Understanding children's use of secrecy in the context of eyewitness reports.

Abstract

To investigate socioemotional influences on children's eyewitness accuracy, we examined children's reports for activities they were motivated to conceal. Forty-eight 3-6-year-old children participated in a standardized play session with their mothers. Half of the children were told by an experimenter not to play with certain toys, but did so at the urging of their mothers, who told their children to keep the play activities secret. The remaining children were not restricted from playing with the toys, nor told by their mothers to keep the play activities secret. Later, all children were interviewed about the activities with free narrative and detailed questions. Half were given an interview that consisted of highly suggestive questions; half were given an interview consisting of specific, less suggestive questions. Results indicated that older children who were instructed to keep events secret withheld more information than did older children not told to keep events secret. Younger children's reports were not significantly affected by the secret manipulation. There were no significant effects associated with interview type. We discuss implications for understanding the development of children's knowledge and use of secrecy, and applications of the research to issues that arise when child witnesses give reports in legal contexts.

Children's Antisocial and Prosocial Lies to Familiar and Unfamiliar Adults

“…Both Bottoms, et al (2002) and Talwar et al (2004) found that children lied more when they felt assured of no negative consequences to themselves. Furthermore their findings suggest that children"s willingness to lie for or even to a parent may be influenced by an assessment of the cost/benefits to themselves and the possible negative consequences of telling the truth.…”

“…Two experimental studies have examined children"s lie-telling behaviour for their parent (Bottoms, Goodman, Schwartz-Kenney, & Thomas, 2002;Talwar, Lee, Bala, & Lindsay, 2004). Bottoms et al (2002) conducted a study on children"s (between the ages of 3 and 8 years) willingness to lie for a parent when asked by their parent to do so.…”

“…Bottoms et al (2002) conducted a study on children"s (between the ages of 3 and 8 years) willingness to lie for a parent when asked by their parent to do so.…”

“…Mother"s informed their children that if they played with the forbidden toy and lied about it afterwards, they would win an enticing prize as well as save their mother from getting into any trouble. Bottoms et al"s (2002) study reported that, when children were asked to lie for their parent, by their parent, older children were more likely to lie than younger children.…”

Repeated Questions, Deception, and Children’s True and False Reports of Body Touch

“…secrets, both spontaneously and when asked to do so by an adult (e.g., Bottoms, Goodman, Schwartz-Kenney, & Thomas, 2002;Talwar & Lee, 2002;Wilson & Pipe, 1989). Moreover, by age 6, children can provide false statements to back up their secrets (Tye, Amato, Honts, Devitt, & Peters, 1999).…”