Rationalisation
Definition
In the context of the fraud triangle, the mental justification a perpetrator uses to excuse fraudulent conduct. In interviewing, rationalisation is used as a technique: the interviewer acknowledges the pressures or circumstances the subject faced, lowering psychological resistance and making disclosure feel more acceptable.
Related terms
- Cognitive interview
- A structured witness interview technique developed by Geiselman and Fisher that uses four retrieval aids: mental reinstatement of context, reporting everything without...
- Fraud diamond
- Wolfe and Hermanson's 2004 extension of the fraud triangle that adds capability as a fourth condition. The model holds that pressure, opportunity,...
- Fraud triangle
- A model, developed by criminologist Donald Cressey, proposing that occupational fraud requires three converging conditions: pressure (financial need or incentive), opportunity (a...
- Miranda warning (US)
- The required pre-interrogation caution under US constitutional law (Miranda v. Arizona, 1966), notifying a person in custodial police interrogation of the right...
- Non-shareable financial problem
- Cressey's original term for the pressure element. The problem need not be objectively severe; what matters is that the perpetrator perceives it...
- Occupational fraud
- The ACFE defines occupational fraud as the use of one's occupation for personal enrichment through the deliberate misuse or misapplication of the...
- PEACE model
- A structured interview framework used by UK law enforcement and increasingly by private investigators: Preparation and Planning, Engage and Explain, Account, Closure,...
- Predication
- The reasonable basis that justifies opening a fraud examination. The ACFE holds that no examination should begin without adequate predication, meaning a...
- Voluntary admission
- A statement made by a subject of their own free will, without coercion, inducement, or improper promise. Voluntary admissions are legally significant:...
- Wicklander-Zulawski (WZ) technique
- A non-confrontational interview method widely used in private-sector fraud investigations. The interviewer builds rapport, presents the evidence indirectly, rationalises the subject's behaviour,...
Explained in these topics
- Interviewing Suspects and Witnesses in Fraud ExaminationsIn the context of the fraud triangle, the mental justification a perpetrator uses to excuse fraudulent conduct. In interviewing, rationalisation is used as a t...
- The Fraud Triangle: Pressure, Opportunity, and RationalisationThe cognitive mechanism by which a fraud perpetrator reframes a dishonest act as acceptable, justified, temporary, or victimless. Common rationalisations inclu...