Duringadmission-seeking interviews, fraud examiners often employrationalization techniquesto help the suspect justify their misconduct and make it easier to confess. One of these rationalizations is thealtruistic appeal.
From the2014 International Fraud Examiners Manual:
“Facilitators of communication are those socio-psychological forces that make conversations, including interviews, easier to accomplish. These facilitators require a basic understanding of what motivates people. The facilitators are: fulfilling expectations, recognition,altruistic appeals, sympathetic understanding, new experience, catharsis, need for meaning, and extrinsic rewards.”
From theCFE Prep - Investigationsstudy guide:
“Facilitators of communication… include fulfilling expectations, recognition,altruistic appeals, sympathetic understanding, new experience, catharsis, need for meaning, and extrinsic rewards.”
????Application to Scenario:
Beta says:“I know you didn’t do this for yourself; it was for your family.”
This is aclassic altruistic appeal— reframing the suspect’s motive asselfless or for the benefit of others, rather than selfish wrongdoing.
The purpose is toreduce internal resistanceto confessing by allowing the suspect to rationalize the act as being for a noble reason.
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