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Boys will be boys: a pre‐line‐up gameplay has beneficial effects on boys' but not girls' identification performance
Author(s) -
Rassin Eric,
Van Der Sleen Jannie,
Van Amelsvoort Adri G.,
Buttinger Eveline
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of investigative psychology and offender profiling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1544-4767
pISSN - 1544-4759
DOI - 10.1002/jip.50
Subject(s) - witness , psychology , identification (biology) , interview , line drawings , developmental psychology , social psychology , computer science , botany , engineering drawing , political science , law , biology , programming language , engineering
Fifty children, aged between 4 and 7 years, underwent a sequential photo line‐up procedure in order to identify a man they had met the previous day. Half of the participants engaged in a pre‐procedure gameplay with the female interviewer. It was hypothesised that the game would stimulate rapport building and would ultimately result in an increased performance during the line‐up procedure. The beneficial effect was indeed observed, but only for the male participants. This finding suggests that gameplay may be a fruitful strategy to decrease child witness discomfort and to increase participation. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.