Eliciting Maltreated and Nonmaltreated Children's Transgression Disclosures: Narrative Practice Rapport Building and a Putative Confession

Abstract

This study tested the effects of narrative practice rapport building (asking open-ended questions about a neutral event) and a putative confession (telling the child an adult “told me everything that happened and he wants you to tell the truth”) on 4- to 9-year-old maltreated and nonmaltreated children's reports of an interaction with a stranger who asked them to keep toy breakage a secret (N = 264). Only one-third of children who received no interview manipulations disclosed breakage; in response to a putative confession, one-half disclosed. Narrative practice rapport building did not affect the likelihood of disclosure. Maltreated children and nonmaltreated children responded similarly to the manipulations. Neither narrative practice rapport building nor a putative confession increased false reports.

The effects of implicit encouragement and the putative confession on children’s memory reports

“…The putative confession involves an interviewer informing a child that a known suspect “told me everything that happened and he wants you to tell the truth” (Lyon et al, 2014, pp. 1756).…”

“…Because the putative confession does not explicitly suggest what happened, it is not overtly suggestive. Evidence indicates that its inclusion at the start of an interview increases children’s willingness to disclose transgressions in which the children were implicated, with no increase in false reports if no transgression occurred (Lyon et al, 2014; Rush et al, 2015; Stolzenberg et al, 2016). …”

“…We further expected that this effect would be stronger in younger (e.g., 3–5-year-old) than older (e.g., 6–8-year-old) children, given that the former often need more assistance focusing and staying on task when narrating, and implicit encouragement may specifically provide this type of support. Second, we anticipated a similar benefit of the putative confession on children’s productivity, given that studies have revealed benefits of the instruction on children’s disclosures of transgressions (Lyon et al, 2014; Quas et al, 2018; Rush et al, 2015; Stolzenberg et al, 2016), which may translate into a greater willingness to disclose details (positive and negative) about a prior event.…”

Valence, implicated actor, and children's acquiescence to false suggestions

“…Across age, all children required more pressure—in the form of negative feedback—to agree with the negative false details. Children’s positivity biases (Carrick & Quas, 2006; Samuels & Taylor, 1994) and reluctance to discuss wrongdoing (Lyon et al, 2014; Talwar & Lee, 2002) may underlie this trend. Of interest, valence did not further interact with whether the child or confederate was implicated to affect children’s accuracy.…”

“…Several studies have revealed that children are less likely to disclose transgressions implicating themselves or someone close to them as they become older (Bottoms et al, 2002; Lyon et al, 2014; Talwar & Lee, 2002), a trend likely driven both by their desire to avoid punishment (Last & Aharoni-Etzioni, 1995) and by their emerging understanding of false beliefs which allows them to more skillfully conceal a transgression (Talwar, Gordon, & Lee, 2007). Of course, in these studies, the transgression actually occurred.…”