Age is More than a Number with Hayley Cleary, PhD

Dave (00:22)
Welcome to this episode of the Truth Be Told podcast. I am Dave Thompson, your host, and I am excited to be with Professor Hayley Cleary from her looks like studious library at her house today. Thanks for joining me, Hayley.

Hayley (00:36)
Hey, thanks for having me.

Dave (00:38)
Hayley and I go back a few years now and actually had a chance to first meet each other virtually, testifying about some of the topics we're gonna discuss today. But Hayley Cleary is a developmental psychologist. She's an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, an expert witness, a resident expert and sounding board for me. And I know others in the field as practitioners, investigators.

probably parents and teachers and legislators on how youth interact in conversations and interviews in the legal setting and kind of a whole variety of places. So already you've heard me say the word youth in the first couple of minutes. Hayley's corrected me to not use the term juvenile as kind of a holistic description of a certain age group. But what



First, tell us why before I start saying the wrong word for the next 30 minutes as we talk. What's the difference between juvenile or youth or adolescent or teenager or whatever millennial or whatever description people want to use.

Hayley (01:43)
Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out if I am one of those. I think the jury's still out. I mean, it's a good question. And I actually appreciate you asking it because words matter, right? Words matter, especially when we're talking about young people. Labels matter when we're talking about people who interact with the legal system. So as you mentioned in your overly kind introduction, I'm a developmental psychologist.

I study human development across the lifespan, and I specialize in the particular developmental period of adolescence. And so, what we have learned from many different aspects of developmental science is that it's a really broad period. It's marked by sometimes fits and starts, sometimes it's steep and continuous, and sometimes it's rocky and jagged and bumpy.

And we know that period lasts a lot longer than, you know, the teen years, 13 to 17. And we also know that it doesn't stop right at 17, right? You don't just magically become an adult in any sense of the word, except legally on your 18th birthday.

Dave (03:00)
Well, okay, so that fair. I'm gonna talk to a lot of people and it's, for me for example, I've got a three-year-old nephew who I feel like sometimes thinks he's 18 years old. And so, this concept and a lot of like companies have policies, schools have policies. You mentioned kind of the legal term of, this person hit 17 to 18, now all of a sudden all these rules change and I'm gonna talk to somebody. And the other thing I think about is, when,

I had a case once where one of the attorneys was talking about a 16 or 17 year old subject who had been interviewed, but their argument was although their age was 16, 17, they had all this life experience. They had interacted with law enforcement and they were this hardened 16 year old, so automatically that made them more mature or more experienced. Is that true? What does that even mean? What do you think about that?

Hayley (03:54)
I think that's overly simplistic and it can be really dangerous. Does life experience matter? Well, I mean, I'm a scientist, so I'm gonna give you a scientist answer, which is it depends. We qualify everything. We love nuance, especially in the field of development because nothing is black and white. So case in point, there is some research on whether

young people who have previous contact with the legal system are more likely to understand their Miranda rights. And that evidence is mixed. A few studies show they perform better on some aspects of Miranda comprehension. A number of other studies show that they're no different from people who have not had any legal experience. The question that I get a lot, and probably you do too in expert witness work, is does it make them more, or excuse me, less vulnerable to coercion? And I don't know if

any evidence that suggests that it does. And in fact, developmental evidence probably points to the opposite.

Dave (05:01)
Yeah, and I think about that even outside an interview at a formal investigative interview, if a teacher or a family member is talking to a student or a cousin, a nephew, whatever, they think, well, I'm gonna handle this person differently, right? Cause they're more experienced. I know they've kind of lived maybe a more hard life or difficult life. And it almost seems like the...

that then end result of that is, well, that person's had a more difficult life, so I should be harder during that conversation. It's gonna be more work to get there. But do you think that actually, could that make them more, that person, more vulnerable potentially because of some of the experiences they've had?

Hayley (05:42)
Quite possibly, oh, quite possibly. I mean, now we're getting into the ideas of trauma and life adversity and growing up in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. And that, I mean, we could do, we can have many, many conversations based on that and how that can actually influence not only kids' developments, but even their brain development. So, I mean, I think the idea that you're gonna talk to somebody differently because they've had

hard life or previous contact with authority figures is based on an assumption, I think. And that assumption is that person who's had contact with the legal system or some kind of authority figure is going to be able to marshal that experience in the moment and use it as some kind of shield to as they spar with an interviewer or a school principal or whoever.

And that's just not how adolescents work, right? They're not good as a group, generally speaking, at thinking about the future, about connecting sort of present events to future outcomes. And that's not, it's not a bad thing. It's a feature of adolescent development. It's part of their ongoing neurological, psychosocial maturation.

And we know this to be true for many, many studies looking at lots of different aspects of adolescent development. Adolescents are not good at thinking deliberatively under stress. And I would wager talking with an investigator or a principal or a parent, if you think you're in trouble for something, is gonna activate some emotional arousal, which interferes with their ability to make good decisions.



Dave (07:33)
Yeah, as we started to mention some of the scientific piece of this, which I think is kind of interesting that science plays into practice here, right? If you think about anybody that's listening, even if they're just interacting with a 15 year old family member or an employee or whatever it might be, on how science can help guide that conversation. And so, but back up for a second and wonder how or why in the world.

drove you into this field, right? It's kind of a unique intersection of criminal justice and youth development. And what is, how does science, what does it even mean? Like, I mean, are you sitting in a laboratory with beakers and like, on some burners and having some fun? No.

Hayley (08:14)
Yeah.

Dave (08:17)


Hayley (08:18)
Yeah, although, I mean, it might be cool to like blow some stuff up. I don't know. The kind of science that I practice is social science. And so, and I think you've touched on what a lot of the general public doesn't have exposure to, which is the social sciences and how they are either different from or similar to the natural sciences. And I mean, this is what I talk about in court a lot too, because attorneys and judges and juries may not understand this either.

Social science is the study of the social world around us and the people in it, right? So psychology is a social science. Criminal justice is a social science. Economics is a social science. The social sciences are similar to the hard sciences. I really don't like that word, but it's relatable in that we use the same scientific method, the same exact process of

Coming up with a research question, formulating a hypothesis that is reasonable based on theory and or pre-existing research, testing that hypothesis using a rigorous research design, conducting an appropriate analysis of your findings and sharing that with the world. So whether you're a physicist or a developmental psychologist, you're using the same method, and that's really important for knowing what we know, right?

how we know what we know about how airplanes work or how we know what we know about kids' brains work. We use the same method, we just apply it to a really different context.

Dave (09:57)
So if we take that, what you just discussed and compare it to kind of this real simple, obvious, real world example of social media and trends and viral videos and all this craziness. Like I think about, I'm sure you're the same, that we're both probably appreciative that TikTok and Snapchat and Facebook and all these things didn't exist when we were in kind of that timeframe of our lives.

Hayley (10:24)
Mm-hmm.

Dave (10:26)
I mean, the amount of people that I hear talking to their kids are talking about like, please don't post that. Be aware of what you send today, that's gonna come back. But it seems like kind of there's two things at play here and I'm curious what you think about it. You have this urge to, especially in this age group we're talking about, you have this urge to kind of fit in more than maybe we do as you mature in life. But then you also, it seems like, and I think back to when I was that age,

have a lack of understanding, what I do online today may impact me tomorrow. So what does the research say about that?

Hayley (11:05)
So two really important things that you've touched on. One is the role of peers during this phase of life. So adolescents are more responsive to peer influence, to the perspectives and opinions of their peers rather than both children and adults. It's just, it's a feature of this developmental stage. It's perfectly normative. And by normative, I just mean normal, typical.

and as part of growing up. The other piece of that you touched on that I think is really important is this idea called future orientation. So psychologists who study youth psychosocial development, which is just the combination of psychological constructs with social development, have shown through lots of different research methods that youth are less able to think about the future in relation to the...

So they're literally less able to think about the future downstream consequences of their actions than fully formed adults because the part of the brain that governs or controls those higher order functions is not finished baking yet. Studies now show, we now understand that process of maturation in the prefrontal cortex, that big fat part behind your brain doesn't complete until on average like the early to mid 20s.

So that's, you know, to circle back to your original question about what is adolescence, I guarantee you it doesn't end at 18, right? Because these biological processes that govern youth's decision making and their thinking are still ongoing throughout the 20s, early 20s and mid 20s.

Dave (12:50)
Yeah, I'm thinking back a couple of years ago, Illinois was one of the first states, not the first state, to pass some legislation talking about banning the use of deception and police custodial interrogations with youth. And one of the senators that sponsored that bill, he was talking about as a child and youth



and especially kind of growing up in Chicago, the Chicagoland area, your kind of goal is always safety. How do I get back to safety? And safety could be, I think, not always in the physical sense, but also like safety means I'm with people that I feel comfortable with, and with my parents or emotional safety, yeah. And I thought it was interesting, he said that part of the reason for this bill is if you think about youth in a...

Hayley (13:33)
solution of it. Absolutely.

Dave (13:44)
interrogation setting. I want to translate interrogation again, I think we'll talk about this, but could be a student sitting one-on-one with a school principal because they don't feel like they can leave, right? So the same concept of that, but he made a comment about kind of in his life and what his goal was with this bill and kind of representing the community is that kids or youth want to get back to safety. And so if they're sitting in this kind of uncomfortable custodial feeling situation and their goal is

to get to safety, which means leave that situation. How, and I know we could dive into false confessions forever, but just kind of to touch on that. How does that impact, I guess, the risk of this immediate gratification, get back to safety specifically with youth? How does that?

Hayley (14:30)
Really strongly. So, I mean, I think it's important to point out that under stressful circumstances even adults can be motivated are motivated to Retreat to say or do things that can get them out of a stressful situation and restore their sense of physical or emotional safety But youth but young people by virtue of their development are much more strongly motivated by that desire because the parts of their brain that

are sensitive to rewards are really active during this developmental phase. So they're more motivated to act in ways that activate that reward sensitivity, which could mean avoiding punishment, discomfort, and retreating or removing themselves to a place where they feel more safe in the moment. Because in the moment is how you sort of

If I could summarize adolescence in three words, those might be the three words, at least at first. I would probably come up with many other three words,

but. I mean, young people, by virtue of sort of where their brains are and their social selves are in the developmental process are more motivated and driven by the here and now than the.

Dave (15:36)
with more syllables usually.

Hayley (15:57)
maybe or the later.

Dave (16:01)
Yeah, I think that that's a good takeaway that in the moment concept that, cause to me that applies back to that social media topic we discussed, you know, that if people think about and maybe you can talk more about this, but when

somebody looks back and thinks, what are some stupid things that we've each done in our lives and what age were you when that happened? And you think about, man, if there was a camera then or somebody was video or cell phone video or

Maybe there was and people regret it and they learn and grow from it. But I think a lot of that is in the in the moment concept. So how, if I'm somebody that's, that let's say I have to talk to employees and a lot of my employees happen to be in this age group that we're talking about. And again, it could be more than just the number, but this kind of cognitive development group, I guess, that we're talking about. How does that impact, I guess, my...

strategy or thought process, knowing that, hey, if I'm gonna talk to somebody and their primary goal might be, how do I get out of here? Or if I can get out of this room, my parents will figure this out. Or what risk should I think about? Or what consideration should I have in that setting?

Hayley (17:14)
Yeah, I can think of a lot. So just stop me if I start rambling. One is to not make assumptions about someone's internal state by looking at them. So someone may appear calm and collected. In fact, those exact words were used in the case that I was reviewing just this morning before we hopped on. Just because someone appears calm and collected doesn't mean they're not necessarily

emotionally accurate.

We can't assume someone's internal states always by looking at them. Even if they appear common collected, even if they are common collected, also doesn't necessarily mean that they, as a young person, have the requisite abilities to weigh all of their options, to think clearly and carefully about the situation that they're in and what they want to do about it, right? How they're going to use their sense of agency or autonomy.

Another consideration, and we sort of went down this road earlier, but we didn't get to sort of really flesh it out, is to not make assumptions about someone based on their chronological age, right? So what is adolescence? I mean, I don't think I, and this is on me, really fully answer that question for you earlier. So as a developmentalist, we define adolescence.

on the front end with the onset of puberty. And it's a sort of associated social changes and physical and maturational changes. On the back end, we tend to define the end of adolescence as the complete functional maturation of the brain and integration among the brain's different circuitry systems. And that also tends to kind of correlate with a young person's sort of complete transition in the social world into adult.

roles and responsibilities. So usually when I'm explaining that to lawyers around this time, they're like, stop rambling and give me some

numbers. So I begrudgingly say, if I had to put numbers on it, about 10 to 25 years old is the developmental period we're talking about. So right then and there, right, if you're talking about people or investigators or employers talking to young people,

Dave (19:19)
Alright.

Hayley (19:39)
We're talking about your 18 to 25 year old employees here too, not just the teenagers. So the second lesson I think is to extend what we know about youth and their ongoing development through the mid-20s, right? You don't get to just dispense with all of this stuff that we know about how young people are different and more vulnerable when they turn 18 and treat them the same way you would treat them a 50 year old because they're not the same.

Dave (20:07)
does, and this may be a tricky question. Does gender matter when that, or has there been any research that development is different in one versus the other, or if somebody's in the process of transitioning from one to another, is that impacting anything, or is there not enough research on that at this point?



Hayley (20:26)
Well, yes, in fact, I think there's too much research to answer your question in a useful way. So gender certainly matters for development, right? Because think about the onset of puberty. Boys and girls experience puberty in different ways, along different timetables. That influences how their peers perceive them, how they perceive themselves and their own identity. So that's a huge can of worms that we could...

we could open.

Dave (20:54)
Well, so if somebody tells me that men are slower to develop, I can just refer them to you for consultation.

Hayley (21:02)
You can tell them to stop making oversimplistic assumptions and I'll have a nice adolescence textbook here that I can refer them to for.

Dave (21:13)
We'll forward that to them. Perfect. Well, speaking of textbooks and research, I know there's a study that you did and were a part of, and we don't have to get into the weeds on this, but I thought some of the findings were interesting and how they may relate in this conversation. But it's this kind of general concept of what are people thinking, or have they made a decision already before they're confronted about an issue? And I know

that-

it's kind of a difficult thing to research obviously, right? Because you don't get the chance to ask somebody before they're confronted what their plan is and then they're confronted as you kind of have to do this after the incident. And so, their mindset, I'm sure there's some variables there but this idea that, if you're gonna confront, when I say confront, again, this could be, you could be talking to a friend of yours who happens to be in this kind of group that we're talking about or whoever it might be.

But is there a chance that before that person has ever been confronted, are they thinking about it? Are they, do they make a decision? Hey, I'm gonna deny, I'm gonna lie if I'm confronted about this, or I'm gonna admit to what happened, or I'm gonna play it by ear and see how the conversation goes. Are people having that internal process?

Hayley (22:22)
and

I mean, emerging research suggests that quite possibly, maybe not all people in all circumstances, but I can speak to the research on criminal interviews and interrogations, because that's the research that I do. And some of this research came about because I think there's an assumption, and again, I think a theme here is not making assumptions, but there's an assumption that anytime, let's say a police officer is gonna question somebody about it.

suspected crime, then they're just, they're going to lie about it till they're blue in the face. They're going to deny, deny. And so, you know, perhaps the investigator comes in sort of ready for battle because they're expecting resistance. And yes, of course, some suspects do show resistance and do deny even when they're guilty and also when they're innocent, as we both know. But that's, you know, emerging research suggests that that's maybe not always the case. Maybe some folks have already...

thought about the case that the state has against them. They've already decided for whatever reason, personal to themselves, that they think it's in their best interest to not resist and to cooperate. And so, you know, an additional sort of different line of research shows that investigators might come at suspects a little harder if they have those expectations of guilt and resistance. So there's a danger in those assumptions.

And we don't know what people's internal states are. And you're right that it's hard to measure in vivo, right? We have to ask people retrospectively what their thought processes were, and we're relying on their memory, we're relying on them to be truthful with us. I'm doing some research in virtual reality now, which you've been an early part of that is trying to get around that. So we're putting research participants in...

of virtual interrogation and pausing the interrogation at key points to ask people about their thought processes and their decision making and their perceptions of custody and coercion and discomfort and distress. That's the closest way I know how to do it. It's never been done before, so I'm hoping we can kind of get around some of those problems that you're raising.

Dave (24:52)
My non-scientific response to the virtual reality experiences. It's pretty cool. I mean it was a really Really neat experience and you know, luckily that's I got to put this goofy headset on and I got to sit the entire time So you're not concerned about running into a wall like I happen to see on all the videos with people with the headset But yeah, really neat experience to try and emulate as best you can Being in an interview setting. What does that feel like and

Hayley (24:58)
Oh, it's really cool. It is super cool.

Dave (25:21)
It was kind of neat for me and our training firm with Glenn Rzelowski, that's what we teach is how to conduct interviews and we do interviews. So I've been on the other side of that conversation a lot of times and so I'm comfortable in the interview room but wearing the headset and being in that position, even knowing this is a study, this isn't real, I was getting frustrated with the detective. I was getting, I almost felt like you couldn't

I mean, I can physically get up and leave. I would have probably tripped over a carpet or something, but I could feel it in the room. So that was really neat. And I think it's fascinating for people to listen and understand that there's people like you out there and others that are really focused on, how do we understand what happens in that space? And you had mentioned about this concept where people, they might come into a conversation intending to tell the truth. And I know I've been on the other side of this where

You know, you've got somebody in this in this kind of age group where we're referring to who has done something wrong. And you're frustrated probably right as if you're the you're the parent or the investigator or whatever. And they've done something wrong. You've spent time investigating. So you're frustrated. They've lied to you by proxy sort of because they've conducted this crime or they were out late and they skipped curfew or whatever. So you enter the conversation with a bias that they're probably going to lie even further to me now.

when there's an actual chance they walk in the room and they're telling you the complete truth about what they did. But have you aware of or been a part of any research where the person can actually feel if the investigator doesn't believe them, like they can feel that they're being mistrusted or that the investigator is kind of changing their approach because they don't trust them. I guess they feel accused.

Hayley (27:17)
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, there's been a fair amount of research, a growing, shall I say, growing amount of research with people who are suspected of a crime or the targets of an interrogation, if you will. Most of it's actually been outside of the US. And, you know, researchers like myself and others have asked them about how much they felt.

trusted or believed by the interrogator, how much they had a chance to tell their side of the story. And there's a lot of variation in the data, which is not surprising because there's a lot of variation in how interviews are actually conducted, right? And this is one of the perpetual crusades that I go on, and I'm not even an investigator like you are, but it's to dispense with the...

stereotypes about what interrogations look like that we see on Law and Order and all the other shows that I'm not cool enough or, you know, have time to watch. Investigations and interrogations come in all shapes and sizes. Some are short, some are long, some are built on trust and rapport and dignity and respect. Some are accusatorial and coercive.

And so it doesn't surprise me that people's actual experiences, the targets themselves, report a wide variety of experiences themselves.

Dave (28:46)
Yeah, well, and so to dig into one piece there, and I know you've specifically looked into this, is the importance of empathy and kind of rapport when it comes to conversation. So if we kind of focusing back on this interaction with youth, a lot of times the questions that we get on the training side is how do I relate to somebody like that? When I say like that, meaning you've got maybe a parent and...

a child or you've got a teacher or student investigator employee. And maybe in that circumstance, there could be a 40 year age gap between the employee and the other employee that are talking to each other, but they're trying to sit in a room and are on the phone or on a video conference and try to be relatable. And I've seen that backfire when somebody tries to be someone that, that they're not. Uh, but I think empathy plays a part in that. So I don't, I don't any, I guess, general comments around either empathy or

relatability to somebody that's well outside your age range.

Hayley (29:50)
I mean, I think to me, this goes back to the idea that young people are not stupid. And they can tell a lot of times when empathy is forced or relatability is insincere. And so, and you and I have talked about this in other contexts, in interviewing contexts as well.

Um, you know, young people could see through that just as well as people of any other age. And, you know, again, people of any age want to be heard. They want to be respected. They want to be treated with dignity and fairness. And so, you know, maybe a 65 year old white male interviewer doesn't have a whole lot of life experience in common with a 15 year old black.

Hispanic female person. I mean, who knows? Maybe they do, maybe they don't. My guess is that their lived experiences are probably going to be kind of different. And so there's a difference between trying to force some sort of relatability or we have something in common versus treating someone with kindness and respect and dignity and letting them have some agency and autonomy and the way that they interact with you. Because young people...

don't have the same agency and autonomy as adults do, right? They are told what to do all the time. Like just ask my 10 year old. He says, I'm the bossiest person on the planet because we tell kids when to get up, when to go to school, where to go to school. When they get to school, the teachers tell them what to do, what to read, the bell rings, and then they have to go to the next class period. I mean, young people live their lives being told by adults in their lives.

where to go and how to behave. There are constraints on their movement and their autonomy. And we do that as a society by and large to protect them. But that fact is not lost on young people.

Dave (32:03)
Yeah, well, and a really good point there is kind of operationalizing rapport, right? A lot of an empathy. A lot of people feel like, you know, rapport or empathy is you got to have something in common with someone, right? The similarity principle of we both like, we're both big fans of the Buffalo Bills because everybody should be or whatever it might be. But I know. But yeah, but maybe.

Hayley (32:25)
But we'll let that slide.

Dave (32:29)
The concept, you know, you use the term autonomy, empowerment, transparency, authenticity, like all of that can be the foundation of strong rapport. So even acknowledging sometimes, you know, some of the discomfort or, you know, it's kind of kind of funny now with video technology. And a lot of people are conducting, you know, pre-employment interviews through Zoom or Microsoft Teams or whatever, and investigative interviews. And

but you may have somebody who's in kind of this youthful group who's used to FaceTiming, they're on video all the time, right? They're on FaceTime, they're on whatever. And then you're interacting with maybe a senior manager somewhere who can't figure out how to turn their microphone on or off. And I think, but being relatable there and understanding, hey, this stupid technology bothers me and how do we figure this out? Maybe having them help guide you through it. To me, that actually helps demonstrate like...

humanizes who you are and understands the difference versus trying to be somebody that you're not. So I think that was just really good, really good takeaways. What rapport is not just, let's talk about the weather, is a little deeper than that.

Hayley (33:37)
Right. Totally. And I think the other important word here is positionality. So we talk about this a lot in research finally now. It's not something we used to talk about very much, which is this idea that in a research context, I acknowledge my position vis-a-vis the participants in my studies. So I am a.

highly educated person. I identify as female. I identify as white. These are things about my position that reflect the way that I walk through the world. And to be authentic, it's important for me to acknowledge that because whether I like it or not, those positions could affect the way that I interpret my findings, for example. And so you can and should acknowledge positionality in lots of different contexts, not just in research.

And so I'll give you an example that I use in the classroom. So in the first day of classes, especially with my undergrads at least, I am explaining the way that I do grading. And it's a little bit of a different process from traditional grading, but it's called contract grading. And the details are not important, but the important message is that...

This approach to grading is based on the behaviors that the students do and not exclusively on my judgment of the quality of their work. And in this conversation with them, I say, look, I have power over you. I am your professor. I assign the grades that you receive in this course. I don't give them out. You earn them, but I do assign them. I am in charge of the curriculum. I decide what you're going to read. I decide what you're going to submit.

or as work, and that's important, right? I want to acknowledge to you students that I'm in a position of authority over you. I try to be mindful of that in our interactions. And so that kind of positionality and recognizing your authority and explicitly acknowledging it to someone I think can go a long way.

Dave (35:52)
Yeah, it's interesting. It seems counterintuitive to do that actually can help the conversation, but that makes sense. I want to get into this last section about school-type interactions, as you're mentioning students. But I talked to a professor recently at a university, undergrad. So we're talking about students have graduated from high school, so we're probably

university generally speaking, but she was sharing with me that she'll have students maybe fail an exam or they got an incomplete because they missed some classes or whatever. And historically that's a conversation between student professor, but now she's getting phone calls from parents that want to come sit in with their students. And so that seems to be a, and I'm sure employers are seeing the same, right?

child didn't get a certain shift or got written up or are you seeing that kind of trend, I guess in your space and does that relate to what we're talking about in some way?

Hayley (36:58)
I have and it does. It relates in the sense that if you look at sort of the history of at least Western society, the period that we call adolescence in thinking about this as a transition from childhood to adulthood has grown and gradually extended. So, you know, if you look back in the history of our species, not that long ago, you know,

17 year olds were getting married and, you know, working hard labor jobs and, you know, kids grew up faster, so to speak. This transitional period when young people are still living at home, who are still in their parents' insurance, who are delaying partnership in marriage, that process overall over the course of, you know, the last hundred or so years has extended.

And so in that way, it doesn't surprise me, and I've had some of those experiences myself, that parents of college students are interacting with authority figures in their children's lives as if their children were younger teens and not emerging adults. Because the transitions are blurred.

Dave (38:16)
Yeah, that's a good point. If you look at all the other aspects of that timeframe in your life is much different, right? I think about even my parents when they were in those teenage years and how in the world they had me and just thinking about the age that I was or I am now and trying to figure out how in the world did they do that. But, and some people are still in that kind of that age frame, but it's just, it's a different.

I guess, norm that we're seeing now, which is important that translates into this. The last piece of that I wanted to explore a little, and I know you've done a lot of research and conversations on this concept of interviews by proxy, which I'll let you explain what that means. But if we have people that are listening that may not be in a law enforcement capacity or an investigative capacity, and so they're thinking, well, yeah, I talk to people in that age group all the time, but it's not...

not conducting an interrogation,

but what have you seen that maybe we should all start to think a little bit differently about, I guess, the perspective of youth in certain conversations that might feel like it's an interview or interrogation? These same type of considerations apply.

Hayley (39:16)
Mm-hmm.

Sure. So the phrase interrogation by proxy was first introduced to me by two of my colleagues, Richard Leo and Debbie Davis, who are very prolific researchers who study criminal interviewing and interrogation. And so along with the two of them and some other co-authors, we recently published a paper called Interrogation by Proxy. And the idea is that

People who are not sworn law enforcement officers might be questioning someone about some kind of wrongdoing and might elicit an incriminating admission from that person that could then ultimately be referred to law enforcement and the prosecution and that person could be prosecuted for a crime. So it's different from sort of a police detective bringing, handcuffing a suspect

and bringing them to the precinct and locking them in interrogation room and questioning them. But the end result of, let's say, a school principal questioning a student about misconduct that also happens to be a violation of criminal law. It could be a person who works in loss prevention questioning an employee about potential theft, for example. And there are also some examples.

from law enforcement where they're hiding the fact or concealing the fact that they are law enforcement and they're questioning people without that person knowing their identity as law enforcement. So for all of these different mechanisms through which someone might admit to something that's against the law and not know that admission is going to end up getting them prosecuted.

Dave (41:22)
Yeah, I think that's important, you know, takeaway for anybody that interacts with youth. And even if it's, in my simpler mind, even if it's not translating to a criminal prosecution, if you're just talking to somebody who happens to be kind of in this cognitive range that we're talking about, is to understand, say it again, so I say the developmental range. Beautiful. See, this is what...

Hayley (41:46)
development, because it's more than cognition, right? It's social integrity.

Dave (41:51)
this is why you're gonna get called by law and order soon to be an expert, I think. Okay, after this podcast, you'll probably go viral. But yeah, no, that's, well, we'll talk about interrupting in another series when we'll talk about the cognitive interview and those types of things. But yeah, I think it's important that in any of these conversations that we realize, what does somebody come to that conversation maybe prepared with or not?

Hayley (42:00)
I'm sorry to interrupt you though.

Dave (42:17)
with? Are there biases that we have at play? What's their emotional state? They want to get back to safety. There's all these kind of things that we're talking about, the immediate gratification. And I'm just gonna end with one more example and then ask you kind of a closing question, but I know there was a case a few years ago in a town that I lived in where a student, high school student, was I guess accused or

was told that he had some pictures on his phone of another student that were inappropriate. He was sharing those pictures. And so administrators want to talk to him. I believe school resource officer talked to him or local police. And I don't know all the details of what happened during the conversation, but it was brief. And they left him alone for a period of time in an office. And he ends up leaving the school unknown. And went.

went down a few blocks down the town and went on top of a parking garage and jumped off the top. And it's a terrible kind of obviously story and heartbreaking, but I think it's important that we know, and this of course could happen to anybody in uncomfortable situation and where our emotions are running. But when we think specifically with youth, it just triggered to me when you talked about this kind of, I guess, immediate gratification, get back to safety, escape the situation, that we gotta be careful of

you know, some of these really emotional decisions that youth might make as a result of a conversation. So I don't know if you have anything to say to that, or if you've heard that example or other examples similar to that.



Hayley (43:53)
I do, I remember that case. It was really, really tragic. And I think the moral of the story, if you will, is to remember that. Kids are not playing with the same full deck that adults have, and that's okay. It's normal. It's expected. It's part of their developmental journey. And so we have to remember the power differential between.

any authority figure, even if it's a school resource officer or a teacher or a principal, and a young person, a student, a young employee, a person who's suspected of a crime. Youth have many strengths. They're incredibly resilient, but they're also vulnerable in those contexts because of their development. And those are by and large transient characteristics that they will outgrow. And so you cannot...

use too much caution when you're interviewing a young person because they are experiencing sort of a unique phase of life that could have really wise bed ramifications that we can't necessarily see when we enter the interrogation room.

Dave (45:06)
Yeah, I like that. I think the last bit of truth that I took away from you there was that first sentence you said is, we're not really playing from the same deck. I think that's important takeaway and to consider in any interaction, whether it's a family member or an investigation that might fall into that age range. So I appreciate it. I know we could probably go on for hours and hours with this topic and we'll dive into some others on some.

additional episodes, but I want to make sure before we wrap up, I know a lot of people listening, well, A, want to maybe learn how to get in touch with you and learn more kind of about you or your research. So if you have a way to do that. And then second, from a career standpoint, if people are interested more in developmental psychology or anything in this kind of space, any recommendations on what to do, where to look or kind of last parting words on how to stay in touch with what people can do going forward.

Hayley (46:05)
Oh, well, people can go to my website. It's just my first and last name, haileycleary.com, H-A-Y-L-E-Y, C-L-E-A-R-Y.com. It's not particularly exciting. It's just basically a list of my publications for folks who need that for professional references. There are a lot of resources available, even basic texts on adolescence.

Um, you know, and I think I appreciate you inviting me because this sort of circles back to something we discussed at the beginning about how science can inform practice. Well, part of the, a big part of the responsibility is on scientists to make themselves available to practitioners. And that's not something that we scientists have done particularly well with, historically, and it's very important to me to change that. Um, and so.

listening to conversations like this, right? Seeking out people whose training and expertise might not seem to be relevant to what you do in your daily life, but can be helpful or supportive in some way. So I hope to be a small part of that.

Dave (47:18)
No, you definitely are. I know this conversation is helpful for me and for people that listen. One last piece that I'll share because you've kind of taught me this, but if you do find research that's out there that's of interest and you can't access it, email the author. I've learned from you and others that when people are doing research, you want to share it for most, want to share it and I want people to read it and digest it. So if you see something or find something, reach out.

Hayley (47:34)
Yes.

Dave (47:47)
to the author and I can speak, I'm sure on behalf of Hayley here that she would be happy to make sure that research gets used. That's the whole, that's the point of it. So, no, I appreciate your time today. It was really informative. I'm sure we'll do some more of these. There's a lot of different topics that we wanna dive into, but thank you and thank you all for listening to this episode of Truth Be Told.

Hayley (47:53)
Absolutely.