Children's Suggestibility Research Articles

“Are False Memories Permanent?”: An Investigation of the Long-Term Effects of Source Misattributions

With growing concerns over children's suggestibility and how it may impact their reliability as witnesses, there is increasing interest in determining the long-term effects of induced memories. The goal of the present research was to learn whether source misattributions found by Ceci, Huffman, Smith, and Loftus (1994) caused permanent memory alterations in the subjects tested. When 22 children from the original study were reinterviewed 2 years later, they recalled 77% of all true events. However, they only consented to 13% of all false events, compared to the 22% false consent rate (among the same subset of children) found by Ceci et al. (1994). Additionally, while children remained accurate in their recall of true events (they maintained assents 78% of the time), they “recanted” their earlier false consents 77% of the time, after the 2-year delay. Implications of these findings for child witnesses and the legal system are discussed.

The Suggestibility of Young Children

showing that young children are more suggestible than adults (re viewed by Ceci & Br?ck, 1993), these studies were limited to ex aminations of the influence of single misleading suggestions on children's recall of neutral, and of ten uninteresting, events. In other words, the conditions of the stud ies were not similar to the condi tions that brought children to court. This empirical vacuum forced a new conceptualization of issues related to children's suggest ibility, which, in turn, resulted in an outpouring of new research in the area. In general, two features of the newer research make it more relevant to forensic issues. First, the studies are designed to exam ine children's suggestibility about events that are personally salient, that involve bodily touching, and that involve insinuations of sexual

Telling Stories

This paper analyses the rhetorical structure of psychological experiments investigating children's suggestibility, the wider context of debates that these inform, and the cultural-political status of psychological expertise that such claims bolster. It draws on the debates around childhood accounting to reverse the specular apparatus of the psychological gaze and so to inspect its practitioners according to those discourses and rhetorical devices by which it accounts for children. The stories psychologists tell about children are analysed as not only indicative of the contemporary legitimizing practices of the discipline, but also as suggesting a motivated forgetting or recasting of psychology's past approaches to the topics of children's beliefs, knowledge and memories. Thus, by turning the focus from the stories (we make) children tell, to our own storytelling practices as psychologists, this paper engages in a practice of critical relativism that opens the terms of developmental psychological inquiry up for critical scrutiny, and thereby both limits and secures the grounds for its claims.

Children's Moral Orientation: does the gender of dilemma character make a difference?

Previous work has found few gender differences in moral orientation among children. Two experiments were conducted with third grade children (8‐year‐olds) to learn if children's moral orientation would be affected by the gender of dilemma characters: all male, all female, or mixed gender. Children responded to stories in which animal characters faced a conflict. Children's suggestions as to how the characters should solve their problems were coded as expressing a concern for others (care orientation) or a focus on issues of rights and justice (rights orientation). Both boys and girls showed a small but consistent preference for the care orientation, and their reasoning was not influenced by the gender of the characters. Children tended to misremember female animal story characters as male (Experiment 1), unless an illustration depicting the characters’ gender accompanied the text (Experiment 2). Overall, the results point to the role of children's literature in creating stereotyped expectations about male and female story characters, and emphasise the initial similarity of boys’ and girls’ moral orientation in childhood.

Individual differences in children's and adults' suggestibility and false event memory

In this article, we provide an overview of the emerging area of research concerning individual differences in children's memory, suggestibility, and false event reports. We begin with a discussion of recent research on children's false event memories. We then review research and theory concerning sources of individual differences in children's memory and suggestibility, including both cognitive (e.g., understanding of dual representations, source monitoring, imaginativeness, and event knowledge), and social-personality (e.g., attachment styles and temperament, parent-child communication, and sequelae of maltreatment) influences, and we highlight implications of these sources for children's false event reports. Finally, we examine how individual-difference factors proposed to mediate adults' false memories relate to those that may mediate children's false memories.

External and internal sources of variation in the creation of false reports in children

In this article, we describe several “families” of variables that may account for reliable variation in children's suggestibility. Specifically, we begin by discussing factors that are external to the organism (e.g., various forms of biased interviewing such as visualization inductions, accusatory tone, repeated yes/no questioning) that could explain why at any age studied, large suggestibility effects are produced in some situations but not in others. Following this, we discuss research on factors that are internal to the organism that may be at the source of individual differences in suggestibility-proneness (e.g., IQ, memory strength, relevant content knowledge). We conclude by postulating a framework in which multiple and complex interactions among cognitive, social, personality, and biological factors converge to make some children and some situations more or less suggestible than others.

Research on Children's Suggestibility

The authors review research on children's suggestibility as it applies to the investigative sexual abuse interview. They focus on identifying the optimal conditions for securing an account of a child's remembered experience that will be equally or more reliable than that of an adult. The discussion is divided into four major sections, corresponding to the questions of how, when, where, and by whom a child witness should be interviewed to diminish potential distortions and enhance the trustworthiness of the child's remembered account.

Findings from Research on Children's Suggestibility and Implications for Conducting Child Interviews

The primary purpose of investigations of suspected child maltreatment should be to arrive at valid conclusions about the “truth” of the matter. Determinations about whether child maltreatment has occurred are often based, at least in part, on the perceived reliability of the statements of the suspected child victim. This has given rise to questions about children's suggestibility and the impact of various child interview practices on the reliability of children's statements. Recent research has attempted to address some of these questions in a more “ecologically valid” fashion than did earlier research. This article summarizes pertinent research relating to children's suggestibility and discusses the implications of this research as it relates to child interview practices. Specific suggestions are offered for minimizing suggestibility effects and maximizing the reliability of children's statements during child interviews.

Adults' impact on the suggestibility of preschoolers' recollections

Seventy-seven preschoolers (45 boys and 32 girls) between the ages of 4 and 6 years, were randomly assigned to one of three groups and asked to draw a picture that they then discussed with their teacher. During a subsequent review, participants in the first two groups were told by an adult—either their teacher or a researcher unfamiliar to them—that the child's teacher had touched the child on the leg during their discussion. In fact, the teacher had touched the child's arm. Participants in the control condition reviewed the same activities with the researcher, but all references to touching were omitted. Seven to 12 days later, a second researcher questioned participants about whether they had been touched by their teacher during the target event and, if so, where. Overall, the results of this study indicated that the majority of preschool-aged children are not susceptible to misinformation presented by an adult when that misinformation concerns an actual event in which the child was personally involved. A closer examination indicated that children were more likely to appear suggestible when they were asked leading questions regarding the target event. Age also appeared to be a factor in children's suggestibility, with results suggesting that there may be a threshold age—approximately four and a half years—after which children's suggestibility is diminished. All results further indicated a relationship between suggestibility and children's overall memory performance. However, these results did not indicate that children's susceptibility to suggestion is affected by their relationship to the adult presenting the suggestion.

False allegations and false denials in child sexual abuse.

The amicus brief in the Kelly Michaels case ignores the risks that abused children will fail to reveal abuse unless direct and sometimes leading questions are asked. Although the brief correctly criticizes previous research for understating the risks that aggressive interviewing practices will lead young children to make false allegations of abuse, it overstates the likelihood that false allegations occur by overlooking the aspects of the Kelly Michaels case and the research it inspired that are unlike the typical abuse case. The author discusses factors that lead abused children to falsely deny abuse and that minimize the likelihood that nonabused children will allege abuse. Interviewers who question children about suspected sexual abuse must avoid two types of error: eliciting a false report of abuse and failing to elicit a report of abuse when abuse in fact occurred. A decision regarding how to proceed is properly based in part on the risks that a particular method of interviewing will lead to a false allegation or a false denial. The decision is also dependent, however, on the interviewer's judgment regarding the damage caused by each type of error. If one seeks to avoid false allegations at all costs, then one simply does nothing that might prompt a child to assert falsely that abuse occurred. If one wishes to minimize false denials, on the other hand, one does everything one can to encourage a young child to acknowledge abuse. That one's judgment about the relative risks of different types of interviewing practices is based on a mixture of empirical beliefs (how likely is this practice to result in error?) and value judgments (how harmful is it to commit each type of error?) muddies the debate over children's suggestibility. Although social science research may make it possible to estimate the rates of error, it does not address the value judgment regarding how different types of error should be weighed. When researchers focus only on risks of one type of error (whether it be false allegations or false denials), they preempt the value debate, substituting their own value judgments for those of policymakers. The amicus brief in the Kelly Michaels case rightly criticizes previous research on children's suggestibility for understating the risks of aggressive interviewing practices with young children. However, it fails to acknowledge any middle ground; it ignores the likelihood that abused children will fail to reveal abuse unless direct and sometimes leading questions are asked. It fails to consider whether the Kelly Michaels case—a case involving alleged multivictim abuse by a preschool teacher—is representative of child sexual abuse cases in general, or whether the research inspired by cases like Michaels's accurately portrays the risks of false allegations of

Age, Prior Opinions, and Peer Interactions in Opinion Restructuring

A sample of 160 6-, 8-, and 11-year-old children and adults expressed their opinion on a topic alone (pretest), jointly with a peer (test), and then alone (posttest). Opinion restructuring was measured by view-change type and the addition of reasons incorporated from 6 types of peer interactions (agreements and disagreements with 3 levels of complexity). Prior opinion was examined by comparing performances for pairs holding congruous or noncongruous pretest views of the topic. Age affected the number, type, and elaboration level of pretest reasons; the complexity level of peer interactions and the type of peer interactions that led to the incorporation of reasons; and the type of view change. Prior opinion affected the likelihood of view change and the kind of reasons added. The findings are related to developmental models of peer influences on cognitive restructuring and to models of persuasion and children's suggestibility in eyewitness memory.

Factors in preschool children's social problem-solving strategies for peers with and without disabilities

Preschool programs that include children with disabilities are becoming increasingly common. We know relatively little, however, about the effect of participation in an integrated classroom on children's understanding of disability. In the current study, normally developing preschool children's perceptions of the social competence of peers with and without disabilities were examined. Subjects were 26 children enrolled in two integrated preschool classes. Each class included six preschool children with mild-to-severe developmental disabilities. Measures of children's acceptance of their classmates and their use of different strategies for solving hypothetical social problems were obtained in individual interviews in the fall and spring of the school year. Children's suggestions of prosocial strategies for hypothetical peers with disabilities were related to changes in their perceptions of their classmates with disabilities.

CALL FOR PAPERS: CHILDREN'S CAPACITIES IN LEGAL CONTEXTS.

Law and Human Behavior invites manuscript submissions for a special issue on children's capacities in legal contexts. In the area of children and the law, the issue of children's capacities may be the most salient and important intersection for collaboration between psychologists and legal scholars. During the past 10 to 15 years, several studies of adolescents' capacities to make informed decisions, e.g., in understanding their Miranda Rights and in medical treatment situations, have raised questions regarding more active participation in legal decision making. Mostly, these studies have been designed within the framework of informed consent; however, recently, scholars have suggested the need to examine components such as judgment, maturity, and risk analysis as well. In addition, children's memory and suggestibility have been raised as special concerns for both adolescents and younger children. Research content areas that warrant attention are children's capacity to commit a crime, to stand trial, to consent to treatment, to consent to research, to testify, and to express a preference in custody disputes. Thus, Law and Human Behavior is soliciting papers on any of these or related areas for a special issue entitled Children's Capacities in Legal Contexts. The editors for this issue are Law and Human Behavior Associate Editor N.

Children's strategies for coping with stress: Blunting and monitoring

The present study examined children's suggestions for coping with uncontrollable stress, from the perspective of the monitoring/blunting distinction proposed by Miller (1987). Children in the first through sixth grades heard stories depicting four stressful situations that afforded little opportunity for control. Children's coping suggestions were classified as blunting (including reappraisal, cognitive distraction, and behavioral distraction), monitoring, or seeking support. Overall, blunting strategies were mentioned most often, followed by monitoring, and seeking support. A grade-level increase in blunting suggestions was found, and this developmental pattern was identical for reappraisal, cognitive distraction, and behavioral distraction. No grade-level differences were observed for monitoring or support. Situational differences in coping suggestions were explored, and there was mixed evidence of cross-situational consistency in coping style.

Suggestibility of the child witness: a historical review and synthesis.

The field of children's testimony is in turmoil, but a resolution to seemingly intractable debates now appears attainable. In this review, we place the current disagreement in historical context and describe psychological and legal views of child witnesses held by scholars since the turn of the 20th century. Although there has been consistent interest in children's suggestibility over the past century, the past 15 years have been the most active in terms of the number of published studies and novel theorizing about the causal mechanisms that underpin the observed findings. A synthesis of this research posits three "families" of factors--cognitive, social, and biological--that must be considered if one is to understand seemingly contradictory interpretations of the findings. We conclude that there are reliable age differences in suggestibility but that even very young children are capable of recalling much that is forensically relevant. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of expert witnesses.

子どもの視覚記憶に及ぼす言語的質問の効果

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether the suggestibility effects might be obtained for fifth and second graders. After subjects were shown a series of events, subjects on misleading condition were asked to fill out questionnaires that contained false information concerning the event, while subjects on control condition were asked to fill out questionnaires not containing false information. Then the subjects were given either a recognition test or a source monitoring test. Results of the experiment showed that the number of witness responses for the misleading items was significantly greater on misleading conditions than the one on control conditions, but for the other items the differences between them were not significant. The results also showed that the number of conflict responses was significantly greater than that of rewriting responses on the recognition test but not on the source monitoring test. These results suggested that children's suggestibility was not only due to their integrated memory representation, but also to their inability to discriminate between memories of original and misleading information.

The effects of social support on children's eyewitness testimony

AbstractChild witnesses often give only short accounts of witnessed events. Part of the reason for this failing centres on the stress present during an interview. The most obvious means of reducing stress in children, through the provision of social support, has typically been neglected in eyewitness research, presumably because of fears over children's excessive suggestibility. Social support is also believed to inhibit children during interviews. However, these fears appear to stem more from general suspicions about children's competencies rather than empirical findings. Studies are described which show that child witnesses express a strong desire for social support, and that support may be provided in a number of different ways, from peers as well as adults. It is argued that social support is one of the most unfairly neglected issues in eyewitness research, and the minimal evidence available suggests that allowing support may have a facilitative effect on task performance, including free‐recall memory.

Children’s Testimony About a Stressful Event: Improving Children’s Reports

Abstract Age differences in children's ability to recount a stressful event were explored, as were several ways to improve children's reports. Seventy 3- to 7 year olds were videotaped while receiving inoculations at a medical clinic. It was predicted that multiple interviews would maintain memory and strengthen resistance to sugges-tion. It was also predicted that social support would ease intimidation and thus lessen children's suggestibility. To test these predictions, children were inter-viewed either once after a 4-week delay or twice, following 2- and 4-week delays, and under either "reinforcing" or "nonreinforcing" conditions. Age differences in answers to specific and misleading questions and in performance on a photo identification task were prevalent. However, multiple interviews and reinforce-ment supported more accurate reports. Training was effective in reducing false identifications on the photo identification task, especially for older children. Children's accuracy was unrelated to parental ratings of the stressfulness of the event. Our findings have implications for the testimony of child victim witnesses and for child-adult reconstruction of a child's past history. (Psychology)

Variations in Children's Conceptualizations of Mental Retardation as a Function of Inquiry Methods

This study addresses changes in the responses of third graders to questions about the nature, cause and course of mental retardation under different methods of inquiry. Specifically, do responses vary when the task demands explicit definitions, indirect identification (from a vignette of a functionally retarded but unlabelled youngster), photographic identification, renditions through drawing, or enactment through manipulating a figure on a game board? It was found that the mode of questioning markedly influenced children's portrayal of retardation. Discussion focuses on children's suggestibility (guessing in the service of conformity), greater willingness to be negative when asked to 'show' rather than 'talk', and genuine confusion.

Mothers' emotional arousal as a moderator in the socialization of children's empathy.

Overall, our findings suggest that the moderating effects of maternal affective arousal in the socialization of children's empathic responding are complex. On the one hand, at low levels of mothers' affective intensity, positive relations were found between children's sad facial reactions and mothers' prosocial suggestions. At the highest levels of affective responding, however, mothers' altruistic responding was significantly and positively related to children's sad facial responses, and mothers' altruism and inductive reasoning was negatively related to children's distressed facial reactions (Table 2). The negative relation of mothers' inductions and altruistic responding to children's facial distress reactions at high levels of mothers' affective responding could be interpreted to mean that these practices are associated with decreases in children's personal distress reactions to distressed peers (that is, with decreases in one's focus on one's own negative feelings). However, the positive relations between mothers' inductions and altruistic responding and children's facial distress reactions at low levels of mothers' emotional responding could support the interpretation of facial distress reactions as vicarious emotional responses. The affective response depicted by the children in the empathy films involved physical distress, so a purely vicarious affective (that is, empathic) response might be expected to be expressed facially as a distressed reaction. Thus, the variability in the results regarding children's facial distress reactions suggests that to interpret them as an index of either empathy or personal distress requires considering the nature of the empathy stimulus and may ultimately require assessing additional criterion variables (for example, examining the relation of facial distress reactions to actual prosocial behavior). Results not found in previous research were that high-intensity parental affect combined with negative control practices was associated with a lessening of children's sympathetic orientations, whereas situational definitions were positively associated with children's facial distress reactions to peer distress. The variability in these findings may be explained, in part, by the interpretation that parental affect may potentiate the impact of the semantic content of parental messages to the child. That is, if the content of the message is inductive, the mother's intense affect may heighten the meaningfulness of the relation between the child's behavior and its consequences for the peer's situation or feelings (unless, of course, the parent overwhelms the child with information).