Wk 4 Reading - More than Suggestion

Question 1

Aim of the McMartin Case Study

Answer 1

Study explored whether substantial changes to a memory could be produced by suggestive influences in a matter of mintues (ie in one forensic interview) and to examine the effect of multiple interviewing techniques (to grasp the synergistic effect of these). Finally, the study aimed to examine social influence and reinforcement that may have affected children’s reports.

Question 2

• Wood et al., 1997 identified 6 problematic techniques in the McMartin interviews. What are these?

Answer 2

1. Suggestive questions
2. Other people
   3 and 4. Positive or negative consequences
3. Asked and answered
4. Inviting speculation

Question 3

Suggestive questions

Answer 3

1. Suggestive questions ; consists of introducing new information into an interview when the child has not already provided that info in the same interview. Suggestive questions reduce childrens accuracy (we become less suggestible with age), however, even adults are susceptible to suggestive questions

Question 4

2. Other people

Answer 4

2. Other people ; consists of telling the child that the interviewer has already received information from another person regarding the topics of the interview. By telling a child about the statements of other people, an interviewer may create pressures toward conformity “the tendency to change of modify our own behaviour so they’re consisten with other people.” Evidence for this was found by Binet who did a similar line study to Solomon asch and found kids would agree with a child in the group who had emerged as an unofficial leader. Pynoos and Nader (1989) conducting interviews after a school shooting, found kids who had been absent from school had fabricated stories from hearing reports from their parents and other kids. The influence of conformity pressure on kids is also seen in adults with Asch (1956) studies.

Question 5

3/4. Positive and Negative Consequences;

Answer 5

Positive consequences consists of giving promising or implying praise, approval, agreement or other rewards to a child or indicating that the child will demonstrate desirable qualities by making a statement. (eg. “look at what good help you can be. You’re going to help all these children because you’re so smart.”
Negative consequences consists of criticizing or disagreeing with a child’s statement or otherwise indicating the statement is incomplete, inadequate or disappointing. Repeating a question can be a negative consequence if its argumentative. (well, what good are you? You must be dumb)
Learning theory suggests a positive reinforces and a punishment decreases the probability of a behaviour being repeated. Social reinforcers or social punishments are those that come from other people.
Zigler and Kanzer 1962 report that middle class children are more apt to changing their behaviour for verbal social reinforcers that emphasises correctness, than general praise (eg. Correct versus good)  this is referred to as Ziglers valence theory of social reinforcement
Gilboa and Greenbaum (1978) found that ‘warm’ adult was more influential in affecting learning than a cold one especially when verbal reinforcers emphasise correctness over praise. The effect of this all on children in a forensics setting has not ben explored

Question 6

5. Asked and Answered;

Answer 6

5. Asked and Answered; concists of asking the child a question they have already unambiguously answered. The effect of repetitive questioning on children has been investigated int eh context of forced-choice and open-ended questions. The general finding has been that children will change their answers to repeated forced-choice questions but not to open ended questions. So most likely reduces accuracy when an asked and answered question is suggestive. Asked and answered may constituted a form of negative consequence

Question 7

6. Inviting Speculation;

Answer 7

consists of asking the child to offer opinions or speculations about past events, or framing the child’s task during the interview as using imagination or solving a mystery. Eg. Let’s figure out what happened. This has not been explored scientifically but seems logical as being a poor technique

Question 8

Hypothesis of present study

Answer 8

the six techniques would be highly effective in eliciting false allegations of wrongdoing when used together

Question 9

Method

Answer 9

Method : Children given a story time by Manny Morales. One week after Manny’s storytime, children were interviewed. This involved rapport vuilding, then were exposed to either a social incentive condition (incorporating McMartin interview techniques or a suggestive control condition (which used suggestive questions alone). Both groups were exposed to 8 misleading target items (questions about things manny didn’t do).
Order effects where mitigated with items being counterbalanced.
Interviews were scored, to ensure the social incentive condition used the McMarting techniques.

Question 10

Results;

Answer 10

• Children gave over three times as many yes answers to misleading questions in the social incentive condition as in the suggestive control condition
• Children gave more correct answers to suggestive questions in the social incentive condition than in suggestive control condition
• Techniques in the social incentive condition elicited substantially more false allegations from the children (3 times as common)
• Age only had a small association with the effect.
• Therefore even a short dose of reinforcement and social influence techniques can have a strong, immediate impact on childrens accuracy
• Children in the reinforcements and social influence group became more acquiescent as the interview proceeded. Suggesting these techniques have an accumulative effect, making children more compliant to suggestion as the interview proceeds