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Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales

The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales detailed on this page are available to registered psychologists only.

Further information and prices are available on request - please contact Julie Norton on +44 (0)20 7017 7747, or select the Test and Assesments option on our contact form.

Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales

• Gisli Gudjonsson, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK
• Psychology Press
• 978-0-86377-445-4 (Complete Test with Manual and Scoring Sheets)
• 978-0-86377-446-1 (Additional Scoring Sheets).

These scales, the GSS 1 and its parallel form, the GSS 2, were developed for research, forensic and clinical applications. They give a reliable measure of verbal memory recall - both immediate and delayed - and "interogative suggestibility", which has been shown to have two distinct components, "yield" and "shift". The GSS 1 and GSS 2 also provide objective measures of "confabulation", which refers to problems in memory processing where people replace gaps in their memory with imaginary recollections.

The scales were developed in order to measure objectively the vulnerability or proneness of people to give erroneous accounts when interviewed. The scales are particularly applicable to police interviewing contexts, but they can be usefully applied to any interview situation, including clinical practice. The scales can be used with forensic populations, victims and witnesses to crime, mentally disordered persons, children, and adolescents.

A parallel development to the GSS 1 and GSS 2 has been the construction of the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale GCS. In contrast to the suggestibility scales, the GCS is a self-report measure of the construct of compliance, which is principally comprised of an eagerness to please and avoidance of conflict and confrontation. It complements the work conducted into "interrogative suggestibility". Research has shown that both suggestibility and compliance are relevant to police interviewing and clinical practice.

This pack is not available to bookshops. It is only available to chartered clinical and forensic psychologists, and to psychiatrists and research workers with the relevant training to administer the test.