Children's perceived emotional behavior at disclosure and prosecutors' evaluations

Discernment of Children's True and False Memory Reports: Police Officers and Laypersons

Adults' ability to accurately evaluate children's statements can have far-reaching consequences within the legal system. This study examined the evaluations of police officers ("experts") and laypersons ("nonexperts") when presented with videotaped interviews of children aged 3 and 5 years who provided either true or false reports or denials. Participants were drawn from several counties in the eastern United States. Children's interview statements fell within four statement types: accurate reports, false reports, accurate denials, and false denials. Both groups of participants displayed overbelief in false denials. Several control variables predicted accuracy, including children's age and children's race. A significant interaction emerged: Experts (vs. nonexperts) had greater odds of being accurate when judging false reports (vs. false denials). These findings highlight the challenges adults face when distinguishing between various types of children's statements. The results have important implications for legal contexts, emphasizing that fact finders need to be mindful of the risks associated with both overaccepting false denials and accepting false reports.

Child Witnesses Productively Respond to "How" Questions About Evaluations but Struggle With Other "How" Questions

Child interviewers are often advised to avoid asking "How" questions, particularly with young children. However, children tend to answer "How" evaluative questions productively (e.g., "How did you feel?"). "How" evaluative questions are phrased as a "How" followed by an auxiliary verb (e.g., "did" or "was"), but so are "How" questions requesting information about method or manner (e.g., "How did he touch you?"), and "How" method/manner questions might be more difficult for children to answer. We examined 458 5- to 17-year-old children questioned about sexual abuse, identified 2485 "How" questions with an auxiliary verb, and classified them as "How" evaluative (n = 886) or "How" method/manner (n = 1599). Across age, children gave more productive answers to "How" evaluative questions than "How" method/manner questions. Although even young children responded appropriately to "How" method/manner questions over 80% of the time, specific types of "How" method/manner questions were particularly difficult, including questions regarding clothing, body positioning, and the nature of touch. Children's difficulties lie in specific combinations of "How" questions and topics, rather than "How" questions in general.

The Impact of the Consistency of Child Witness and Peer Reports on Credibility

Adults' perceptions of children's disclosures have important implications for the response to that disclosure. Children who experience adult transgressions, such as maltreatment, often choose to disclose this experience to a peer. Thus, peer disclosure recipients may transmit this disclosure to an adult or provide support for the child's own disclosure. Despite this, the influence of peer disclosure on a child witness's credibility, as well as on the perceptions of peer disclosure recipients, is unknown. The present study examined how child witnesses' and peer disclosure recipients' credibility is impacted when the peer either confirms or contradicts the witness's disclosure (or concealment) of an adult transgression. Participants listened to a child witness and peer being interviewed by an adult in one of four disclosure patterns (consistent disclose, consistent conceal, witness disclose/peer conceal, or witness conceal/peer disclose). Participants rated both the witness and the peer on dimensions of credibility (honesty and cognitive competence). Results revealed that both the witness and peer were more credible when their reports were consistent with one another. When inconsistent, the witness/peer who disclosed was considered more credible than the one who concealed. The findings indicate the potential importance of peers in the disclosure process as they may support the witness's report and even be a credible discloser when the witness is reluctant to disclose.

Nonverbal Emotions While Disclosing Child Abuse: The Role of Interviewer Support

Statements by alleged victims are important when child abuse is prosecuted; triers-of-fact often attend to nonverbal emotional expressions when evaluating those statements. This study examined the associations among interviewer supportiveness, children's nonverbal emotions, and informativeness during 100 forensic interviews with alleged victims of child abuse. Raters coded the silent videotapes for children's nonverbal emotional expressions while other raters coded the transcripts for interviewer support, children's verbal emotions, and informativeness. Results showed that children's nonverbal signals were more common than and preceded the verbal signs. Interviewer support was associated with children's expressivity. When children expressed more nonverbal emotions, they were more responsive during the pre-substantive phases and more informative about the abuse. Nonverbal emotions partially mediated the association between support and informativeness. The findings underline the value of nonverbal emotional expression during forensic interviews and demonstrate how the interviewers' supportive demeanor can facilitate children's emotional displays and increase informativeness.

Eliciting an offence narrative: what types of questions do forensic mental health practitioners ask?

Maximising the accuracy and detail of information elicited through a clinical-forensic interview may increase the reliability and validity of an individual's assessment. Despite this, there is little empirical research on what questions forensic mental health practitioners employ, and whether these correspond with empirically established interviewing strategies. In this study, 22 forensic mental health practitioners participated in a mock interview of a young person referred for a sexual risk assessment. The results highlighted that participants asked very few 'open' questions, over-relied on 'specific' questions and an average of 13% of questions were leading. Finally, practitioners predominantly used 'yes/no' questions when exploring the young person's thoughts, feelings, and physiological responses. Overall, the study demonstrated that empirically supported interviewing techniques were not commonly employed and highlighted the need for further professional development and training around clinical forensic interviewing strategies that best elicit the information needed to inform risk assessment.

A review of the literature on good practice considerations for initial health system response to child and adolescent sexual abuse

BACKGROUND

Healthcare workers play an important role in responding to the needs of the millions of children and adolescents who experience sexual abuse around the globe. A supportive child and adolescent-centered initial response is crucial for the physical and emotional wellbeing of survivors.

OBJECTIVE

In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) published clinical guidelines for responding to child and adolescent sexual abuse. The review described in this paper informed the development of good practice statements on how best to deliver health care to survivors.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

This review examined the values and preferences of children and adolescents who were sexually abused, and of their caregivers and healthcare workers, regarding: 1) initial response to children and adolescents who have been sexually abused; and 2) obtaining medical history, conducting physical examination, and documenting examination findings.

METHODS

Searches were conducted in Scopus, Pubmed, and the WHO's Global Index Medicus (1 January, 1995-15 July 2016). All articles in English that indicated preferences of survivors, caregivers and/or healthcare workers in ensuring empathetic and trauma-informed care were included.

RESULTS

Sixty-two articles were included and analyzed thematically. Key findings included the importance of providing care to survivors in a manner that respects the child or adolescent's autonomy and wishes, ensures privacy and confidentiality, and makes services and facilities appropriate and welcoming.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings indicate how evidence-based recommendations can be delivered in a child or adolescent-centred and trauma-informed manner.

The utility of direct questions in eliciting subjective content from children disclosing sexual abuse

BACKGROUND

Children alleging sexual abuse rarely exhibit emotion when disclosing, but they may be able to describe their subjective reactions to abuse if asked.

OBJECTIVE

This study examined the extent to which different types of questions in child sexual abuse interviews elicited subjective content, namely emotional reactions, cognitive content, and physical sensations.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

The study included transcripts of 205 Child Advocacy Center interviews with 4- to 12-year-old children alleging sexual abuse.

METHODS

We coded questions for question type, distinguishing among invitations, wh- questions, yes/no and forced-choice questions, and suggestive questions. We coded both questions and answers for whether they referenced subjective content.

RESULTS

When questions did not reference subjective content, the most productive questions were invitations, though they elicited subjective content less than 5% of the time. When questions specifically referenced subjective content, children were likely to explicitly mention such content, particularly in response to "how feel" and "what think" questions. Children's responsiveness and productivity was enhanced by requests to elaborate on their subjective responses, and both emotional and physical reactions could be elicited. There was little evidence of non-responsiveness or counterintuitive reactions to abuse. Younger children were less likely than older children to provide subjective responses to questions that did not reference subjective content, but were no less likely to do so when asked questions with subjective content.

CONCLUSIONS

Children, even young children, can be successfully encouraged to provide subjective content about sexual abuse, particularly when free recall questions are supplemented with "how feel" or "what think" questions.

Teaching psychology students to change (or correct) controversial beliefs about memory works

Therapists, judges, law enforcement, and students often believe in the existence of automatic and unconscious repression. Such a belief can be perilous as it might lead therapists to suggestively search for repressed memories leading to false memories. Recovering therapy-induced false memories of criminal acts can have serious consequences. Here, we tested whether erroneous beliefs in repressed memories can be corrected. Surveying two cohorts of Forensic and Legal Psychology Master's students, we examined whether education about the science of (eyewitness) memory can correct erroneous beliefs in repressed memories. Students assessed memory statements before taking a course on eyewitness memory, six weeks after the course exam, and 18 or 6 months later, respectively (Ns = 33-74 per cohort and measurement). As expected, students in both cohorts on average initially strongly agreed with the statement that memories of traumatic events can be unconsciously blocked, but strongly disagreed with the statement after the course. Belief-corrections also persisted after the longer delay. These findings show that educating people about the science of (eyewitness) memory can be effective in correcting false and controversial memory beliefs in general and the existence of repressed memories in specific.

Facilitating the Expression of Emotions by Alleged Victims of Child Abuse During Investigative Interviews Using the Revised NICHD Protocol

Children's testimony is often critical to the initiation of legal proceedings in abuse cases. In forensic interviews, the expression of emotions can powerfully enhance both the quality of children's statements and perceptions that their statements are coherent and credible. However, children rarely express their emotions when reporting abusive events. The Revised The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol (RP) was designed to emphasize socioemotional communication during forensic interviews and thus should be associated with more extensive and diverse expressions of emotions by alleged victims of abuse. The present study focused on forensic interviews (178 using the Revised and 100 using the Standard NICHD Protocol) with victims of physical child abuse whose allegations were corroborated using independent evidence. Detailed content coding showed that the RP was associated with the expression of more different emotions, more expression of abuse-related emotions, and more expression of emotions related to the interview context. Emotional expressiveness was associated with increased informativeness, and the association between the type of protocol and informativeness was fully mediated by emotional expressiveness. These results suggest that the Revised Protocol facilitates the expression of emotions by alleged victims of abuse in a way that enhances the value of children's testimony in multiple ways.

Prosecutors' reflections on sexually abused preschoolers and their ability to stand trial

Child sexual abuse (CSA) cases are notoriously difficult to investigate, and less than 10% of cases are prosecuted. We aimed to investigate prosecutors' experiences of preparing for and prosecuting suspected CSA cases with preschool aged victims. Nine specialized child prosecutors (6 women, 3 men) took part either in individual interviews or in focus groups on this subject. The transcripts were analyzed thematically. The prosecutors said that children's testimony was sometimes held to an adult standard and that child complainants who expressed emotion could be perceived as more credible than their less expressive counterparts. CSA victims were identified as vulnerable victims who had difficulty telling their stories. Some of the interviewers were described as lacking in the ability to approach these children. The results imply that the reliability and credibility of sexually abused preschoolers and their testimony might be influenced by a number of verbal and non-verbal factors and that there are several obstacles preventing prosecutors from prosecuting these cases.

Emotional Language Used by Victims of Alleged Sexual Abuse During Forensic Investigation

Addressing the characteristics of children as witnesses has been a focus of many researchers; however, the emotion derived from children during investigative interviews is an understudied field that is vital for practitioners from various contexts. The current study explores the emotional language that children use during forensic investigations following suspected sexual abuse. The sample comprises 97 investigative interviews with children (N = 97) aged 3-14 years. These interviews were randomly selected from all forensic interviews carried out in Israel in 2011. All of the interviews were conducted in conformity with the National Institute of Child Health and Development Protocol, and the emotional language of the children was coded. The results reveal a limited overall presence of emotional language. Children hardly used positive emotional language and mainly employed negative emotional language. The interview phase and the age of the children greatly affected the use of emotional language, and gender and suspect familiarity had no effect on the children's emotional language. The findings from the current study enhance existing knowledge on the emotional language of children during forensic investigations and highlight the study's unique characteristics in the context of abuse, trauma, and forensic investigation. The results of this study demonstrate the need for including probes about emotions in investigative interviews and the addition of emotional language to coding schemes for investigative interviews.

Legal Assessments of Child Victims of Human Trafficking for Sexual Purposes

The present study investigated how Swedish district court judges assessed child victims' credibility and the reliability of their testimony in cases of alleged human trafficking for sexual purposes. Court files from 12 different cases, involving 16 alleged child victims (aged 13-17 years old), all of them girls, were qualitatively analyzed with particular attention paid to how the judges described credibility and reliability. Results indicated that, although the judges' assessments to a large extent were based on the Swedish Supreme Court's criteria for credibility and reliability, they were applied somewhat arbitrarily and subjectively. They were also applied as if obvious and grounded on shared experiences, although their meaning was never explored. The way that credibility was assessed may also reinforce gender and victim stereotypes. Moreover, there seems to exist a confusion surrounding the credibility and reliability concepts, as they were sometimes used interchangeably despite the intention that they are two different assessments. Overall, an apparent need exists to increase judges' awareness that their subjective impressions should decrease when legitimizing judicial decisions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Emotional Child Witness Effect Survives Presentation Mode

The emotional witness effect - the phenomenon whereby people are affected by the emotional manner in which a witness presents testimony - constitutes a possible source of wrongful decisions in legal contexts. One stereotypical view of abused children is that they should be sad when talking about their experiences of maltreatment, whereas children may in fact express a variety of emotional expressions when talking about abusive events. This raises the question as to whether there is an optimal mode in which to present child victim testimony that could reduce the possible influence of displayed emotions. In the present study, mock police interviews were carried out with female child actors, role-playing the victims of physical abuse by their stepfather, telling the same story with four emotional expressions (neutral, sad, angry, or positive). Laypersons (N = 465) were presented with the interviews as transcripts with the emotional reactions of the child witness noted, audio recordings, or videotaped recordings. Participants then rated the credibility of the victim witness. Replicating previous results, the "sad" expression elicited the highest credibility ratings across all modes of presentations. Presentation mode affected ratings of credibility, with the transcript versions resulting in the highest ratings. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

To prosecute or not to prosecute: Law students' judicial decisions in CSA cases

Child sexual abuse (CSA) investigations are complicated and few cases are prosecuted. The aim of the present study was to investigate judicial decisions in CSA investigations. Seventy-one law students (42 females, 29 males) read a vignette depicting a CSA investigation, assessed the complainant's and the accused's credibility, and if the case should be prosecuted or not. The participants were assigned to one of four conditions defined by a 2 (evidence: high probative value vs. low probative value) × 2 (complainant demeanour: emotional vs. neutral) factorial design. Females assigned higher credibility to the complainant than did males and males assigned higher credibility to the accused than did females. Emotionality, but not evidential value, affected credibility judgements: Females believed less in the suspect when the child behaved in an emotional manner. Most participants (94.4%) thought that the case should be prosecuted, though only 73.2% believed that prosecution could be corroborated. Corroboration of prosecution was affected by evidential value, but not emotionality. The results indicate that the behavior of alleged crime victims might affect males and females differently, which in turn could lead to biased judicial decisions in CSA investigations.

Expectations of emotions during testimony: the role of communicator and perceiver characteristics

This study investigated the influence of communicator (child victim) and perceiver (adult participant) characteristics on expectations about witnesses' emotional displays during testimony. In total, 191 adults were asked whether or not they expected child victims who were testifying about sexual abuse to display sadness, fear, anger, disgust, happiness, or a neutral demeanor, and how intensely the adults expected each emotion to be displayed. In describing the victims, child age (5 vs. 13 years old) and child gender (female vs. male) were factorially combined as within-subject factors. Results included that victim gender predicted expectations of fear, and victim age predicted expectations of anger and disgust. There was a significant interaction of victim age and victim gender for expectations of sadness. Of participants who expected multiple emotions, a combination of negative and neutral emotions was expected more from 13-year-old female victims than from 5-year-old female victims. Child victim empathy predicted ratings of how intensely sad and fearful the child victim would look. Implications of these findings for psychological research and the legal system are discussed.

The emotional child witness: effects on juror decision-making

Despite wide variations in child witness behavior while on the stand, little research has focused on how that behavior influences jurors' perceptions of the child's credibility or the case itself. In the current study, the impact of a child's emotional displays on credibility judgments and verdict preferences was examined in jury-eligible college students and jurors released from jury duty. No significant differences emerged in perceptions or verdicts based on whether a child was shown as crying or not while participants read a transcript of the child's testimony. However, participants who rated the child as more emotional (regardless of whether the image showed a crying child) were more likely to render guilty verdicts, were more certain of guilt, and found the child more credible and the defendant less credible than participants who rated the child as less emotional. Also, when the child was perceived as low in emotion, older children were rated as less credible than younger children. The results have implications for understanding how children's emotional displays and jurors' perceptions of children's emotionality influence decisions in sexual abuse cases.