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

儿童对成人错误行为的改正：在现场和实验室

• 批准号: 1252074
• 负责人: Lindsay Malloy
• 金额: $ 16万
• 依托单位: Florida International University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-02-15 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1252074&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Children; Recantation; Adult; Wrongdoing; Field

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.

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，以便官员能够确定受害者，起诉肇事者和保护儿童。儿童保持一致的虐待报告的能力影响他们的可信度的看法。撤回指控，即儿童披露指控，但随后又撤回指控，是一种前后矛盾的说法，给有效和公平地保护儿童带来了问题。 近年来，儿童放弃信仰的原因一直是人们热议的话题。那些更容易受到成年家庭成员影响的孩子是否更容易放弃信仰？这个问题指导了拟议的研究。首先，该项目审查了抚养法院的儿童性虐待受害者案件档案。主要目标是：（1）确定在实际虐待案件中预测撤回的变量，（2）调查儿童在撤回报告后的披露模式。接下来，研究者将进行一项实验，主要目的是：（1）调查儿童撤回对实验室中轻微错误行为的报告的频率;（2）研究儿童的年龄和父母的支持（或不支持）评论如何影响儿童撤回对损坏玩具的决定。拟议的研究将有助于了解儿童揭露他人不法行为的过程。结果将揭示儿童的发展脆弱性和社会影响他们的报告的事件。实际上，拟议的研究结果对调查人员、律师、事实调查人员和专家证人都有影响。拟议的研究还将提供培训机会，使许多学生能够参与与社会相关的科学研究。 这些学生很可能是代表性不足的群体的成员，因为大学里的许多学生都是。