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The Suggestibility of Young Children;
Current Directions In Psychological Science;
6(No. 3, Memory as the Theater of the Past (Jun., 1997)), 75-79
Since the beginning of the 1980s, there have been a number of legalcases in which young childrenhave provided uncorroborated testimony involving sexual abuse. Although it seemed from the evidence that the children in many ofthese cases were subjected to anumber of suggestive interviews,the primary issue in deciding guilt or innocence was the degree to which such interviews could actually bring children to make serious allegations. [...]
This empirical vacuum forced a new conceptualization of issues related to children's suggestibility, which, in turn, resulted in an outpouring of new research in the area. In general, two features of the newer research make it more relevant to forensic issues.
First, the studies are designed to examine children's suggestibility about events that are personally salient, that involve bodily touching, and that involve insinuations of sexual abuse.
Second, the concept of suggestive techniques has been expanded from the traditional view of asking a misleading question or planting a piece of misinformation, so that now studies examine the larger structure and the components of suggestive interviews.
In this article, we provide an overview of the results of these newer studies of children's suggestibility. [... ... ...]
In summary, interviewer bias is revealed by a number of suggestive techniques, each of which can conipromise fhe accuracy of young children's reports. In this secfion,we qualify and elaborate on this conclusion by raising several points.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, there have been a number of legalcases in which young childrenhave provided uncorroborated testimony involving sexual abuse. Although it seemed from the evidence that the children in many ofthese cases were subjected to anumber of suggestive interviews,the primary issue in deciding guilt or innocence was the degree to which such interviews could actually bring children to make serious allegations. [...]
This empirical vacuum forced a new conceptualization of issues related to children's suggestibility, which, in turn, resulted in an outpouring of new research in the area. In general, two features of the newer research make it more relevant to forensic issues.
First, the studies are designed to examine children's suggestibility about events that are personally salient, that involve bodily touching, and that involve insinuations of sexual abuse.
Second, the concept of suggestive techniques has been expanded from the traditional view of asking a misleading question or planting a piece of misinformation, so that now studies examine the larger structure and the components of suggestive interviews.
In this article, we provide an overview of the results of these newer studies of children's suggestibility. [... ... ...]
In summary, interviewer bias is revealed by a number of suggestive techniques, each of which can conipromise fhe accuracy of young children's reports. In this secfion,we qualify and elaborate on this conclusion by raising several points.
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Fake Science And Pornography
Many researchers reveal shoddy, irresponsible work that you have to be a genius as well as an expert at reading these things to be able to give any kind of reasonable interpretation to their data. But shabby study results are being released into popular culture at such a rapid rate that one can hardly keep up with them.
Lately I spend the bulk of my time trying to counteract widely-held beliefs that have taken hold in the general culture because unsafe interpretations of raw results, some of these themselves of dubious reliability, are being spread around by speakers who pretend to be experts in the fields of sex, sex crime, pornography, aggression, women, men, and other related areas.
You can impel whole rooms full of angry women to march in the streets by telling them that "Studies in America showed that men became more violent after watching pornography," but you might merely bore them by trying to explain that no one has been able to duplicate this result, and in the two studies quoted, one was not using actual pornography but was using general release films.
Many researchers reveal shoddy, irresponsible work that you have to be a genius as well as an expert at reading these things to be able to give any kind of reasonable interpretation to their data. But shabby study results are being released into popular culture at such a rapid rate that one can hardly keep up with them.
Lately I spend the bulk of my time trying to counteract widely-held beliefs that have taken hold in the general culture because unsafe interpretations of raw results, some of these themselves of dubious reliability, are being spread around by speakers who pretend to be experts in the fields of sex, sex crime, pornography, aggression, women, men, and other related areas.
You can impel whole rooms full of angry women to march in the streets by telling them that "Studies in America showed that men became more violent after watching pornography," but you might merely bore them by trying to explain that no one has been able to duplicate this result, and in the two studies quoted, one was not using actual pornography but was using general release films.