Prediction of employee theft with the aid of the polygraph

Abstract

There is an increasing concern with the development of polygraph techniques as a means to control employee theft. A variation of the traditional polygraph approach is the "guilty-knowledge" technique. The basic assumption of the "Guilty-knowledge" technique is that a guilty subject will show a stronger autonomic response to what he recognizes as a significant fact than he would if he had no guilty knowledge. The research project attempted to determine if by using the "guilty-knowledge" technique with the polygraph one can predict which persons have an intent to steal.

The project consisted of ten controlled experimental sessions each containing four subjects assigned theft or non-theft roles. The subjects were given polygraph examinations using the "guilty-knowledge" technique, both before after a staged theft had occurred.

Two hypothesis were tested. The first hypothesis states that a polygrapher with the use of the "guilty-knowledge" technique can identify those persons who have the intent to steal (before the fact). The second hypothesis poses that a polygrapher with the use of the "guilty-knowledge" technique would be able to identify those persons who stole, after the fact.

The research project was not able to support the validity of the "guilty-knowledge" technique. However, the study was able to identify that the subject's "anxiety level" is one of the keys to successfully polygraph usage. Recognizing the methodological weakness in design and the deviations from the previous studies, recommendations were made for future research.