James Hughes. (2009).
A pilot study of naturally occurring high-probability request sequences
in hostage negotiations.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
42, 491-496.
In the current study, the audiotapes from three hostage-taking situations
were analyzed. Hostage negotiator requests to the hostage taker were
characterized as either high or low probability. The results suggested
that hostage-taker compliance to a hostage negotiator’s low-probability
request was more likely when a series of complied-with high-probability
requests preceded the low-probability request. However, two of the three
hostage-taking situations ended violently; therefore, the implications of
the high-probability request sequence for hostage-taking situations should
be assessed in future research.
DESCRIPTORS: high-probability request sequence, hostage negotiation