Talk:Saul Kassin

Arrested rabbi

Is this not the same guy who was arrested in the new jersey scandal in 2009? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.23.243.26 (talk) 21:13, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

No, it is not - and there is no basis for this connection. Any cursory examination of the news stories of the arrested individual and photos will confirm, all of which can be found online. Analytical50 (talk) 15:27, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

No! that rabbi guy was 87 and a different person.

Wiki Education assignment: MU FLP511 Sp26

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 12 January 2026 and 8 May 2026. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mkm2027, Softball140, MagSheng (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Softball140 (talk) 17:49, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

Proposed Changes to the Article

We are editing this article as a class assignment through WikiEdu. We have outlined our intended changes below:

Changes to the "Biography and Education" section

• Change title to "Education and Career"
• Specify birth city
• Specify cities/states that he worked in, making the information more distinctive — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mkm2027 (talk • contribs) 22:12, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
• Edit the structure of sentences in a way that makes them flow better throughout the paragraph
• Edit grammatical errors or poorly structured phrasing

Changes to the "Research" section

• Separate research from career books, advocacy, and awards
• Include pertinent studies that Kassin worked on
• Highlight the important outcomes of said research

Changes to the "Career books, awards, research, and advocacy" section (three part change) Changes to the "Books" section

• Separating the titles, making this one distinctly Books
• Adding sentence to end of the first paragraph “Most recently, he published a book titled DUPED: Why Innocent People Confess- And Why We Believe Their Confessions in June 2022.” This will come from the bottom of the article, deleting that paragraph and integrating the information into the following paragraph
• Adding additional information in new paragraph diving into the context of his books. “The Psychology of Evidence and Trial Procedure dives into what they consider to be the most important determinant of verdicts "the evidence and court procedure."[5] Throughout the book it discusses eyewitness accounts, confessions, character evidence, the stages of the trial procedure, and the role of psychology in the judicial process.[5] The American Jury on Trial: Psychological Perspective examines the entire court process from jury selection to verdict.[6] It thoroughly discusses aspects including pretrial bias, the psychology of evidence, inadmissible testimony, interpretation of the law, and details of the actions that occur in the jury room.[6] Confession in the Courtroom had intensions of discussing how confessions are treated in the courtroom and how it has changed and evolved over the last 50 years.[7] It evaluates topics including causes of confessions, interrogation techniques used by police, admissibility of confession testimony, and reactions of juries when confessions are given with differing techniques.[7] DUPED: Why Innocent People Confess - And Why We Believe Their Confessions combined real cases and psychological research, this book describes how this unimaginable aspect of human behavior happens and then how false confessions corrupt forensics and other evidence, forces guilty pleas, blinds judges and juries, and stigmatizes defendants their entire lives—even after they are exonerated.[10] Additionally, the books that Kassin co-authored, The Social Psychology textbook, offers real world examples to relate to everyday life through research, focus on diversity, comprehensive coverage of social cognition, social influence, social relations, and applications of social psychology to law, business, and health and wellbeing.[8] Kassin changed roles to editor for Pillars of Social Psychology that discusses the science and development of the field of social psychology from the 1950s to present day from first-person encounters.[9]

Changes to the "Awards" section

• Separating the titles, renaming this one to "Awards & Public Appearances"
• The information in this section seems fine, but just spread out among a lot of other categories; we decided to narrow it down and include it in a more specialized section
• We're keeping the information starting from "In the 1980s, Kassin pioneered..." to the section ending with "the infamous 1964 killing of Kitty Genovese.[13]"

Changes to the "Advocacy" section

• Separating the titles, making this one distinctly Advocacy
• Including more subjective and pertinent information about his background in advocacy in policy, research generally, and legal proceedings
• Making this section more cohesive and structurally better, in terms of the flow of information and formatting

 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mkm2027 (talk • contribs) 14:29, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Education and Career

Saul M. Kassin was born in April of 1953 in New York City, New York. He attended Far Rockaway High School in New York between the years 1967 and 1971, where he initially believed that he would study journalism in college. From 1971 to 1974, Kassin was enrolled in Brooklyn College, graduating with his Bachelor of Science. During his undergraduate schooling, he assisted cognitive psychologist Arthur S. Reber with experiments relating to implicit learning. He continued his educational career by receiving his Ph.D. in personality and social psychology from University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut. His academic background led him to pursuing a career studying jury decision-making with Lawrence S. Wrightsman at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Kassin was a psychology professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he also supported research about false confessions. After his two years of teaching, he became a long-term professor at Williams College in 1981, where he remained on tenure for a majority of his professional career. On a year-long sabbatical after Williams College, Kassin was awarded a U.S. Supreme Court Judicial Fellowship. He also worked at the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, DC from 1984 to 1985. Between 1985 and 1986, Kassin was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in Stanford, California. Currently, Kassin is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, New York, where his tenure has lasted from 2006 to 2026.

Research

Kassin has been committed to understanding false confessions and their ethical implications in criminal investigations. His initial research involved participants who were falsely accused of tampering with a computer and resulting in its dysfunction. Despite this being untrue, many participants confessed to this accusation and created false memories to correspond with the allegations. Considering the profound findings from this study, Kassin was able to pursue further research relating to false confessions, deception, and jury selection. One such study discussed law enforcement's susceptibility to misperceiving deception in investigative interviews, as well as prompting being a contributor to false confessions. Moreover, interrogations frequently result in self-incrimination by those suspected of committing a crime; jury perceptions are directly impacted by previous statements of admission and the presence of evidence. Kassin's findings suggest that investigators be required to record their interrogations with suspects, as a means of mitigating the likelihood of false confessions or someone being wrongly convicted.

Books

Over the years, Kassin has authored and edited several books, including: The Psychology of Evidence and Trial Procedure, The American jury on trial: psychological perspectives, and Confessions in the Courtroom (all with Lawrence S. Wrightsman). He is also co-author of the textbook Social Psychology with Steven Fein and Hazel Rose Markus, now in its twelfth edition and editor of Pillars of Social Psychology (2022), a book of memoirs contributed by legendary social psychologists. Most recently, he published a book titled DUPED: Why Innocent People Confess - And Why We Believe Their Confessions in June 2022.

The Psychology of Evidence and Trial Procedure dives into what they consider to be the most important determinant of verdicts "the evidence and court procedure." Throughout the book it discusses eyewitness accounts, confessions, character evidence, the stages of the trial procedure, and the role of psychology in the judicial process. The American Jury on Trial: Psychological Perspective examines the entire court process from jury selection to verdict. It thoroughly discusses aspects including pretrial bias, the psychology of evidence, inadmissible testimony, interpretation of the law, and details of the actions that occur in the jury room. Confession in the Courtroom had intensions of discussing how confessions are treated in the courtroom and how it has changed and evolved over the last 50 years. It evaluates topics including causes of confessions, interrogation techniques used by police, admissibility of confession testimony, and reactions of juries when confessions are given with differing techniques. DUPED: Why Innocent People Confess - And Why We Believe Their Confessions discussed aspects of human behavior and how false confessions corrupt forensics, forced guilty pleas, blinds judges and juries, and stigmatizes defendants their entire lives. Additionally, the books that Kassin co-authored, The Social Psychology textbook, offers real world examples to relate to everyday life through research, focus on diversity, comprehensive coverage of social cognition, social influence, social relations, and applications of social psychology to law, business, and health and wellbeing. Kassin changed roles to editor for Pillars of Social Psychology that discusses the science and development of the field of social psychology from the 1950s to present day from first-person encounters.

Advocacy

In addition to his academic research, Saul Kassin has been instrumental in the modern development of the opposition to coercive interrogation and has been the basis of reforms founded on strict psychological research. Kassin's paper, titled Policing-Induced Confessions, and its 2025 update, Policing-Induced Confessions 2.0, suggested some of them include the requirement to capture all interrogations electronically, prohibitions against misleading procedures, special attention to juveniles and cognitively vulnerable suspects, and a move to science-based models of investigative interviewing.

Kassin is also in the realm of public and institutional policy. He has written opinion pieces and participated in interviews addressing the psychological risks associated with high-pressure interrogation methods. His work has also informed amicus briefs and policy recommendations submitted to courts and legislative bodies concerning interrogation reform. On 10 March 2013, he presented his arguments in an op-ed in the New York Times. His arguments have been reiterated and supported by professional policy statements like the interrogation resolutions by the American Psychological Association that demand safeguards in line with scientific consensus on the risk factors of false confessions. The correspondence between Kassin's study and APA policy underscores the institutional support for his argument.

His work is actively used in legal advocacy. The Innocence Project, and to a great extent other organizations. His work has been mentioned in amicus briefs filed in state courts of appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, wherein legal counsel has referred to his experimental findings and scientific reviews to provide evidence of support for evidentiary protection and procedural changes.

Through a combination of research, public engagement, and policy input, Kassin's academic work has been cited in broader debates in the United States regarding criminal justice reform and the reliability of confession evidence.