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The Effects of Secret Instructions and Yes/no Questions on Maltreated and Non‐maltreated Children's Reports of a Minor Transgression
Author(s) -
Ahern Elizabeth C.,
Stolzenberg Stacia N.,
McWilliams Kelly,
Lyon Thomas D.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.2277
Subject(s) - marine transgression , psychology , recall , cued recall , minor (academic) , suicide prevention , poison control , human factors and ergonomics , developmental psychology , false memory , injury prevention , free recall , social psychology , medicine , cognitive psychology , medical emergency , law , paleontology , structural basin , political science , biology
This study examined the effects of secret instructions (distinguishing between good/bad secrets and encouraging disclosure of bad secrets) and yes/no questions (DID: “Did the toy break?” versus DYR: “Do you remember if the toy broke?”) on 262 maltreated and non‐maltreated children's (age range 4–9 years) reports of a minor transgression. Over two‐thirds of children failed to disclose the transgression in response to free recall (invitations and cued invitations). The secret instruction increased disclosures early in free recall, but was not superior to no instruction when combined with cued invitations. Yes/no questions specifically asking about the transgression elicited disclosures from almost half of the children who had not previously disclosed, and false alarms were rare. DYR questions led to ambiguous responding among a substantial percentage of children, particularly younger children. The findings highlight the difficulties of eliciting transgression disclosures without direct questions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.