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Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
PSY302
Shawn Wygant
Argosy University
May 17, 2012
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
1
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION & LITERATURE REVIEW ___________________________________________________________ 3
HYPOTHESIS _________________________________________________________________________________3
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN _________________________________________________________________________4
FALSE REPORTS: PERIPHERAL & SALIENT DETAILS ________________________________________________________ 5
CONFIRMATORY BIAS PRODUCES COERCED-COMPLIANT DISCLOSURES & DOUBLE BIND SCENARIOS _______________________ 6
OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS _________________________________________________________________ 7
MISINFORMATION ____________________________________________________________________________7
SUGGESTIBILITY & SUGGESTION ____________________________________________________________________7
BRAINWASHING ______________________________________________________________________________8
DISSOCIATION & FORCED CONFABULATION ____________________________________________________________ 9
METHODS SECTION ________________________________________________________________________ 10
PARTICIPANTS ______________________________________________________________________________10
INSTRUMENTATION ___________________________________________________________________________12
PROCEDURE ________________________________________________________________________________12
ETHICAL ISSUES______________________________________________________________________________14
RESULTS __________________________________________________________________________________ 15
RESPONSES TO SALIENT DETAILS OF A NON-EVENT AFTER SUGGESTION _________________________________________15
RESPONSES TO SALIENT DETAILS ABOUT A REAL EVENT AFTER MISINFORMATION __________________________________17
RESPONSES TO PERIPHERAL DETAILS OF A NON-EVENT AFTER SUGGESTION ______________________________________18
RESPONSES TO PERIPHERAL DETAILS ABOUT A REAL EVENT AFTER MISINFORMATION ________________________________ 20
DISCUSSION _______________________________________________________________________________ 21
CONFOUNDING VARIABLES ______________________________________________________________________21
IMPLICATIONS & SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE DIRECTION ___________________________________________________ 22
REFERENCES ________________________________________________________________________________ 23
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
3
Abstract
The following study deals with child suggestibility and the effect that misinformation has
on their ability to provide truthful testimony. A mock experiment was conducted on a
group of 300 preschool age (3-6) children who participated in a staged event followed by
suggestions that they experienced a non-event as well as misinformation regarding a real
event. The day after the children received false suggestions and misleading information
their memories were tested and the results indicate that young children are approximately
2.5 times more likely to report non-events as true than other children of the same age who
did not receive the same level of suggestion or misleading information and approximately
4.6 times more likely to report non-events as true than adults who did receive the same
level of suggestion or misleading information.
Introduction & Literature Review
This study explores the suggestibility of 3-6 year old children after exposure to
misinformation and suggestions about real events and fabricated non-events. Previous
research in this area has shown that the memory of children is subject to alteration (Ceci
& Bruck, 1993) and that preschool age children are more suggestible than older children
and adults (Bruck & Melnyk, 2004). Despite the results of these studies indicating that
misinformation given to children cause false reports, some researchers have held to the
notion that emotionally traumatic events experienced by children actually increases
resistance to misinformation and decreases suggestibility so long as when an
investigative forensic interview takes place it is done in a supportive and validating
manner (Blandon-Gitlin & Pezdek, 2009, p. 61). Other researchers disagree based upon
experiments that show that when 3 year old children experience sadness during the
encoding of an emotionally upsetting event or the semantic representation of a fabricated
event, suggestibility increases along with higher rates of false reports (Levine, Burgess,
& Laney, 2008).
Hypothesis
Because of these disagreements, experiments in this area of research have yet to
convince a majority of psychologists that false reports by young children are significantly
more likely to occur when a child is misinformed about a real event or given a suggestion
that they have experienced a fabricated non-event (Roediger, Jacoby, & McDermott,
1996). Therefore, an experiment was designed for this study involving preschool and
early elementary age children (3-6 years) to test the hypothesis that when a child is given
misnformation about a real event or a suggestion about a non-event they will tend to
incorporate the misinformation or the suggestion into their memory as if it were true and
subsequently when questioned about either event will provide unreliable testimony. This
experiment will test the following unresolved research question: Can a child be
programmed to testify falsely based upon suggestions or misinformation they receive
about a real event or a fabricated non-event? It is predicted that the answer will be yes
and the null hypothesis (suggestion and misinformation have little or no effect on child
reports) should be rejected.
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
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Experimental Design
The design of the experiment follows previous ones (Pezdek & Roe, 1997) in that
there is a presentation phase, a suggestion phase, and a testing phase however unlike the
Pezdek & Roe experiment where all of the children involved received the same treatment,
this experiment compares the effect of suggestibility between an experimental group and
a control group. The primary reason for this design is to control the independent variable
as much as possible so that its effect can be meaured during testing and scoring phases.
The Pezdek and Roe (1997) experiment failed to adequately control this variable and thus
the results did not provide accurate or reliable information concerning how suggestible
children are to misinformation about being touched when they were not. What is
disappointing about their procedure was the lack of a record to indicate what transpired
between the experimenters and the children during the suggestion stage. The report
(Pezdek & Roe, 1997) on page 100 states that during the suggestion stage the
experimenter is said to have reviewed for the children what had happened to them during
the presentation stage without enumerating what was actually said to the children or
describing the manner in which it was conveyed.
The presentation stage involved showing the children a picture of a rose on a screen
while either touching the child on the hand, the shoulder or not at all (Pezdek & Roe,
1997). If the suggestion stage was merely a rehearsal for what transpired in the
presentation stage it seems pointless to pretend this was an experiment about
suggestibility since the use of the term in this context refers to the degree to which a
person can be influenced by suggestion (Ashcraft & Radvansky, 2010) which I believe is
any form of nonverbal or verbal comunication to a child that has the capacity “to convey
thoughts or ideas by indirection” (Suggestion, 2004, p. S7139). Testing how vulnerable a
child is to misinformation that indirectly intimates the existence of something that did not
happen can only occur if there is a natural sequence of time between an experienced
event, a suggested event, and a test on whether the suggested event was believed or
denied by the child (Lipmann, 1911).
In the Pezdek & Roe (1997) experiment there was only 15 minutes between the
presentation stage and the suggestion stage followed immediately by a memory test
where each child had to answer one of the following three questions:
(1) When I showed you the picture of the flower on the screen and asked
if you could see it, did I touch you? (2) When I showed you the picture
of the flower on the screen and asked if you could see it, did I put my
hand on your shoulder? (3) When I showed you the picture of the flower
on the screen and asked if you could see it, did I put my hand on your
hand? (Pezdek & Roe, 1997, p. 100).
After scoring answers based on this paradigm, these researchers state: “it is less
likely that a completely new touch can be planted in memory or that a touch actually
experienced can be suggestively erased from memory” (Pezdek & Roe, 1997, p. 103). It
is quite obvious from this report that the experimental conditions used did not in anyway
resemble how a child is treated within the child protection industry once they are the
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
5
subject of an investigation for abuse (Henkel & Coffman, 2004). First of all, there is
normally a delay between when an allegation first arises and when the child is first
interviewed (Ceci, Huffman, & Smith, 1994). The sequence in real cases usually follows
a pattern that involves the production of an allegation in the form of a referral to child
protective services which is predicated by a parent, teacher or other mandated reporter
interviewing the child. The child is then re-interviewed by a child protective services
worker, a prosecutor, or a law enforcement officer. Sometimes all three will be involved
in the same formal interview of the child although it is usually the protective services
worker who conducts the interview while the prosecutor and police officer are acting in
the role of observer (Lepore & Sesco, 1994). Once the child has finished the formal
interview, he or she is usually re-interviewed by a concerned parent who attempts to try
and clarify what, if anything, has happened (Bruck, Ceci, & Francoeur, 1999).
This process has yet to be thoroughly explored in experiments involing the issue of
suggestibility. Therefore, the experiment in this study is designed to engage the
experimental group in two interviews, set apart in time by one day, both of which utilize
misinformation and suggestive questioning deliberately contrived to confirm, through the
child’s responses, the existence of a non-event and the incorporation of misinformation
into their memories of a real event as explained in the methods section.
False Reports: Peripheral & Salient Details
Another area of concern addressed by this study is the belief held by some
behavioral scientists and prosecutors that children of this age are no more suggestible
than older children or adults when it comes to providing accurate details concerning
salient or central features of an event as opposed to peripheral or unimportant ones
(Ceci, Huffman, & Smith, 1994). This belief continues to be held even in cases where a
child is exposed to interrogatory questioning that suggests an answer different from what
the child actually experienced (Pezdek & Roe, 1997). Accordingly, a child 3-6 years of
age can theoretically give false testimony about unimportant details (e.g., what color of
shirt a perpetrator wore) of an event while providing accurate details concerning the
salient features (e.g., whether a perpetrator hit a child) of the same event without any
corroborative evidence to support the truthfulness or falsity of either (American
Prosecutors Research Institute, 2004, p. 32). Yet, this does not explain how a majority of
young children in two suggestibility and misinformation experiments (Varendock, 1911;
Ahern, Lyon, & Quas, 2011) gave both salient and peripheral fictitious details about a
non-event (Varendonck, 1911) and a real event (Ahern et al., 2011).
In the Varendonck (1911) experiment, Dr. Varendonck asked children from his class
to “describe a person who had approached him in the school yard that morning” (Ceci &
Bruck, 1993, p. 407). Even though no person existed and the questions he asked involved
a non-event, 17 out of 22 children (77%) gave a name for the person and provided salient
as well as peripheral details all of which were false. These children were able to fabricate
important and central features (e.g., witnessing two people engaged in a conversation) of
a non-event based upon the power of suggestion and misinformation that came from Dr.
Varendonck and not a real event that they witnessed. In the Ahern et al. (2011)
experiment, children ages 2-5 were told to say “that they saw a picture of a bird when
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
6
viewing pictures of fish” (p. 61). The results showed that a majority of children in this
age group will intentionally lie about salient features of an event (e.g., identifying
something that was seen, felt, or heard) when enticed or coached with rewards for lying.
Confirmatory Bias produces Coerced-Compliant Disclosures & Double Bind Scenarios
Research into this phenomenon states that this occurs due to the social and cognitive
processes involved when a child is interviewed by an adult whose confirmatory bias leads
them to produce from the child a coerced-compliant or coerced-internalized (Kassin,
2006) disclosure which is in harmony with what the adult believes happened (Ceci,
Bruck, & Rosenthal, 1995). A coerced-compliant disclosure in this context is most likely
the product of a child being put into a series of double bind scenarios (Bateson, Jackson,
Haley, & Weakland, 1956). Bateson et al. state that double bind scenarios involve the
imposition of a primary negative injunction followed by a secondary injunction
conflicting with the first followed by a tertiary negative injunction that prevents the child
from escaping the double bind. An example is as follows:
(1) A child is falsely told by a person in authority that they were the
victim of a sexual assault by an adult (primary negative injunction)
through suggestion and leading questions.
(2) The child is then told by the same person in authority that he or she
must tell the truth about what happened (secondary injunction
conflicting with the first) even though the truth would mean lying
because the child was never sexually assaulted (non-event).
(3) Finally, the child is then subjected to another person in authority
(aligned with the person who imposed the primary and secondary
injunctions) who tells the child that he or she was sexually assaulted
and to tell the truth about what happened (tertiary injunction
preventing the child from escaping the double bind) (Bateson, Jackson,
Haley, & Weakland, 1956, p. 258)
No matter how the child answers the interviewer he or she cannot win. The tragedy
of this situation is that it is often compounded and made worse by repetitive interviews
concerning a fabricated non-event which ultimately leads to split or schizophrenic
thinking (Bateson et al., 1956). A careful review of the literature supports this notion that,
under the guise of helping a child recover from or disclose a painful or forgotten memory,
many professionals, parents, and law enforcement officials inadvertently end up creating
double bind scenarios which have a brainwashing and programming effect (Clawar &
Rivlin, 1991) on the children involved such that they are compelled to accept false beliefs
based upon misinformation about a real event (Otgaar, Candel, & Merckelbach, 2008) or
suggestions about a non-event that never took place (Miles, Powell, & Stokes, 2004).
The annual reports from each child protective services agency yield several clues
that this problem of erroneous fact finding in investigations for child abuse is rampant
among domestic relations cases that involve misinformation and suggestion given to a
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
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young child during forensic interviews (Poole & Lindsay, 2001). These cases include
neglect/abuse petitions for temporary or permanent ward-ship as well as guardianship and
custody cases that involve parents or third parties. Much of this extensive problem stems
from several false underlying beliefs and theories, developed during the 70s and 80s,
concerning how to investigate and discover the truth or falsity of sexual abuse allegations
(Ceci & Bruck, 1993). Chief among these false beliefs is the theory of child sexual abuse
accommodation syndrome (Sgroi, 1982; Summit, 1983; Faller, 1984), the theory of
recovering forgotten childhood sexual abuse memories through imagery and suggestion
(Bass & Davis, 1988), and the theory that children are incapable of lying about sexual
abuse (Berliner, 1988). These fallacious theories led to a significant rise in sexual abuse
cases many of which turned out to be false especially those that occurred within the
context of a divorce custody or visitation dispute (Blush & Ross, 1987).
Operational Definitions
When taken as a whole, the experiments concerning the suggestibility of children
usually do not include thorough definitions of the variables involved (Jackson, 2010).
Operational definitions help researchers clarify how the data collected should be
understood and used (Shaughnessy, Zechmeister, & Zechmeister, 2009). In this study, I
felt it was important to include the following four operational definitions since it was
apparent to me during research and reading that I struggled with what these terms really
meant until I could codify them into new dynamic constructs broadly encompassing the
boundaries of both the independent and dependent variables.
Misinformation
The term misinformation, as used in this study, refers to any information provided
to a child that, by content or the contextual method of delivery, has the capacity to cause
a child to formulate a false belief or inference about a real or fabricated event. The
conditional clause – capacity to cause – is an important inclusion because it sets an
appropriate boundary for any interviewing techniques that could be employed in the
solicitation of reports, disclosures, or other forms of testimonies from children
concerning events whose facts are in controversy. The plain and ordinary meaning of the
term – misinformation – is usually defined as; “to provide with incorrect information”
(Misinform, 2004, p. M4648), however this plain use of the term does not help establish a
threshold for when false information becomes threatening to the disclosure of the truth
and ultimately harmful to a child’s ability to make accurate reports or recognize reality in
the sense of trusting their own version of events.
Suggestibility & Suggestion
The point at which false or misleading suggestions, statements, or inferences cause a
child to formulate false beliefs depends on the particular child’s level of suggestibility,
which according to Bruck and Melnyk (2004) is related to age. Suggestibility refers to the
degree to which a person can be influenced by suggestion (Suggestibility, The free
dictionary, 2003). And, by suggestion I mean any form of nonverbal or verbal
communication to a child that has the capacity “to convey thoughts or ideas by
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
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indirection” (Suggestion, The American heritage dictionary, 2004, p. S7139) and
association. Thus, I would define suggestibility as an individual child’s developmental,
social, and cognitive capacity to recognize reality and convey the truth about an event or
non-event they are directed to recall or testify to when confronted with any verbal or
nonverbal communications from others that suggest, imply, or intimate something
different than what they perceive or know to be associated with that event or non-event.
Brainwashing
When a series of suggestions that contain false or misleading information are
programmed into a child’s narrative recollections of an event or fabricated non-event,
brainwashing occurs (Clawar & Rivlin, 1991). Brainwashing is a process that transpires
over a period of time and has two essential components; (1) the inculcation of a program
in a child which contradicts their version of reality through specific brainwashing
techniques and, (2) repetition of those techniques until the child accepts the
brainwasher’s version of reality. When a child is believed to be the victim of abuse based
upon misinformation taken from a real event or fabricated information taken from a nonevent, brainwashing usually involves repeatedly coercing, soliciting, or accosting a child
to disclose aspects of the event or non-event suggested by the brainwasher.
Sometimes this process is facilitated through using bits of reality combined with
misinformation (Loftus, Coan, & Pickrell, 1996). However, once a programmable script
has been formulated by the brainwasher (their version of reality), repetitive direct and
suggestive questioning of the child usually follows a format that is implicitly designed to
indirectly elicit from the child answers that conform to the brainwasher’s script instead of
the child’s own unsolicited recall of events or denial of non-events presented in earlier
interviews (both formal and informal). An example of this form of suggestive questioning
can be found on pages 51 and 52 of the third edition of Investigation and Prosecution of
Child Abuse (American Prosecutors Research Institute, 2004) where the text states as
follows beginning at the bottom of page 51: “The following questions are intended to
elicit information about suspected abuse”. At the top of the next page under “General
Inquiry Questions”, the text lists the following questions in part:
“Have you had any touches you didn’t like or made you feel
uncomfortable?”
“What did (suspect’s name) touch you with?”
“Did (suspect’s name) touch you somewhere else on your body?”
“Did you ever see (suspect’s name) touch anyone else’s private spot?”
“Where were you when (suspect’s name) touched your private spot?”
(American Prosecutors Research Institute, 2004, pp. 51-52)
These questions if asked of a 30 year old alleged raped victim may be appropriate
but not to a 3 year old child because they include indirect inferences of actions not
already identified by the alleged victim to have occurred. In terms of this type of
brainwashing that occurs during the course of improper child abuse investigations, this
type of questioning comes at the tail end of the cycle only after a child has already been
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
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subjected to repetitive suggestive questioning from parents, social workers, or other adult
professional participants.
Dissociation & Forced Confabulation
Unfortunately, this pattern of brainwashing through repetitive suggestive
questioning invites delusional thinking and dissociation in the child who may unwittingly
become a victim of pediatric condition falsification which is a form of child maltreatment
where an adult or adults fabricate or induce psychological symptoms in a child for the
expressed purpose of causing that child to be regarded as a victim of the factitious
condition the adult fabricators attempted to or successfully induced (Shaw, Dayal,
Hartman, & DeMaso, 2008). In the simplest terms, dissociation can be thought of as “a
disruption in one component of mental functioning but no impairment of another”
(Ashcraft & Radvansky, Cognition (5th ed.), 2010). In the context of a child receiving
misinformation about an event that they did not experience (non-event), an absence of an
episodic memory to associate with the non-event does not prevent an implicit associative
response (Cabeza & Lennartson, 2005) by the child who will most likely encode a
semantic representation of what they were misinformed of regarding their involvement in
the non-event as suggested to them by the interviewing adult.
This can lead to a dissociated (split) representation of the non-event where there is a
lack of episodic memory subjectively categorized as a ‘non-remembered event’ which
can become internally subjugated by a newer semantic memory of the non-event as an
audio-graphically memorialized object recorded from the source of the misinformation
(Roediger, Jacoby, & McDermott, 1996). This process, in part, explains how semantic
and episodic memories can become dissociated when the true and accurate object
representation of the non-event (this did not happen) within the episodic memory of the
child has been overwritten through misinformation (it did happen and it happened the
way I suggested it to you).
Some children may have the capacity to resist this process when they are older and
more able to deal with cognitive dissonance as in the following script: “I cannot
remember the non-event that I was told happened about me and without any memory of
the non-event, how can I know whether it is true or not except through association with
what I have learned before about the event from my own experiences and not from any
suggestions that I have heard from others”. Lipmann (1911) and others (Ceci, Huffman,
& Smith, 1994) have found that interrogatory suggestive questions concerning nonevents rarely elicit the response of – I don’t know – from the child. Instead, “the child’s
attention is called to gaps in what he remembers and these gaps he then fills out”
(Lipmann, 1911, p. 257). This process strikes at the heart of dissociation within the brain
of a child who is repeatedly interviewed about a non-event as if it was real and explains
why so many researchers attempt to describe the problem in terms of lying versus not
lying instead of looking to how this interview process itself invites forced confabulation
on the part of the child interviewee (Zaragoza, Payment, Ackil, Drivdahl, & Beck, 2001).
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
10
Methods Section
The method used for measuring the effect that misinformation and suggestion has
on a child’s ability to recall both salient (e.g., touched part of the body) and peripheral
details (e.g., color of shirt) about a real event and non-event is to have each child from
the experimental group participate in a staged event (having their palms read) after
which they will be interviewed separately to receive suggestions in the form of leading
questions some of which contain misinformation about the real event as well as how they
were touched on a part of their body that they were not (non-event). This will be followed
by testing their memory and recall with suggestive and leading questions to try and
confirm the misinformation and the non-event suggestion they were provided during the
suggestive phase. The interval of time between each phase of the experiment will be one
day. Thus, the presentation phase will be on day one, the suggestion phase will be on day
two, and the testing phase will be on day three.
The child control group will participate in the staged event and the testing phase
only (days 1 and 3). They will not be interviewed between these two and during the
testing phase they will be asked questions about the non-event (touching a part of the
body other than the hand during the palm reading). The questioning of the control groups
will be non-suggestive in nature. The control groups should come from different
classrooms than the experimental groups so that neither group will know which group
they participated in until after the experiment ends. The adult experimental and control
groups will undergo the same treatments as the children with respect to their
corresponding group.
Participants
The population of interest for this research study is children ages 3-6. The reason
for choosing children of this age is due to the controversy over their suggestibility. There
are many behavioral scientists and prosecutors who believe that children of this age are
no more suggestible than older children or adults when it comes to providing accurate
details concerning salient or central features of an event as opposed to peripheral or
unimportant ones (Ceci, Huffman, & Smith, 1994). This belief continues to be held even
in cases where a child was exposed to interrogatory questioning that suggests an answer
different from what the child actually experienced (Pezdek & Roe, 1997). Accordingly, a
child 3-6 years of age can theoretically give false testimony about unimportant details
(e.g., what color of shirt a perpetrator wore) of an event while providing accurate details
concerning the salient features (e.g., whether a perpetrator hit a child) of the same event
without any corroborative evidence to support the truthfulness or falsity of either
(American Prosecutors Research Institute, 2004, p. 32). Yet, this does not explain how a
majority of young children in two suggestibility/misinformation experiments (Varendock,
1911; Ahern, Lyon, & Quas, 2011) gave both salient and peripheral fictitious details
about a non-event (Varendonck, 1911) and a real event (Ahern et al., 2011).
In the Varendonck (1911) experiment, Dr. Varendonck asked children from his class
to “describe a person who had approached him in the school yard that morning” (Ceci &
Bruck, 1993, p. 407). Even though no person existed and the questions he asked involved
a non-event, 17 out of 22 children (77%) gave a name for the person and provided salient
as well as peripheral details all of which were false. These children were able to fabricate
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
11
important and central features (e.g., witnessing two people engaged in a conversation) of
a non-event based upon the power of suggestion and misinformation that came from Dr.
Varendonck and not a real event that they witnessed. In the Ahern et al. (2011)
experiment, children ages 2-5 were told to say “that they saw a picture of a bird when
viewing pictures of fish” (p. 61). The results showed that a majority of children in this
age group will intentionally lie about salient features of an event (e.g., identifying
something that was seen, felt, or heard) when enticed or coached with rewards for lying.
Inclusion/Exclusion Factors
Since the underlying premise of this research study involves testing the reliability of
children’s testimony and memory, children who would not normally be eligible to testify
in a court case as a live or hearsay witness will be excluded. These children are those
who have severe learning impairments marked by intelligence scores that are less than 75
as well as children diagnosed with any degree of autism. One of the questions that arises
from the main research question is how suggestible are 3-6 year old children when
compared to adults. To answer this question as to the age differences in suggestibility,
two groups of adults should be included in the study the first being assigned to the
experimental group and the second being assigned to the control group.
Gender and Ethnicity Factors
The children and adults in the study should consist of equal numbers with a 50/50
ratio of male to female participation. The population of both the children’s groups and
the adult groups should consist of ethnic diversity in direct proportion to the overall
population of the United States. The experimental and control samples need to be diverse
in order to generalize any findings. The number of people in each group breaks down as
follows:
A. Child Experimental Group: 300 children ages 3-6 randomly chosen from 10
different preschool and elementary classes divided into 10 subgroups consisting
of 30 members each. 10 (5 male and 5 female) experimenters will be randomly
assigned to conduct the experiment on each subgroup. The ratio of male to
female child participants shall be 50/50.
B. Child Control Group: 300 children ages 3-6 randomly chosen from 10
different preschool and elementary classes divided into 10 subgroups consisting
of 30 members each. 10 (5 male and 5 female) experimenters will be randomly
assigned to conduct the experiment on each subgroup. The ratio of male to
female child participants shall be 50/50.
C. Adult Experimental Group: 300 adults ages 18-21 randomly chosen from 10
different College and University classes divided into 10 subgroups consisting of
30 members each. 10 (5 male and 5 female) experimenters will be randomly
assigned to conduct the experiment on each subgroup. The ratio of male to
female child participants shall be 50/50.
D. Adult Control Group: 300 adults ages 18-21 randomly chosen from 10
different College and University classes divided into 10 subgroups consisting of
30 members each. 10 (5 male and 5 female) experimenters will be randomly
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
12
assigned to conduct the experiment on each subgroup. The ratio of male to
female child participants shall be 50/50.
Instrumentation
The data collection methods will consist primarily of observation, interviewing,
testing, and scoring. In addition, it will be necessary to review the literature done on
several similar experiments done in the past so as to address any questions which have
arisen from previous research in this area that has not been thoroughly answered or where
there remains an inconsistent result. The idea of using archival data is to help broaden the
scope of research questions which still need further exploration. Such is the case with the
suggestibility of children and the misinformation effect addressed by this study. Even
though there have been over 100 experiments and studies done on this subject many of
the results have not clarified how inappropriate and harmful it is to subject a child to
misleading facts during an investigation of child abuse especially when those facts are the
product of a fabricated event by adult investigators or interviewers.
The major purpose of this collection method and instrumentation is to facilitate an
experimental method that allows researchers to describe and predict the suggestibility of
young 3-6 year old children and its effect on their post-event testimony following an
interview that contained misinformation either about a real event or a non-event
occurring in the context of a real event. This type of experimental method helps
“determine whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the variables of
interest” (Jackson, 2010, p. 22).
Procedure
a. Presentation Phase
The children in the experimental group will be told that they are going to meet a
palm reader who will read their palms and tell them information about themselves. The
palm reader will come to the children’s classroom and each child will take turns going
into a small private room with the palm reader to have their palm read. The palm reader
will hold each subject’s hand while reading their palm. The palm reader will not touch
any other part of the subject’s body. The palm reader will be wearing a bright red shirt
and did not have a hat on his head. This same treatment will occur with the control child
group and both adult groups.
b. Suggestion Phase
In this part of the experiment only the adult experimental group and the child
experimental group will participate. The suggestion phase involves taking each
experimental subject into the same private room that their palms were read in and having
them interviewed by two new experimenters introduced to the subject as a female social
worker and male police officer dressed in full uniform. Only the social worker role
playing experimenter will be conducting the interview and asking the questions. The
police officer role playing experimenter will simply observe while standing and facing
the interviewee. The questions involved for this part of the experiment will contain
misinformation concerning the peripheral details of the real event and suggestive
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
13
questions concerning salient details of a fabricated non-event. The sequencing of the
questions will be as follows: (a) Peripheral Detail Questioning with Misinformation –
When the palm reader walked into the room to read your palm wearing his favorite
yellow shirt and baseball hat, what did he do first? When he began touching your hand to
read your palm this tickled a little didn’t it? Other people have said it felt ticklish,
wouldn’t you agree? (b) Salient Detail Questioning with Misinformation about a NonEvent: Other people have also said that the palm reader touched them on other parts of
their body. What other parts of your body did the palm reader touch? Did this touching
on other parts of your body also tickle because some other people said that it did?
c. Testing Phase
During this part of the experiment both the control and experimental groups will be
asked similar content questions individually by the same social worker role experimenter
used in the suggestion phase as follows:
i. Control Group Test Questioning
Narrative Free Recall Questioning: When the palm reader came to your
classroom two days ago, tell me in your own words what happened from the time he
began his palm reading until he left the school? Direct Questioning Concerning Salient
Details: I am going to ask you some more specific questions regarding your palm reading
session. We did have the opportunity to video tape the palm reading session although we
have not yet viewed the film so I am relying on your answers to let me know what
happened. Did the palm reader touch your hand? If so, did it tickle? Did he touch any
other part of your body? If he touched any other part of your body please explain in your
own words what happened? (If a subject answers this question by denial of any other
form of touching than proceed with the next line of questioning). Are you sure about
these answers you have given and do they represent the best of your recollections? Direct
Questioning Concerning Peripheral Details: If I was to tell you that the palm reader’s
shirt was yellow like the color of the sun would I be telling the truth or a lie? How did
you like that hat he was wearing, do you remember what color it was?
ii. Experimental Group Test Questioning
Suggestive Questioning Concerning Salient Details: When the palm reader
came to your classroom two days ago, tell me how he touched your hand while reading
your palm? Other people said that it tickled, do you think it did? When he touched the
other parts of your body where did he touch you? (If the experimental subject does not
respond or denies that the palm reader touched another part of their body than the
interviewer will proceed to the next line of questioning). I need you to tell me what
happened and what other parts of your body he touched because we have a video tape of
the session which shows the palm reader touching another part of your body. Suggestive
Questioning Concerning Peripheral Details: When did the palm reader take off his hat
during the palm reading session? (Closed ended question about a non-event because the
palm reader wasn’t wearing a hat). If I was to tell you that the palm reader was wearing a
yellow shirt would I be telling the truth or a lie?
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
14
d. Scoring Phase
The scoring phase of the experiment deals with collecting the results, converting
them to quantities that can be analyzed and compared using statistical analysis. This will
help determine internal and external validity. The experiment will be internal valid if
the methods and procedure measure the variables they are supposed to measure which in
this case is the effect that misinformation has on young children’s suggestibility and their
capacity to provide accurate testimony concerning both peripheral and salient features of
an observed real event and a suggested non-event. Other construct validity aspects are
addressed by having the children interviewed individually and introducing a non-event
within the context of a real event measuring both peripheral as well as salient details.
Therefore, it is hypothesized that roughly 75% of the experimental child group will
provide false testimony concerning both salient and peripheral details presumably
reporting being touched on parts of their body other than their hand and identifying the
palm reader as either wearing a yellow shirt or a hat. Conversely, it is hypothesized that
roughly 75% of the child control group will provide truthful and accurate testimony
concerning both salient and peripheral details. As for the adult experimental group, it is
hypothesized that approximately 60% will provide truthful and accurate reports (salient
and peripheral) and approximately 90% of the adult control group will provide the same.
Ethical Issues
The first ethical issue to be addressed is the informed consent from the parents of
the children involved which is governed by section 3.10 of the APA code of ethics
(American Psychological Association, 2002). This part of the ethics code specifies that
when conducting research psychologists must obtain written informed consent from all
those who are going to participate. The parents would need to be fully apprised of the
entire details of every aspect of the experiment before giving permission to have their
child participate. The palm reading content could be a potential problem for some parents
who view this as an ‘evil’ or ‘deviant’ practice akin to witchcraft or Satanism however
this could most likely be addressed by screening participants with a questionnaire prior to
enrollment.
The next ethical concern is related to privacy and confidentiality which is covered
under section 4 of the APA code of ethics (American Psychological Association, 2002).
Specifically, section 4.01 states that the obligation of research psychologists is to make
reasonable efforts to protect the identities of the participants and that confidentiality is
only breached in cases of potential threat of harm by a failure to disclose private
information (American Psychological Association, 2002).
Another potential ethics problem could be emotional harm to the experimental
group of children when they are being interviewed by the experimenters posing as a
social worker and a police officer. The failure to disclose to the children that the social
worker and police officer are really experimenters pretending to be these characters could
be considered unethical and dishonest under section 8.07(a) of the APA ethics code
which states in part:
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
15
Psychologists do not conduct a study involving deception unless they have
determined that the use of deceptive techniques is justified by the study’s
significant prospective scientific, educational, or applied value and that
effective nondeceptive alternative procedures are not feasible (American
Psychological Association, 2002, p. 19).
In consideration of this principle, prior to conducting the experiment it would be
efficacious to survey psychological researchers to obtain an opinion as to whether or not
it is appropriate to deceive the children in the manner described in the suggestive phase
of the procedure. If it turns out that a majority of psychological researchers feel that it
would be unethical to deceive the children than perhaps the experiment could be
modified. The APA ethics code under 8.07(b) further indicates that deception is not used
if prospective participants are reasonably expected to endure severe emotional distress
during the procedure (American Psychological Association, 2002, p. 19).
One of the basic elements of this experimental design is to try and replicate as
much as possible the psychological and emotional effects that police and child protective
interviews have on children and how this impacts their ability to resist misinformation
and suggestions about non-events. The intangible element which cannot readily be
measured is the degree to which a simulated interview under the conditions described in
the suggestion phase recreates the same emotional content of a typical forensic interview
by a child protective services worker and police officer who truly believe that a nondisclosing child they are interviewing was sexually assaulted. With or without the
inclusion of a social worker and a police officer, the suggestion phase of the experiment
should be able to adequately represent a fair approximation of a forensic interview such
that the results in either case will not be that far apart in terms of comparison with the
control group who would not receive suggestions during that phase of the experiment.
Results
Responses to Salient Details of a Non-Event after Suggestion
With regard to salient details about a non-event, the experimental child group
affirmed that they were touched on a part of their body that they were not at a rate of 79%
(238/300) whereas the control child group affirmed a non-event touching at a rate of
only 22% (66/300). As expected, this indicates that the children in the experimental
group were 3.6 times (.79/.22) more likely to falsely report a salient detail about a nonevent than the children in the control group. Therefore, suggestion and misinformation
concerning salient details of a non-event is positively correlated with the making of false
reports by children ages 3-6 as shown in the Table 1:
TABLE 1
Population
Numbers Tested
Experimental Child Group
affirm
deny
Control Child Group
affirm
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
deny
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
25
22
20
24
27
22
24
23
25
26
5
8
10
6
3
8
6
7
5
4
10
8
7
8
5
5
4
3
9
7
20
22
23
22
25
25
26
27
21
23
300
238
62
66
234
0.79
0.21
0.22
0.78
Salient Detail Test
Question about a
non-event
When he touched the other parts of your
body where did he touch you?
16
Did he touch any other part of your
body?
With regard to salient details about a non-event comparing adult suggestibility to
child suggestibility, the adult experimental group affirmed that they were touched on a
part of their body that they were not at a rate of 13% (39/300) whereas the experimental
child group affirmed a non-event touching at a rate of 79% (238/300). This indicates that
the children in the experimental group were 6 times (.79/.13) more likely to falsely report
a salient detail about a non-event than the adults after receiving suggestions and
misinformation. The affirmative responses of each group are shown in Table 2.
TABLE 2:
Population
Numbers Tested
Experimental Child Group
Experimental Adult Group
affirm
deny
affirm
deny
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
25
22
20
24
27
22
24
23
25
26
5
8
10
6
3
8
6
7
5
4
5
3
2
6
7
5
3
2
4
2
23
24
26
22
18
26
25
25
24
22
300
238
62
39
235
0.79
0.21
0.13
0.78
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
Salient Detail Test
Question about a
non-event
When he touched the other parts of your
body where did he touch you?
17
When he touched the other parts of your
body where did he touch you?
Responses to Salient Details about a Real Event after Misinformation
With regard to responses to a question regarding misinformation (tickling) about a
real event (touch hand), the experimental child group affirmed that a touch on the hand
tickled at a rate of 85% (255/300) compared to the control child group who affirmed
that tickling occurred at a rate of 37% (110/300). As expected, this indicates that the
children in the experimental group were 2.29 times (.85/.37) more likely to falsely report
a salient detail about a real event than the children in the control group. Therefore,
misinformation concerning a salient detail of a real event is positively correlated with the
making of false reports by children ages 3-6 as shown in Table 3:
TABLE 3:
Population
Numbers Tested
Experimental Child Group
Control Child Group
affirm
deny
affirm
deny
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
25
26
27
22
27
23
24
26
25
30
5
4
3
8
3
7
6
4
5
0
15
12
11
14
8
7
10
12
9
12
15
18
19
16
22
23
20
18
21
18
300
255
45
110
190
0.85
0.15
0.37
0.63
Salient Detail
Test Question
about a real
event
Tell me how he touched your hand while
reading your palm, did it tickle?
Did the palm reader touch your hand, if
so did it tickle?
When comparing the child experimental group with the adult experimental group
for analyzing the suggestibility differences between the two age groups (3-6 vs. 18-21),
the results indicated that the adult experimental group only confirmed misinformation
about a real event 18% (55/300) of the time versus 85% (255/300) for the child group.
This indicates that children are 4.7 times more likely to falsely report a salient detail
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
18
about a real event suggested to them than adults. The raw scores are shown below in
Table 4:
TABLE 4:
Population
Numbers Tested
Experimental Child Group
Experimental Adult Group
affirm
deny
affirm
deny
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
25
26
27
22
27
23
24
26
25
30
5
4
3
8
3
7
6
4
5
0
7
6
4
8
7
4
3
5
6
5
23
24
26
22
23
26
27
25
24
25
300
255
45
55
245
0.85
0.15
0.18
0.82
Salient Detail
Test Question
about a real
event
Tell me how he touched your hand while
reading your palm, did it tickle?
Tell me how he touched your hand while
reading your palm, did it tickle?
Responses to Peripheral Details of a Non-Event after Suggestion
With regard to responses from children regarding the peripheral details of a nonevent (palm reader wearing a hat when no hat was worn), children in the experimental
group affirm falsely that the palm reader was a wearing a hat after it was suggested to
them at a rate of 70% compared to the control group which affirm the same peripheral
details at a rate of 39%. This indicates that children who have received misinformation
concerning the peripheral details of a non-event are 1.8 times more likely to affirm the
presence of the non-event than children of the same age who did not receive the
misinformation as shown in Table 5:
TABLE 5:
Population
Numbers Tested
30
Experimental Child Group
Control Child Group
affirm
deny
affirm
deny
24
6
15
15
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
21
19
25
16
26
21
12
25
20
9
11
5
14
4
9
18
5
10
12
8
17
12
10
9
8
15
12
18
22
13
18
20
21
22
15
18
300
209
91
118
182
0.70
0.30
0.39
0.61
Peripheral Detail
Test Question
about a nonevent
When did the palm reader take off his hat
during the palm reading session?
19
How did you like that hat he was
wearing, do you remember what color it
was?
When comparing the experimental children group with the adult experimental
group on the same peripheral detail question about a non-event, the children were 3 times
more likely than the adults to report that the palm reader was wearing a hat as shown in
Table 6:
TABLE 6:
Population
Numbers Tested
Experimental Child Group
Experimental Adult Group
affirm
deny
affirm
deny
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
24
21
19
25
16
26
21
12
25
20
6
9
11
5
14
4
9
18
5
10
8
5
10
8
9
3
2
8
7
9
22
25
20
22
21
27
28
22
23
21
300
209
91
69
231
0.70
0.30
0.23
0.77
Peripheral Detail
Test Question
about a nonevent
When did the palm reader take off his hat
during the palm reading session?
When did the palm reader take off his hat
during the palm reading session?
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
20
Responses to Peripheral Details about a Real Event after Misinformation
With regard to the suggestibility of children regarding misinformation about the
peripheral details of a real event (color of shirt), the results of the experiment indicated
that the children in the experimental group affirmed that the palm reader was wearing a
yellow shirt 84% of the time (252/300) after receiving misinformation about it during the
suggestion phase. The control child group affirmed the palm reader wearing a yellow
shirt suggested to them at the testing phase 37% of the time (110/300). This indicates that
a child who is misinformed about peripheral details concerning a real event is 2.27 times
more likely to produce false testimony as shown in TABLE 7:
TABLE 7:
Population
Numbers Tested
Experimental Child Group
Control Child Group
affirm
deny
affirm
deny
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
27
22
20
29
27
22
24
26
25
30
3
8
10
1
3
8
6
4
5
0
12
15
20
18
4
2
10
12
9
8
18
15
10
12
26
28
20
18
21
22
300
252
48
110
190
0.84
0.16
0.37
0.63
Peripheral Detail
Test Question
about a real
event
If I was to tell you that the palm reader
was wearing a yellow shirt would I be
telling the truth or a lie?
If I was to tell you that the palm reader's
shirt was a yellow would I be telling the
truth or a lie?
As for comparing age related differences on the same question, the adult
experimental group affirmed the palm reader wearing the yellow only 18% of the time
after receiving the same form of suggestive misinformation as the experimental child
group prior to the testing phase. This indicates that when faced with the same type of
misinformation about a real event, children are 4.7 times more likely to make a false
report than adults as shown in Table 8:
TABLE 8:
Population
Numbers Tested
30
Experimental Child Group
Experimental Adult Group
affirm
deny
affirm
deny
27
3
4
26
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
22
20
29
27
22
24
26
25
30
8
10
1
3
8
6
4
5
0
5
8
7
6
3
5
4
6
7
25
22
23
24
27
25
26
24
23
300
252
48
55
245
0.84
0.16
0.18
0.82
Peripheral Detail
Test Question
about a real
event
If I was to tell you that the palm reader
was wearing a yellow shirt would I be
telling the truth or a lie?
21
If I was to tell you that the palm reader
was wearing a yellow shirt would I be
telling the truth or a lie?
Discussion
The results of the first part of the experiment demonstrated that young children who
are exposed to suggestions regarding the salient details of a non-event (being touched on
a part of the body they were not touched) will falsely affirm the non-event 3.6 times more
often than other children of the same age not exposed to the same level of suggestion and
6 times more often than adults exposed to the same level of suggestion. These findings
are roughly equivalent to the findings in the Varendonck (1911) suggestibility
experiments. The results of the second part of the experiment showed that when a child is
given misinformation about the salient details of a real event (being touched on the hand)
they will falsely report the misinformation 2.3 times more often than children who were
not misinformed and 4.7 times more often than adults who were exposed to the same
level of misinformation.
The results of the third part of the experiment suggests that children who have
received a false suggestion about a peripheral detail (not wearing a hat) will misreport
that detail approximately 70 percent of the time which is 1.8 times more often than
children of the same age who did not receive the same level of suggestion and 3 times
more often than adults who received the same level of false suggestion. The last part of
the experiment helped establish that when it comes to being misinformed concerning the
peripheral details of a real event (red shirt versus a yellow shirt) children who are
misinformed will fail to remember correctly 2.27 times more often than children of the
same age who were not misinformed prior to questioning and 4.7 times more often than
adults who received the same level of misinformation.
Confounding Variables
Like other studies of this kind there are confounding variables which make it
difficult to generalize the findings to all real life situations. External validity (Argosy
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
22
University, 2012) could be increased by controlling some of the confounding variables
such as taking into account the delay between when a child is first misinformed about a
non-event or real event and the time that they are formally interviewed about the event or
non-event. The experiment could be modified to include multiple periods of delays such
as 1 week or 1 month between when a child experiences a stage event and when they
receive suggestions contrary to what they experienced at the event. This should naturally
be extended to the time between the suggestions and the questioning of their memories of
the event.
Another confounding variable is the frequency, duration, and intensity of
suggestions and misinformation that a child experiences before being questioned about
his or her memory. One of the flaws of this experiment is that it did not provide for
testing the experimental group of children for the differences in suggestibility between
emotionally intense interviews and non-intense interviews. If a child knows that the
answers they are giving to questions will not adversely affect their emotional well-being
or physical sense of security they are usually less vulnerable to suggestion (Levine,
Burgess, & Laney, 2008). I believe that when a child is the subject of an intense
investigation where they are believed by the investigators to be a victim of sexual abuse,
the child may be induced into a more suggestible state of mind (Ceci, Huffman, & Smith,
1994) especially if they perceive that they might lose contact with a parent depending
how they answer the questions.
Implications & Suggestions for Future Direction
The implications of my findings suggest that children are more suggestible than
adults and especially more vulnerable than other children to making false reports when
they are misinformed about real events and given suggestions about non-event regardless
of whether the details involved are salient or peripheral (Henkel & Coffman, 2004). The
significance of these experiments to the field study of child suggestibility is that
researchers and therapists need to take an active role in protecting children from harmful
interviewing techniques.
The future direction of research in this area should work towards developing
interviewing techniques that do not interfere with a child’s individual abilities to provide
accurate narrative free recall accounts of their experiences. The focus should be on
teaching children from a very early age that when they do not know the answer to a
question it is ok to say: “I don’t know”. Helping a child develop the ability to analyze
their memories critically builds reliance on their own version of reality in the face of
adults who disagree. It also builds independence and critical thinking skills. These are all
necessary components for children to learn how to resist suggestions from adult which
are false or misleading.
Shawn A. Wygant (May, 2012_Argosy University)
Child Suggestibility and the Misinformation Effect
23
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