INTERVIEWS
Change whose perspective?
Psychology suggests that when an individual says something out loud, they are more likely to defend it. For this reason, the change of perspective becomes an important element to truth verification during the subject interview.
When you change your subject’s perspective, you place them into the role of the decision maker. You present your subject with two employees that are doing something they should not be doing. When talking to the employees, one employee lies and denies doing anything wrong. The second employee is honest about the situation. You then ask your subject, “Of the two, which do you feel better about?” When your subject chooses the second, honest person, we support their decision and encourage honesty from them as well. Your subject’s verbalization gets the interviewer one step closer to the truth.
Your subject has now verbalized their perspective and feels better about an honest individual. The conclusion they arrive at is that perhaps you, or your organisation, would feel better about them if they too were honest. The changing of your subject’s perspective can also be used later in the conversation. If the guilty subject denies wrongdoing, you can remind them that they themselves wanted to talk to someone who was honest.
