Researchers surprised to find abused children less suggestible

By Christian Jarrett A hugely controversial topic in psychology concerns how likely it is that some or many claims of abuse made by children are actually based on false memories, possibly implanted through the suggestions of therapists or leading questions from investigators. A related issue is whether going through the terrible experience of being mistreated makes it more or less likely that a child will be prone to forming false memories based on the suggestions or leading questions of others. In a small but important new study in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, a team led by Henry Otgaar at Maastricht University report that while a group of maltreated children were more prone to spontaneous false memories than control participants, they were in fact, to the researchers’ surprise, less prone to false memories based on suggestion. “This is a hitherto unreported finding,” they said. Otgaar and his colleagues tested 127 4- to 12-year-old children, 21 of whom were suspected of having been physically or sexually abused. The children in the mistreated group were recruited through their parents or guardians from a forensic child abuse centre and a child interrogation studio in the Netherlands. All those recruited from the interrogation studio were involved in legal cases related to alleged sexual abuse. The children who formed the control group were recruited from local primary schools in middle class areas. To provide further verification...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Developmental Memory Source Type: blogs