The Effects of Adult Suggestion and Child Consistency on Young Children's Reports1

The purpose of the present study was to contrast the effects of children's response consistency and adult leading questions in a structured memory interview. Children (N = 70) who viewed a 2‐min video clip were asked 3 questions (leading, misleading, and neutral) related to the video. Children&...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of applied social psychology 2008-07, Vol.38 (7), p.1905-1920
Main Authors: Gilstrap, Livia L., Laub, Cindy, Zierten, Elizabeth A., Mueller‐Johnson, Katrin U.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Children & youth
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The purpose of the present study was to contrast the effects of children's response consistency and adult leading questions in a structured memory interview. Children (N = 70) who viewed a 2‐min video clip were asked 3 questions (leading, misleading, and neutral) related to the video. Children's responses (assent vs. deny) were predicted by the type of question asked by the adult (neutral, leading, and misleading), but not by the previous response given by the child or the child's age in months. Specifically, children assented the least often to misleading questions. Accuracy was predicted by both question type and in the last question–answer pair, children's previous response accuracy. These findings are discussed with relation to interview dynamics.
ISSN:0021-9029
1559-1816
DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00373.x