A paper by Dr Celine Brouillard has received recognition for being a top cited article in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology. The paper focusses on how rapport, the connection between interviewer and interviewee, is measured in professional situations whereby disclosure of sensitive information is key, such as police interviews or counselling sessions.
Building rapport through behaviours such as demonstrating attentiveness, approachabibility, and personalising an interaction, has been shown to facilitate rapport and ultimately the disclosure of information. Yet, its use in professional interviews is not well understood despite its potential to enhance the accuracy and reliability of information gathered. The research highlights that professional rapport is not clearly defined, and that approaches to measuring it differ in their consistency and validity, with existing measures varying in how they define, operationalise, and assess the construct. However, the review identifies common patterns and gaps, and provides clear recommendations for developing more consistent and reliable ways to assess rapport in professional settings.
Celine’s award winning-paper is the first one published from her PhD. A subsequent publication builds on the recommendations from the first paper and documents the development and validation of a new measure, Rapport-Pro, for use in professional information-gathering interviews like a witness or victim interview in a police investigations.
Celine is a Lecturer in Forensic Psychology in the School of Human Sciences, and teaches on our MSc in Forensic Psychology as well as other psychology degree programmes.
You can read an open access copy of Celine’s article here: Brouillard, C., Gabbert, F., & Scott, A. J. (2024). Addressing current issues in assessing professional rapport: a systematic review and synthesis of existing measures. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 38(3), e4205. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.4205