The Gudjonsson Confession Questionnaire-Revised (GCQ-R) factor structure and its relationship with personality

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the factor structure and reliability of the Gudjonsson Confession Questionnaire (GCQ-R) and to investigate its relationship with personality. The GCQ-R measures offenders' reported reasons for confessing to the police and their attitude towards the confession. A total of 411 Icelandic prison inmates and 108 juvenile offenders completed the GCQ-R. A principal component analysis was conducted on the data and six factors were rotated using varimax procedure. The Cronbach alpha coefficients for the six factors ranged between 0.63 to 0.85. The test–retest correlation coefficients for 53 inmates ranged between 0.84 and 0.94. The findings indicate that the GCQ-R is a reasonably reliable instrument. Personality scores, measured by the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), the Gough Socialisation Scale and the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale (GCS), correlated significantly with the factor scores from the GCQ-R among the two groups of participants. Psychoticism, neuroticism and compliance were the best predictors of confessing behaviour. The findings indicate that personality is a significant predictor of the reasons offenders report for having confessed to the police.