The Drumhead episode starts with the destruction of a part of the enterprises engine due to possible sabotage. An unknown visitor also steals the schematics of the engine thereby causing increased suspicion. The first instinct is that these events are part of the Romulan plot to destroy the Federation through the Empire. Each crew member faces interrogation leading to the discovery that one of the crewmen lied about his ancestry. The investigations reveal that the engine failed due to malfunction and the Starfleet Commander withdraws the admiral from making inquiries because she becomes irrational. This episode is based on the conflict between the fictitious United Federation of Planets and Romulan Empire which depicts the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. The episode highlights the paranoia of a potentially massively destructive war and bases the setting on spying and conspiracies.
The first psychological concept illustrated is McCarthyism where courts falsely accuse a person into subversion so as to get a confession out of targeted people. The paranoia witnessed between the United Federation of Planets and the Romulan Empire manifests itself through wrongful accusation. McCarthyism serves to expose hidden information on possible culprits but might also lead to future sabotage based on the magnitude of paranoia created by the irrational investigations. Similarly, the US responded to the Red Scare in the 1940s and 1950s by intruding into the lives of innocent people that were suspected to be communists leading to the loss of livelihoods. Legitimate suspicion based on paranoid emotion creates room for discrimination and exposes a country’s weakness.
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The second psychological concept illustrated by ‘The Drumhead’ episode is the use of psychological manipulation where the interrogators sit in a raised position while the suspect, Mr Wolf, is exposed to discomforts that force him to confess about stealing files from the Federation. His new confession increases the justification on the initial conspiracy on sabotage efforts. In today’s application, interrogators use this method to determine the innocence of a person or their guilt. At the start, the interrogator develops a rapport with the individual so that they form trust and are incline to say the truth. The detective may pretend to have empathy on the context that the client might have committed the crime. The conversation escalates to an interrogation when the detective discovers that the individual is lying by studying their eye movements. The confession comes from the mental anguish of the individual who feels that they are exposed.
The third psychological concept is coercion where a person uses force or threats to make the other submit. The admiral uses threats after she sees that the captain is lenient on the suspects. Due to her irrationality, she threatens to expose the ills of the empire so as to disgrace the captain. Her threats work to expose some of the secrets of the suspects. Paranoia created by political ideologies often influences increased coercion during investigations thereby leading to the inherent use of suspecting everyone until proven innocent. Mr. Wolf became hysterical due to the continuous direct accusations that further aggravated his discomforts thereby making him to reveal information that would lead to his prosecution.
The final psychological concept is the application of the Reid technique of establishing the truth based on the body language of the suspect. The admiral established that the crewman was lying when she asked about his paternity. She assessed his behavior where he looked frightened to determine that he had refused to answer the question because it was true that he had Romulan ancestry. Upon further probing by the captain, the crewman admitted to having Romulan ancestry but he did not commit the crime of sabotage. Today, it is unethical to use the method of accessing behavior during interrogations because the person might be reacting to a different stimulus or incriminating truth. Therefore, the Reid technique renders a massive number of suspects guilty and tried with no sufficient evidence that proves their innocence. The technique has insufficient scientific basis and therefore, sabotages the due process in seeking justice.
