good cop, bad cop

Type: Concept

As of November 2026, good cop, bad cop has been mentioned in one podcast episode on Sword and Scale (Dec 2025).

Good cop, bad cop, also informally called the Mutt and Jeff technique, is a psychological tactic used in interrogation and negotiation, in which a team of two people take opposing approaches to the subject. One interrogator adopts a hostile or accusatory demeanor, emphasizing threats of punishment, while the other adopts a more sympathetic demeanor, emphasizing reward, in order to convince the subject to cooperate. It is an instance of the Reid technique.