Najafichaghabouri M, Joslyn PR, Preston E. Idiosyncratic effects of interviewer behavior on the accuracy of children's responses.
J Appl Behav Anal 2024;
57:463-472. [PMID:
38404176 DOI:
10.1002/jaba.1065]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2023] [Accepted: 01/29/2024] [Indexed: 02/27/2024]
Abstract
Children are interviewed to provide information about past events in various contexts (e.g., police interviews, court proceedings, therapeutic interviews). During an interview, various factors may influence the accuracy of children's responses to questions about recent events. However, behavioral research in this area is limited. Sparling et al. (2011) showed that children frequently provided inaccurate responses to questions about video clips they just watched depending on the antecedents (i.e., the way a question was asked) and consequences (i.e., the response of the interviewer to their answers). In the current study, we replicated and extended the procedures reported by Sparling et al. and found that two of five children were sensitive to the various antecedents and consequences that we manipulated. Our findings indicate a need for more research in this area to determine the relevant environmental variables that affect children's response accuracy.
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