Establishing cooperation and eliciting information

One way to gather information from sources and informants is to kindly ask for it. A second way is to ask again using a more strict tone of voice. These ways seldom pay off. But what definitely follows is that the subject becomes aware of the interviewer’s information interests. A better way is to discreetly draw out the information, to elicit the information needed.Approaches that play on elicitation are different from explicit approaches, as they aim to unobtrusively steer the conversation toward a specific topic and then subtly collect details. In this chapter we first define elicitation and we clarify why the term is relevant.We then contrast resistance postures with counter-interview strategies in order to illustrate various moti- vations of semi-cooperative subjects. Finally, we summarize parts of the experimental work on interview techniques and tactics that aim to (i) increase the subject’s cooperation, and (ii) elicit new information.