An examination of the degree to which IQ, memory performance, socio‐economic status and gender predict young children's suggestibility

Abstract

Purpose. This study examined whether several interrelated cognitive and socio‐demographic factors predict the degree to which 3‐ to 5‐year‐old children acquiesce to an interviewer's misleading yes/no questions.Method. 220 children were administered the Yield subscale of the Video Suggestibility Scale for Children. The independent variables included Intelligence Quotient (IQ), memory performance (the number of details recalled about the video), socio‐economic status (SES) and gender.Results. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that all the variables made a significant independent contribution to predicting children's suggestibility when age (in months) was controlled for. Intelligence was the main predictor (uniquely explaining 6% of the variance); children with higher IQ scores were less suggestible than children with lower IQ scores. SES and memory performance inversely predicted children's suggestibility, uniquely explaining 2% and 1% of the variance respectively. Gender explained 2% of the variance, indicating that girls were more suggestible than boys.Conclusion. Suggestibility is a complex, multidimensional construct. Thus, more informative and consistent results in the area of individual differences in children's suggestibility can only emerge from the adoption of larger scale investigations of the combined and independent contributions of numerous interrelated cognitive and demographic factors.