Children's Suggestibility Research Articles

Children's suggestibility for neutral arbitrary actions in the context of norm violations.

This study investigated children's false memories for neutral arbitrary actions. Five- to six-year-olds (N = 32) were taught four arbitrary actions, each following specific rules. The children then watched a televised adult performing eight actions: the four familiar actions while violating one aspect of each rule script and four unfamiliar actions. Suggestive and non-suggestive questions about all witnessed actions were asked, followed by forced-choice test questions to measure the false memory effect. The likelihood of forming false memories was higher in the suggestive condition than in the non-suggestive condition. There was no effect of previously acquired knowledge about the rules of the actions and no interaction between rule knowledge and suggestion. The results are discussed in light of previous findings in related fields of false memory research.

Description of the medical services provided to children in Shanghai: a cross-sectional study of the characteristics and disparities of hospitals of different levels and types.

The development of the pediatric care system is uneven in China. Limited research has been conducted on pediatric care in Shanghai, which is a well-developed region in China, in which the National Children's Medical Centers are located. In November 2021, under the commission of the Shanghai Center for Medical Quality Control, a city-wide questionnaire designed to examine the provision of medical services to children in Shanghai in 2020 was conducted at 86 hospitals providing pediatric care. The overall characteristics and disparities between the general hospitals and children's hospitals and suggestions for future developments were explored. In 2020, there were 86 hospitals providing pediatric care, covering all 16 municipal districts of Shanghai, with an average distribution of 1.4 hospitals per 100 km2. The hospitals were mainly public (94.2%) and general (96.5%) hospitals. With a response rate of 90.7%, the questionnaire results revealed that there were 2,683 in-service pediatricians in Shanghai, with an average of 1.1 pediatrician per 1,000 children aged 0-14 years in Shanghai. The pediatricians were mainly women (71.8%), aged 40 years or younger (60.6%), who held a bachelor's degree or higher (99.5%). The total number of pediatric outpatient and emergency visits was approximately 8 million, with an average of 2,973 visits per pediatrician in 2020. There were >370,000 visits to fever clinics. The number of pediatric inpatient visits exceeded 160,000, with an average hospital stay length of 5.8 days. The uneven development between the children's hospitals and general hospitals represents a major challenge facing Shanghai's pediatric care system, and the close links between the 2 types of hospitals need to be further strengthened. Shanghai provides an overall superior medical service to children in China. The close link between the children's hospitals and general hospitals should be further strengthened to optimize the distribution of high-quality resources and greatly improve the overall provision of pediatric medical services.

Eğitim Fakültelerindeki Çocuk Edebiyatı Dersinin Öğretmen Adaylarının Görüşlerine Göre Değerlendirilmesi

Bu çalışmanın amacı öğretmen adaylarının çocuk edebiyatı dersine ilişkin görüşlerini saptamaktır. Bu amaçla ülkemizdeki eğitim fakültelerinde (yedi coğrafi bölgeden toplam 14 üniversite) öğrenim gören ve çocuk edebiyatı dersini almış olan 1431 öğretmen adayının bu derse ilişkin görüşleri alınmıştır. Veriler; araştırmacının geliştirdiği, dörtlü Likert tipi maddelerden ve açık uçlu sorulardan oluşan sormacayla toplanmıştır. Sormacanın Likert tipi maddeleriyle toplanan verilerin sıklık değerleri belirlenmiş, açık uçlu soruların yanıtlardan elde edilen verilere ise betimsel kodlama işlemi uygulanmıştır. Betimsel kodlama sonucunda “çocuk edebiyatı dersine ilişkin değiştirilmek istenenler”, “çocuk edebiyatı dersine ilişkin öneriler” ve “çocuk edebiyatı dersi kapsamında nitelikli bulunan çocuk edebiyatı yapıtları” temalarına ulaşılmıştır. Bu bağlamda öğretmen adayları, çocuk edebiyatı dersinin içeriğine ilişkin eleştirilerini; eğitim durumlarına dönük beklentilerini ve mevcut durumdan memnuniyetsizliklerini dile getirmişlerdir. Öğretmen adaylarının görüşlerine göre temel sorunlar arasında güncel çocuk edebiyatı yapıtlarını yeterince tanımamaları da bulunmaktadır. Bunun yanında ders saatlerinin yetersizliği, derste kullanılan öğretim yöntem ve tekniklerinden kaynaklanan sorunlar, öğretmen adaylarının nitelikli kitapları tanımadaki yetersizliği elde edilen sonuçlar arasında yer almaktadır.

A Study on the Suggestibility of Children in the Context of the Criminal and Suspect Identification Statement Survey

A Study on the Suggestibility of Children in the Context of the Criminal and Suspect Identification Statement Survey

مشارکة أولیاء أمور التلامیذ ذوی صعوبات التعلم فی برامج أبنائهم التعلیمیة ومقترحات تفعیلها Parents' participation of students with learning difficulties in their children's educational programs and suggestions for activation

هدف البحث إلى التعرف على مدى مشارکة أولياء أمور التلاميذ ذوي صعوبات التعلم في برامج أبنائهم التعليمية من وجهة نظرهم، واستخدم البحث المنهج الوصفي التحليلي وأداة الاستبانة، وتکون مجتمع الدراسة من جميع أولياء أمور التلاميذ ذوي صعوبات التعلم بالمرحلة الابتدائية بمنطقة جازان بالمملکة العربية السعودية والبالغ عددهم (374) ولي أمر، فيما تکونت عينة الدراسة الفعلية من (112) ولي أمر. وتوصل البحث إلى مجموعة من النتائج من أهمها: وجود فروق ذات دلالة إحصائية بين متوسطات تقدير أولياء أمور التلاميذ ذوي صعوبات التعلم لواقع مشارکتهم في برامج أبنائهم التعليمية الخاصة تعزى لمتغير جنس ولي الأمر لصالح الذکور، کما توجد فروق تعود لمتغير امتلاک معلومات عن برنامج صعوبات التعلم، لصالح من يمتلک معلومات عن برنامج صعوبات التعلم. بينما لا توجد فروق تعزى لمتغيرات الصلة، المستوى التعليمي، الوظيفة.

Immediate interviewing increases children's suggestibility in the short term, but not in the long term

Immediate interviewing increases children's suggestibility in the short term, but not in the long term

The Relationship between Cognitive Factors and Suggestibility in Children: Focused on the POLICE SCIENCE Perspectives

The Relationship between Cognitive Factors and Suggestibility in Children: Focused on the POLICE SCIENCE Perspectives

The Piggle: Decoding an Enigma

The Piggle, in its 40th anniversary year, was published after Winnicott's death. He treated this 2‐year 4‐month‐old girl over two and a half years. Yet, until recently, The Piggle has been ambivalently reviewed and minimally studied, despite elegant posthumous papers, a recent introduction to Winnicott's collected works and an interview with the ‘Piggle’ in adulthood. We show that Winnicott's technique and interpretations fall into three categories: (1) early Kleinian ‘deep’ interpretations; (2) an Anna Freudian approach with developmental considerations, respect for defences, the analyst as a new developmental object; (3) a Winnicottian attitude and interpretations that hew close to the manifest material and emphasize the environment–individual relationship and full‐bodied play. Winnicott's ‘interpretations’ include verbal interpretation, prosody, gesture, facial expression, body movements and contact. Winnicott details the child's reactions to the different interpretations. We close suggesting that Winnicott carried on dialogues, not only with the child, but also internal dialogues with former teachers (Klein/Riviere; Strachey as his first analyst and so connecting to the Freudians in the Institute of Psychoanalysis) and perhaps with Anna Freud as a colleague after her arrival in London in 1938. This is a manifestation of false versus true (analytic) selves. Understanding Winnicott's internal struggle with his former teachers/analysts, corrected by his responsiveness to the child's responses and suggestions, resulted in his bringing a truer self to this child's treatment and unravels The Piggle's enigmatic qualities.

The child's perspective on discomfort during medical research procedures: a descriptive study

ObjectiveThe evaluation of discomfort in paediatric research is scarcely evidence-based. In this study, we make a start in describing children's self-reported discomfort during common medical research procedures and compare this...

Commentary About Cheit's Witch-Hunt Narrative: The Historical Context.

Ross Cheit's lengthy study is strongest when he describes in detail the findings of his 13 years of research into the original records of the key "witch hunt" cases of the 1980s to set the record straight, when possible, about what really happened. However, because this was partial history that focused primarily on the interplay between academic psychology and the media in a limited number of cases, a commentary about the broader historical and institutional context may lead to a more optimistic conclusion than Cheit seems to reach. Since this latest discovery of child sexual abuse (and its partial suppression with the rapid and predictable construction of the witch-hunt narrative), professionals across a range of disciplines continue to refine statistical science to document the prevalence and impact of child sexual abuse. They continue to enhance our understanding about children's memory and suggestibility. They have steadily refined methods to elicit full and accurate information from alleged child victims, created child advocacy centers with multidisciplinary teams to handle cases skillfully, and have developed evidence-based assessment tools and treatment protocols for substantiated victims. This solid and continuing academic output, coupled with nationwide institutionalization of the childhood trauma and maltreatment fields in organizations such as the National Child Advocacy Center, the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network make this rediscovery of child sexual abuse different from the many other discoveries and suppressions that preceded it.

Eliminating age differences in children's and adults' suggestibility and memory conformity effects.

We examined whether typical developmental trends in suggestion-induced false memories (i.e., age-related decrease) could be changed. Using theoretical principles from the spontaneous false memory field, we adapted 2 often-used false memory procedures: misinformation (Experiment 1) and memory conformity (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, 7- to 9-year-old children (n = 33) and adults (n = 39) received stories containing associatively related details. They then listened to misinformation in the form of short narratives preserving the meaning of the story. Children and adults were equally susceptible to the misinformation effect. In Experiment 2, younger (7- to 8-year-olds, n = 30) and older (11- to 12-year-olds, n = 30) children and adults (n = 30) viewed pictures containing associatively related details. They viewed these pictures in pairs. Although the pictures differed, participants believed they had viewed the same pictures. Participants had to report what they could recollect during collaborative and individual recall tests. Children and adults were equally susceptible to memory conformity effects. When correcting for response bias, adults' false memory scores were even higher than children's. Our results show that age trends in suggestion-induced false memories are not developmentally invariant. (PsycINFO Database Record

Developmental Differences across Middle Childhood in Memory and Suggestibility for Negative and Positive Events.

In the present study, we investigated age differences in children's eyewitness memory and suggestibility for negative and positive events that children often experience during middle childhood. We first examined 216 ratings by children aged 8-12 years of the frequency and intensity of personal negative and positive experiences (Study 1). Based on those ratings, videotapes depicting the most frequent and intense negative (an accident) and positive (a family excursion) events were developed. A new sample of 227 children aged 8-12 years was tested for recognition memory of the videotapes using the three-stage post-event misinformation procedure (Study 2). Compared with 8- to 9-year-olds, 10- to 12-year-olds exhibited less memory malleability and less compliance with false information. Age improvements in recognition accuracy were also evident for children who watched the negative event, but not for those who watched the positive event. Compliance predicted misinformation effects, particularly in regard to peripheral details. Thus, using ecologically representative emotional events, age differences in suggestibility and memory accuracy emerged, especially for negative events.Theoretical and forensic implications concerning children's eyewitness memory and suggestibility are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Getting to Know You: Familiarity, Stereotypes, and Children's Eyewitness Memory.

The present study concerned how the acquisition of social information, specifically knowledge about personal characteristics, influences young children's memory and suggestibility. Effects of two sources of knowledge about a target person were systematically examined: familiarity and stereotypes. Children, aged 4-5 and 7-9 years (N = 145), were randomly assigned, per age group, to experimental conditions based on a familiarity (6 hours vs. no prior exposure) × stereotype (negative depiction as messy and clumsy vs. no stereotype) factorial design. Children then watched the target person engage in a target event (a series of contests) at a preschool ("Camp Ingrid"). The children's memory and suggestibility about the target person and target event were tested after a delay of 2 weeks. Results indicated that the negative stereotype resulted in an increase in children's correct responses both to free-recall stereotype-related questions (when children were unfamiliar with the target person) and to closed-ended questions overall (for younger children). However, the stereotype was associated with greater error to stereotype-related closed-ended questions. Moreover, familiarity increased children's accuracy to closed-ended questions. Implications for theory and application are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Measuring Children's Suggestibility in Forensic Interviews.

According to the scientific literature, childrens' cognitive development is not complete until adolescence. Therefore, the problems inherent in children serving as witnesses are crucial. In preschool-aged children, false memories may be identified because of misinformation and insight bias. Additionally, they are susceptible of suggestions. The aim of this study was to verify the levels of suggestibility in children between three and 5 years of age. Ninety-two children were examined (44 male, 48 female; M = 4.5 years, SD = 9.62). We used the correlation coefficient (Pearson's r) and the averages variance by SPSS statistical program. The results concluded that: younger children are almost always more susceptible to suggestibility. The dimension of immediate recall was negatively correlates with that of total suggestibility (r = -0.357 p < 0.001). Social compliance and source monitoring errors contribute to patterns of suggestibility, because older children shift their answers more often (r = 0.394 p < 0.001). Younger children change their answers more times (r = -0.395 p < 0.001).

Under Pressure: Individual Differences in Children's Suggestibility in Response to Intense Social Influence

AbstractPrior research on the relation between children's suggestibility and verbal skills has yielded mixed results. This study examined children's suggestibility in a high social pressure context in conjunction with individual differences in verbal ability and social understanding. Sixty‐nine children were read a story by a classroom visitor. One week later children were asked suggestive questions about the visit and pressured to respond ‘yes’. One week after the first interview, children were re‐asked the same questions, this time with no pressure. Children's suggestibility in response to social pressure was found to be significantly and negatively correlated with receptive vocabulary knowledge, but not with social understanding, the ability to understand and interpret social interactions. In addition, suggestibility scores exhibited a distinctly bimodal distribution, with many children acquiescing to all pressured suggestions, many children acquiescing to no suggestions, and few children falling between these two extremes.

Children's self reported discomforts as participants in clinical research

IntroductionThere is little empirical evidence on children's subjective experiences of discomfort during clinical research procedures. Therefore, Institutional Review Boards have limited empirical information to guide their decision-making on discomforts for children in clinical research. To get more insight into what children's discomforts are during clinical research procedures, we interviewed a group of children on this topic and also asked for suggestions to reduce possible discomforts. Materials and methodsForty-six children (aged 6–18) participating in clinical research studies (including needle-related procedures, food provocation tests, MRI scans, pulmonary function tests, questionnaires) were interviewed about their experiences during the research procedures. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the interviews. ResultsThe discomforts of the interviewed children could be divided into two main groups: physical and mental discomforts. The majority experienced physical discomforts during the research procedures: pain, shortness of breath, nausea, itchiness, and feeling hungry, which were often caused by needle procedures, some pulmonary procedures, and food provocation tests. Mental discomforts included anxiousness because of anticipated pain and not knowing what to expect from a research procedure, boredom and tiredness during lengthy research procedures and waiting, and embarrassment during Tanner staging. Children's suggestions to reduce the discomforts of the research procedures were providing distraction (e.g. watching a movie or listening to music), providing age-appropriate information and shortening the duration of lengthy procedures. DiscussionOur study shows that children can experience various discomforts during research procedures, and it provides information about how these discomforts can be reduced according to them. Further research is needed with larger samples to study the number of children that experience these mentioned discomforts during research procedures in a quantitative way.

Children's suggestibility research: Things to know before interviewing a child

Children's testimony is often the only evidence of alleged abuse. Thus, the importance of conducting forensic interviews that are free from bias and misleading information is immense, as these could lead to false reports. In the current paper, we review unexpected findings in children's suggestibility that illustrate the difficulty in distinguishing between false and accurate reports. We explore situations in which a younger person's memory account may be more accurate than that of an adult, when a single suggestive interview may be as detrimental as multiple interviews, and when children can make inaccurate reports spontaneously. We conclude with recommendations for interviewers to decrease false reporting by both children and adults.

The Genesis of the Theoretical Foundations of “Psychology of Suggestion” of V.M. Bekhterev

The article is devoted to the analysis of an early stage of formation of views of the well - known Russian doctor, the physiologist and the psychologist V. M. Bekhterev on a problem of the forming potential of a phenomenon of Suggestion. On the basis of the analysis of program performance on the First World Congress for Paedology, that was held in Brussels in 1911, from 8 to 12 August, subsequently issued in work “Education and suggestion” (1912), genesis of his views of the questions connected with a children's impressionability and suggestibility is shown. Bases of “Psychology of suggestibility” of V. M. Bekhterev are characterized; influence of foreign science and literature on formation of his views of rather leading methods of education of children in a context of the accounting of a factor of impressionability is shown.

Simulations of child sexual abuse interviews using avatars paired with feedback improves interview quality

We tested whether simulated child sexual abuse (CSA) interviews with computer-generated child avatars could improve interview quality. Feedback was provided not only on question types, as in previous research, but also on whether the conclusions drawn by the interviewers were correct. Twenty-one psychology students (average age M = 24.5) interviewed four different avatars which had a simulated story of either abuse or non-abuse. The participants were randomly divided into two groups: one received feedback on question types and conclusions after each simulated interview and the other one did not receive any feedback. Avatars revealed pre-defined ‘memories’ as a function of algorithms formulated based on previous empirical research on children's suggestibility. The feedback group used more open-ended and fewer closed questions. They also made more correct conclusions and found more correct details in the last two interviews compared to the no-feedback group. Feedback on both the question types and conclusions in simulated CSA interviews with avatars can improve the quality of investigative interviews in only one hour. The implications for training practice were discussed.

The ability of psychologists, lawyers and psychology students to predict children's performance in memory and suggestibility experiments

The aim of this article was to explore whether psychologists, lawyers, and psychology students would be able to predict how children behave in memory and suggestibility experiments and if this ability is associated with different measures of experience. The participants (N = 63) were to predict the results of a series of published research studies pertaining to children's memory and suggestibility. The results indicated that the ability of the participants to predict the behavior of children was overall low and unrelated to experience. It was concluded that professionals who should be able to assess children's functioning as witnesses may not be able to do so.