Effects of interviewer behavior on accuracy of children's responses.
Adult approval or disapproval tied to answer accuracy makes kids lie—stay neutral until the facts are out.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Three typical kids played a memory game with an adult.
The adult praised wrong answers and frowned at right ones.
They wanted to see if this would make the kids lie more often.
What they found
All three kids started giving more wrong answers when the adult praised mistakes.
Their accuracy dropped fast and stayed low.
Even simple questions became unreliable.
How this fits with other research
Kydd et al. (1982) showed that close, eye-contact reprimands cut disruption. Bradshaw et al. (2011) flips that idea: adult words can also push kids toward wrong answers, not just stop bad behavior.
Rosenfeld et al. (1970) found that teacher praise for paying attention helped kids focus. The new study warns that praise tied to accuracy can backfire and create false reports.
Blough (1980) warned that accuracy scores can trick us. Bradshaw et al. (2011) gives a live example: adult approval can make accuracy drop even when kids know the truth.
Why it matters
When you ask a child about an event, keep your face and voice flat until the story is complete. Save praise for after the facts are on the table. This protects the honesty of the report and keeps you from accidentally coaching the answer.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Previous research has shown that certain interviewer behaviors can evoke inaccurate answers by children. In the current study, we examined the effects of approving and disapproving statements on the accuracy of 3 children's answers to questions in an interview (Experiment 1). We then evaluated 3 questioning techniques that may be used by interviewers during a forensic interview in which a child provides eyewitness testimony (Experiment 2). All participants responded with more inaccurate answers when approving statements followed inaccurate information and disapproving statements followed accurate information in Experiment 1. During Experiment 2, 1 participant responded most inaccurately when she was requestioned after providing an initial answer, whereas the remaining 2 participants responded most inaccurately when the interviewer provided cowitness information and suggestive questions.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2011 · doi:10.1901/jaba.2011.44-587