NCJ Number
165906
Date Published
1996
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This chapter summarizes recent social science research on that aspect of children's testimony that was at the center of the mass-allegation day-care cases: preschooler's presumed suggestibility; it then presents some tentative thoughts about the therapeutic and forensic implications of this research with adults.
Abstract
The five studies reviewed in this chapter highlight different paradigms that researchers are now using to examine children's suggestibility. The issues reviewed are the effect of interviewer bias on children's reports, the effects of stereotype induction and repeated suggestions on young children's reports, influencing children's reports of a pediatric visit, the suggestibility of anatomically detailed dolls, and source monitoring errors. The studies show that children are neither as hypersuggestible and coachable as some pro-defense advocates have alleged, nor as resistant to suggestions about their own bodies as some pro-prosecution advocates have claimed. They can be led, under certain conditions, to incorporate false suggestions into their accounts of even intimate bodily touching, but they can also be resistant to false suggestions and provide detailed and accurate reports of events that transpired weeks or months before. This mix of suggestibility and resistance to suggestion underscores the need for great caution in accepting the claims of those who would put either a pro-defense or pro-prosecution spin on the data. This chapter also discusses the relationship between research and clinical practice and examines the implications of research findings for recovered memories in adulthood. 59 references