Children's Recantation of Adult Wrongdoing: In the Field and In the Lab

虐待儿童是一个重大的公共卫生问题。儿童必须能够披露虐待行为，以便官员能够识别受害者、起诉肇事者并保护儿童。儿童保持一致的虐待报告的能力会影响对他们可信度的看法。撤销是指儿童披露指控，然后收回指控，这是一个故事中的不一致之处，会给有效和公平地保护儿童带来问题。近几年来，孩子们放弃的原因一直备受争议。更容易受到成年家庭成员影响的儿童是否有更大的风险放弃？这一问题指导着拟议的研究。首先，该项目审查了儿童性虐待受害者的抚养法庭案件卷宗。主要目标是：(1)在实际的虐待案件中找出预测撤回的变量，以及(2)调查儿童在撤回其报告后的披露模式。接下来，研究人员将进行一项实验，主要目的是：(1)调查儿童在实验室撤回关于轻微不当行为的报告的频率；(2)考察儿童的年龄和父母支持(或不支持)的评论如何影响儿童撤回关于损坏的玩具的披露的决定。拟议的研究将有助于理解儿童揭露他人不当行为的过程。结果将揭示儿童的发展脆弱性以及社会对他们报道事件的影响。实际上，拟议研究的结果对调查人员、律师、事实调查员和专家证人都有影响。拟议的研究还将提供培训机会，让许多学生参与与社会相关的科学研究。这些学生很可能是代表不足的群体的成员，因为大学里的许多学生都是。

Child maltreatment is a significant public health concern. Children must be able to disclose abuse to allow officials to identify victims, prosecute perpetrators, and protect children. Children's ability to maintain consistent abuse reports influences perceptions of their credibility. Recantation, which means that children disclose but then retract allegations, is an inconsistency in a story that raises problems for effective and fair protection of children. The reasons why children recant have been hotly debated in recent years. Are children who are more vulnerable to influence from adult family members at greater riskfor recanting? This question guides the proposed research. First, the project examines the dependency court case files of child sexual abuse victims. The main objectives are: (1) to identify variables that predict recantation among actual cases of abuse, and (2) to investigate children's patterns of disclosure after having recanted their report. Next, the researcher will conduct an experiment, with the the primary objectives of: (1)investigating the frequency with which children recant a report of a minor act of wrongdoing in the laboratory; and (2) examining how children's age and supportive (or unsupportive) comments from parents influence children's decisions to recant their disclosure about the broken toy. The proposed studies will contribute to understanding the processes by which children reveal the wrongdoing of others. Results will shed light on children's developmental vulnerabilities and the social influences on their reports of events. Practically, results from the proposed studies have implications for investigators, attorneys, fact finders, and expert witnesses. The proposed studies will also offer training opportunities, allowing many students to become involved in socially-relevant scientific research. The students are likely to be members of underrepresented groups because many of the students at the university are.