception under any of those circumstances is engaging in behaviors contraindicated in being a law enforcement officer or holding any position of responsibility in government employment. A “truthful” person who attempts countermeasures, does so at their peril because of a reasonable presumption that someone who does so is untrustworthy. The argument that “I cheated to be sure you could tell I was honest” won’t hold water.

I think, if a non-sequitur exists in this argument it doesn’t lie in my statement, it lies in the premise that an officer is allowed to lie to a suspect and not lie to his boss.

Perhaps I don’t want them to think to critically about their physiology, but I do wish to convey that the process isn’t simple.

Actually that statement about being paranoid about the test yet trusting of internet cm info was designed to allow the reader to distance himself, in his mind from “those people” who think they need to cheat in order to pass a test about their honesty.

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Ex scientia veritas

posted 03-30-2009 06:02 PM            

There is no doubt that complete honesty is a reasonable expectation to impose on LE applicants, as is honesty in the course of completion of one's duties. The only semi-strong part of my argument is that the capacity for dishonesty (with suspects) is indicated (not contraindicated) in LE employees in the US.

There is no real doubt about the peril faced by applicants who attempt CMs.

The non-sequitur is actually the values-based (not science based) assumption that applicants will be completely honest simply because we expect complete honesty - with the corollary that even people we consider truthful and forthcoming are probably still withholding something. The corollary to this is that it is simply not possible to know everything - and the ideological (not empirical) proposition that we need to know everything gets us engaging in what looks to our detractors like sanctimoniousness and pretentiousness and not much like science.

There is vast experience and evidence in the social sciences that people tend to underreport and minimize their deficits. This is a known fact with paper-and-pencil self-report tests. That is why we try to build validity indices into things like the MMPI-2 and MCMI-III and other personality tests. It is also why we polygraph people.

When people engage in symptom or defect exaggeration it is most often due to some external motivation for doing so. This can be an attempt to mitigate the consequences of some criminal behavior - due to mental health difficulties such as depression, anxiety, or negative childhood and relationship experiences. This can also be due to the requirement to pass a polygraph, in which it is assumed by some that a way to ensure one is not minimizing is to overreport or exaggerate the possible number or type of transgressions.

We have three possible outcomes regarding our expectation for complete honesty: 1) perfect (100%) reporting with no minimizing and no exaggerating, 3) some minimizing - due to the normal human tendency to underreport.

Polygraph opponents and polygraph detractors - at ATSA for example - have a different word for overreporting and exaggerating the possible numbers or types of transgressions. They will use the term "false confessions" with the arguement that the polygraph is such an unfair and biased test that people have to make false-confessions just to pacify the process and hope for a good outcome.

The real answer to this riddle is to outgrow the ideological posture and focus on the data points that actually matter - in terms of their predictive value towards desired or undesired outcomes (whether LE training and job success, sex offender treatment and supervision outcomes, or compliance with integrity and security policies). This is where we need to have careful conversations with risk researchers and risk adjudicators regarding the selection of the most useful and salient investigation targets. Otherwise, we select targets based on what you or I think matters, and that may or may not actually be useful. Another possibility is that we can generally always find something that someone is lying about, and those issues may or may not actually contribute to the accurate assessment of risk or suitability for employment. What matters is that we select investigation targets that actually matter (I know this sounds circular but it's not – targets have to matter in their correlation to the desired or unwanted outcomes.)

This is a little off track from your original point. But it is entirely related when we begin to discuss whether the use of Cms itself is or is not related to the desired criterion. The real strong point in your argument is the expectation for accurate and honest participation in the application process.

You are perhaps right to ask people to think critically about their choices and the people from whom they accept advice.

There is not doubt that there are hazards that applicants should know about.

While we're having fun challenging their assumptions, its also maybe a good idea to check our own assumptions for their vulnerabilities.

r

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."
--(Stanley Kubrick/Peter Sellers - Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

posted 03-31-2009 11:20 AM            

These people, through nervousness, curiosity, or television depictions about polygraph may find their way to countermeasure information on the internet and believe the incomplete theories, intentionally inaccurate information and other B.S. spewed out by the anti-polygraph/pro-countermeasure crowd, turning their curiosity and nervousness into paranoia about the process. These are the people I am trying to reach with my comments in order to provide them with an alternative view promoting honesty and truthfulness instead of cheating and deception.

I don’t have a problem with asking an applicant to be completely honest and truthful with his background investigator and polygraph examiner. I can’t really think of a way to ask an examinee to be less than completely honest and truthful without sounding silly. I don’t have a problem with telling an applicant who is considering using countermeasures that he is increasing the likelihood of rejection. I happen to believe that putting an examinee on notice regarding countermeasure attempts tends to complicate their implementation in the mind of an examinee. It’s why I don’t hide my CM cushion. If a by product of imploring them to be honest results in attempts to minimize or conceal past behaviors I would expect to see that translated into chart reaction if it is of any consequence. If imploring them to be honest results in the over-reporting or exaggeration of the number or types of transgressions then those admissions can be fairly weighed by the employer as likely truthful admissions against self-interest. Absent evidence of mental defect, our courts seem to hold admissions against interest in high regard. I think it is fair that employers do likewise.

I am not so naïve that I will ever expect someone to be completely honest and truthful about every aspect of his life. That isn’t what I am after. When I ask for his complete honesty and truthfulness, I am asking for him to respond to questions truthfully and to avoid the temptation to cheat on the test while at the same time putting him on notice that if he isn’t truthful or tries to cheat, it is my job to catch him and expose his dishonesty and that I intend to do my job. I do this to lead the examinee to an assumption that the consequences of lying on the exam is a lost employment opportunity and that attempting to cheat on the test by using countermeasures has the same consequence regardless of whether or not the examinee responded to questions truthfully.

You make some good points but a pre-employment polygraph examination is not designed to determine whether or not an applicant is a totally honest or completely truthful individual because as you stated it is impossible to know everything. No thoughtful examiner makes very much use of those terms in describing test results because we know that total honesty and complete truthfulness are not measurable with the tools we currently use.

Even though we may ask hundreds of questions in background packets and pre test interviews, when it comes time to formulate test questions, I think most of us end up with an almost standardized list of relevant issues surrounding undiscovered crimes, drug use, and application truthfulness, with perhaps another question if indicated by pre-test conversation.

I am fully aware that we are not really able to conclude from our test that the subject has NOT ever committed an undiscovered crime, NEVER illegally used drugs, or lied on his application. What we are actually recording is whether or not his responses to those questions cause a significant reaction that causes us to further question his veracity. The breakdown test may then allow us to infer truth or deception on reactive issues. If we see no reaction does that mean he is telling the absolute truth? No, all we can really say that his response to the question did not cause significant consistent reactions indicative of deception. That may be why we use the terms NDI and NSR instead of truthful.

Past behavior is not necessarily an absolute quantifiable indicator of future conduct, but there is a large body of anecdotal evidence that liars will continue to lie as a means of self preservation while others hold the truth is such high regard that they will tell the truth even when it could cause them damage. Most people including employers have an innate distrust of anyone they discover has lied to them about something consequential.

I think it is fair and logical for prospective employers to conclude that deceptive reactions regarding past crimes, drug use, and application truthfulness are indicative of someone who may be unsuitable for employment in a position of trust. I also think it is logical for them to assume that someone who attempts to use countermeasures may be unsuitable for employment in a position of trust. Not so much because someone who illegally used drugs in the past is necessarily likely to use drugs in the future, but because of the logical presumption that someone who lies about something determined by the employer to be consequential or tries to cheat on his polygraph would be difficult to trust when circumstances put them in a position where telling the truth about something consequential puts their livelihood in peril. I don’t think that employers should use polygraph as a sole determining factor, but I have no problem with them using the results to help them make their decision.