Independent vs. interdependent self-construal and interrogative compliance: Intra- and cross-cultural evidence

False confessions have been identified as major source of wrongful convictions. One of the major risk factors for false confessions is interrogative compliance (Gudjonsson, 1989). To date, this has been conceptualized as personality characteristic of individuals and was almost exclusively studied in Western cultures. We propose, however, that interrogative compliance is associated with self-construal (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) and thus expect compliance to differ between cultures and as a function an individual's stable and experimentally induced self-construal. To test this hypothesis we conducted an intra-cultural study (Study 1) and compared participants from two cultures differing in self-construal (China, Germany) with regard to their interrogative compliance (Study 2). Our results draw a convergent picture: Self-construal significantly predicted interrogative compliance and since cultures differ in self-construal, they also differed in interrogative compliance. Members of a culture that fosters the development of an interdependent self-construal more than an independent self-construal are more vulnerable to comply in interrogations and thus to be at higher risk for false confessions.