Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson,

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(born 26 October 1947) is an Icelandic-

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

academic, educator,

forensic psychologist Forensic psychology is the development and application of scientific knowledge and methods to help answer legal questions arising in criminal, civil, contractual, or other judicial proceedings. Forensic psychology includes both research on various ...

and former detective. He is

Emeritus Professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

at the

Institute of Psychiatry The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) is a research institution dedicated to discovering what causes mental illness and diseases of the brain. In addition, its aim is to help identify new treatments for them and ways ...

of King's College London and a Professor in the Psychology Department at Reykjavik University. Gísli is an internationally renowned authority on suggestibility and

false confessions A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interroga ...

and is one of the world's leading experts on

false memory syndrome In psychology, false memory syndrome (FMS) is a condition in which a person's identity and relationships are affected by false memories of psychological trauma, recollections that are factually incorrect yet strongly believed. Peter J. Freyd orig ...

Biography

Gísli was born on 26 October 1947 to Guðjón Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson and Þóra Hannesdóttir. His twin brother joined the Reykjavik Criminal Investigation Police while he chose to study economics at

Brunel University London Brunel University London is a public research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It was founded in 1966 and named after the Victorian engineer and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In June 1 ...

(BSc, 1975), but changed to psychology whilst in his second year. He completed his studies at the University of Surrey (MSc, 1977; PhD, 1981). In 1982, together with MacKeith he coined the term

memory distrust syndrome Memory distrust syndrome is a condition coined by Gísli Guðjónsson and James MacKeith in 1982, in which an individual doubts the accuracy of their memory concerning the content and context of events of which they have experienced. Since the ...

, to describe those who distrust their own memories and are motivated to rely on external (non-self) sources to verify the accuracy of memories. In the 1990s he worked as head of forensic psychology services and clinical psychologist to the Bethlem Royal Hospital and

Maudsley Hospital The Maudsley Hospital is a British psychiatric hospital in south London. The Maudsley is the largest mental health training institution in the UK. It is part of South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and works in partnership with the ...

. He was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(CBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to clinical psychology.

Work

Gísli's expert testimony was the basis for the convictions of the

Birmingham Six The Birmingham Six were six Irishmen who were each sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 following their false convictions for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and quashed by the C ...

and

Guildford Four Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

being overturned. He created the Gudjonsson suggestibility scale to measure how susceptible someone is to coercion during an interrogation. An author of several books, Gudjonsson was a coauthor on the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) White Paper by Saul Kassin et al. (2010) titled "Police-induced confessions: Risk factors and recommendations."Kassin, Drizin, Grisso, Gudjonsson, Leo, & Redlich (2010). Police-induced confessions: Risk factors and recommendations. ''Law and Human Behavior, 34,'' 3-38.

Selected list of publications

*''Psychology brings justice: the science of forensic psychology'' (Crim Behav Ment Health. 2003;13(3):159-67) *
The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions. A Handbook. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. (2003)
' *''Forensic Psychology. A Guide to Practice'' (with Lionel Haward) *''The relationship between

confabulation In psychology, confabulation is a memory error defined as the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world. It is generally associated with certain types of brain damage (especially aneurysm in the an ...

and intellectual ability, memory, interrogative suggestibility and acquiescence.'' (

Personality and Individual Differences ''Personality and Individual Differences'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published 16 times per year by Elsevier. It was established in 1980 by Pergamon Press and is the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Individ ...

, 1995) *''The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales Manual''. Hove, UK: Psychology Press. (1997)
''The Relationship Of Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms To Suggestibility And Compliance.''
( Psychology, Crime & Law, June 2004, Vol. 10(2), pp. 169/177) *
The Psychology of False Confessions: Forty Years of Science and Practice
' (2018)

References

1947 births Living people Alumni of Brunel University London Alumni of the University of Surrey Academics of King's College London British psychologists Detectives and criminal investigators Forensic psychologists Academic staff of Reykjavík University Icelandic psychologists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire 20th-century Icelandic scientists 20th-century British scientists 21st-century British scientists {{Iceland-bio-stub

Biography

Work

Selected list of publications

See also

References