Secret-Keeping Behaviors in Black and White Children as a Function of Interviewer Race, Racial Identity, and Risk for Abuse

Abstract

Summary The tendency for children to keep the secret of child abuse is an important practical impediment to adequate research, prevention, assessment, and treatment. While some studies have established that children will readily keep adult secrets, few have investigated the predictors of ease of disclosure. In this research, race of the interviewer requesting the secret strongly affected disclosure, with Black children particularly showing an unwillingness to disclose a negative secret to a different race interviewer. Children at high risk for sexual abuse (as assessed by the Finkelhor checklist) also were more likely to keep the secret.