Culture and credibility: the assessment of asylum seekers’ statements

Asylum seekers typically have a different cultural background from the immigration officials interviewing and assessing their statements. Yet the role of culture in eliciting and evaluating asylum seekers’ statements has remained largely unexplored. This article addresses the intersection of memory and culture in the context of the asylum determination process. To that end, we draw on the literature on eyewitness memory, which has so far largely been studied separately from credibility assessments in asylum procedures. We integrate the academic literature on the two subjects by discussing memory aspects prone to cultural variations through the lens of credibility assessments in the asylum determination procedure. We highlight the need for further research, given that most studies on memory have involved participants from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, ignoring 88 per cent of the world population. More insight into cultural differences within memory and reporting will allow for the creation of culturally nuanced credibility assessment tools that better accommodate the majority of the world population.

Theoretical review article integrating eyewitness memory literature with asylum credibility assessment practices, using Hofstede's cultural dimensions framework (collectivism-individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance) to analyze how cultural variations in memory can be misinterpreted in cross-cultural credibility evaluations.

Background & Context

In recent decades, more and more people report their memories in cross-cultural contexts, such as asylum interviews and international criminal cases. This 2026 review article by de Bruïne, Vredeveldt, and van Koppen addresses a critical gap at the intersection of memory science and refugee law: the role of culture in eliciting and evaluating asylum seekers' statements has remained largely unexplored.

The work confronts a fundamental asymmetry in asylum determination procedures. Asylum seekers are typically from non-WEIRD societies, while immigration officials are from WEIRD societies. This cultural mismatch creates a scenario where decision-makers judge credibility based on memory patterns derived from research on Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, ignoring 88 per cent of the world population.

The stakes are extraordinarily high. Immigration officials must evaluate whether asylum seekers' autobiographical accounts are credible enough to warrant international protection. Yet these assessments rely on assumptions about how truthful people remember and report events—assumptions derived almost exclusively from WEIRD populations whose memory patterns may differ systematically from those of asylum seekers from collectivistic, high power-distance cultures.

Research Design & Methodology

This is a theoretical review article, not an empirical study with participants or experimental data. The authors draw on the literature on eyewitness memory, which has so far largely been studied separately from credibility assessments in asylum procedures, and integrate the academic literature on the two subjects by discussing memory aspects prone to cultural variations through the lens of credibility assessments in the asylum determination procedure.

The conceptual framework uses Hofstede's (1980) definition: 'the interactive aggregate of common characteristics that influence a human group's response to its environment'. According to Hofstede, there are six cultural dimensions in which societies differ from each other. Three of those feature in this discussion: collectivism-individualism (the extent to which societies value autonomy as opposed to group cohesion), power distance (the extent to which people accept hierarchy and unequal power distribution in society) and uncertainty avoidance (the extent to which societies tolerate uncertainty and ambiguity).

The review systematically examines how cultural variations in memory encoding, retrieval, and reporting can be misinterpreted as indicators of deception when asylum seekers' statements are evaluated using credibility criteria developed for and validated on WEIRD populations. The analysis focuses specifically on the European Union asylum context.

Results & Key Findings

The review identifies multiple memory domains where cultural differences create credibility assessment risks:

• Autobiographical Memory Style: People from individualistic societies are more likely to provide lengthy, specific, and emotionally elaborate memories, while individuals from collectivistic societies are more likely to focus on memories concerning collective activities, general routines—patterns that may be misread as vagueness or evasion.
• Power Distance Effects: Mock witnesses from low power distance societies provided more details than those from high power distance societies, which may reflect a reticence to report in participants from a high power distance culture. In cultures with high power distance, people are less likely to express their views to authority figures.
• Response Style Bias: De Bruïne et al. found that sub-Saharan African participants were more likely to answer 'yes' on a recognition task than Dutch people, regardless of whether they had actually seen the object before—an acquiescence response style that could lead to false confirmations.
• Trauma Memory: Many asylum seekers experience depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Studies in WEIRD samples have shown that PTSD and depression are associated with overgeneral autobiographical memory retrieval. Graham et al. assessed through clinical interviews whether that overgenerality extended to asylum seekers from diverse cultural backgrounds. They concluded that asylum seekers experiencing PTSD and depression also provide less specific memory reports than those without PTSD or depression.

Credibility assessment problems identified: The analysis points to the presence of confirmation bias in the asylum determination process, as has also been found in criminal investigations. The authors argue that the development and use of bias correction tools, such as the alternative scenario method, would contribute to a more objective assessment in the asylum context.

Discussion & Significance

This review represents a paradigm challenge to current asylum credibility assessment practices. The authors argue that immigration officials are unwittingly applying culturally-biased standards when they judge the plausibility, detail level, consistency, and emotional expression of asylum narratives. What appears to be deception may actually be culturally normative reporting.

The alternative scenario method, for instance, invites immigration officials to devise, assess and compare at least two scenarios. In this way, they must always construct alternative explanations for their findings, which may disconfirm their first impression. In addition, the officials must actively and explicitly assess to what extent the findings discriminate between the scenarios. This approach would force decision-makers to consider cultural explanations for memory patterns before concluding dishonesty.

The paper situates asylum assessment within broader legal psychology debates about consistency and deception. Importantly, the authors note that assumptions about consistency as a credibility marker may be doubly flawed: research suggests liars are often more consistent than truth-tellers (who reconstruct rather than repeat), and cultural factors further complicate these patterns.

Limitations & Considerations

Using nation-level dimensions to account for individual-level behaviour has been criticised, and there are serious doubts about the validity of the measurements to capture those dimensions on an individual level. Some efforts have been made in developing more reliable and valid individual-levels scales for Hofstede's dimensions. The validity of these recently developed individual-level scales will need to be tested in the context of asylum procedures to explore their usefulness.

Because this is a review article rather than empirical research, it does not generate new quantitative data on cultural memory differences—it synthesizes existing findings. There is little empirically supported knowledge on how someone's cultural background relates to the qualities of trauma memories. More research is needed on the interaction between culture and trauma in memory formation and reporting.

Practical Applications

For asylum practitioners and immigration judges, this review demands critical self-examination of credibility evaluation methods. The authors call for culturally-informed interviewing techniques, acknowledgment that Western memory norms don't universally apply, and systematic consideration of alternative explanations before attributing inconsistency or vagueness to dishonesty.

The work also has implications beyond polygraph practice—it speaks to any deception detection context involving cross-cultural testimony. Just as polygraph examiners must account for individual physiological baselines, asylum assessors must account for cultural "memory baselines." The paper advocates for training that prepares officials to recognize that detailed, emotionally elaborate, self-focused narratives are cultural products, not universal markers of truthfulness.