Doctoral Dissertation Research: Balancing Costs and Benefits of a New Method of Eliciting Children's Disclosures

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Researchers, clinicians, and child welfare professionals alike recognize that nondisclosure and delayed reporting of child maltreatment is a significant concern that prevents the identification and treatment of abuse victims. Because of this concern, interviewing techniques effective in increasing disclosures while remaining non-suggestive are sorely needed. The current study will investigate such an interviewing technique termed the putative confession (PC), which involves an interviewer telling children that the perpetrator has already told everything that happened and wants [the child] to tell the truth. The technique follows from precepts of Social Cognitive Theory in that it directly addresses internal and external motivational influences on children?s disclosures by both providing reassurance and making an explicit appeal to tell the truth. Two studies have found that PC is effective in increasing disclosures of adults? transgressions. However, whether PC may augment false reports when children have been previously exposed to misinformation regarding allegations of wrongdoing has not been tested. It is critical to do so because in actual maltreatment investigations children often experience conversations with others (e.g. caregivers) that may expose them to misinformation about incorrect abuse allegations. In the current study, children will experience a laboratory play session during which a transgression (toys breaking) will or will not occur. Subsequently, children will be questioned by a parent, who has or has not been given suggestive information that something bad happened during play. Finally, children will experience an investigative interview in which the interviewer will employ either the PC or control instructions. The experimental methodology will allow a clear test of the impact of PC on true and false disclosures, and of how exposure to misinformation may augment its efficacy.Results have the potential to advance our knowledge regarding how certain investigative interview technique specifically designed to elicit disclosures from reluctant children may operate in the field. Additionally, the research will provide opportunities for introducing undergraduates to the process of conducting scientific research.