Pär Anders Granhag

Pär Anders Granhag is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, where he received his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees. In 2000, he became the Founding Director of the research unit for Criminal, Legal, and Investigative Psychology, and has for 30 years conducted research on deception detection, interview and interrogation techniques, and investigative psychology. He has published over 200 scientific reports on topics relating to deception detection.

Granhag is internationally recognized as the co-developer of the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique, a groundbreaking interrogation method that has fundamentally changed how investigators approach suspect interviews. The SUE technique has pioneered a new line of research centering on strategic ways of interviewing suspects in order to elicit cues to truth and deception. The technique focuses on the strategic timing and disclosure of evidence during interviews to detect inconsistencies in suspects' statements, moving away from confrontational approaches toward information-gathering methods. Officers trained in SUE achieved a higher deception detection accuracy rate (65%) compared to untrained interviewers (43%).

He is the author/editor of ten books, including Detection of Deception in Forensic Contexts (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004) and Detecting Deception: Current Challenges and Cognitive Approaches (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2015). He is the past President of the European Association of Psychology and Law, and the past editor of Applied Cognitive Psychology. Granhag has been cited by over 11,000 publications, reflecting his profound influence on the field. His work has been adopted internationally by law enforcement and intelligence agencies seeking evidence-based interrogation methods.

He has published extensively in the field of legal and criminological psychology, particularly on deception and eyewitness testimony, and conducts training of law-enforcement personnel. His work spans multiple disciplines including investigative psychology, forensic psychology, and human intelligence gathering, bridging the gap between psychological research and practical application in criminal justice settings. Granhag frequently collaborates with Maria Hartwig, with whom he has co-authored numerous influential studies on deception detection and interrogation strategies.