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Forensic Developmental Psychology Unveiling Four Common Misconceptions Maggie Bruck1 and Stephen Ceci2

1 Johns Hopkins University and

2 Cornell University

ABSTRACT—We summarize recent developments in the field

of forensic developmental psychology that challenge tra-

ditional conceptions about the reliability of children’s re-

ports. The areas covered involve the disclosure patterns of

sexually abused children, the nature of suggestive inter-

views, developmental differences in suggestibility, and the

amount of suggestion required to produce false reports

and beliefs.

KEYWORDS—suggestibility; development

A rapidly growing area in developmental psychology concerns

the reliability of children’s reports of autobiographical events

and the mechanisms that promote accurate and inaccurate re-

ports. Because this work was primarily motivated by and is

applicable to the legal arena (namely, children’s reports that

they were victims or witnesses of a crime), we have labeled this

field of inquiry ‘‘forensic developmental psychology.’’

When children report being a victim or a witness of a crime,

two primary sets of issues arise. One concerns disclosure pat-

terns of children who have experienced traumatic events.

Topics that have been studied in this area include the cognitive,

motivational, and emotional factors that influence the nature of

children’s reports of the trauma. The research in this field of

study is based on the assumption that the children have actually

experienced traumatic events. The second set of issues con-

cerns whether suggestive interviews can result in children

falsely reporting nonexperienced (traumatic) events. The major

topics in this field of research include the conditions that pre-

cipitate false reports, the psychological status of false reports

(false beliefs vs. lies), and developmental trends in false reports.

In this review, we focus on four major misconceptions about

children’s disclosures and their suggestibility. Each of these

misconceptions has not only made its way into courtroom tes-

timony, but also provided foundational assumptions for subse-

quent research.

MISCONCEPTION #1: SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILDREN

DO NOT DISCLOSE THEIR ABUSE

A highly influential assumption is that sexually abused children

do not readily disclose their abuse because of shame, guilt, and

fear; consequently, there may never be a disclosure or else there

is a long delay between the abuse and disclosure. In the latter

case, it is asserted that children will initially deny their abuse

when questioned, but will slowly divulge its details with re-

peated questioning. It is further claimed that these disclosures

are frequently recanted, but will be reinstated with supportive

questioning. The most popular embodiment of this idea is

Summit’s (1983) term child sexual abuse accommodation syn-

drome (CSAAS).

A corollary of CSAAS is that, in order to overcome emotional

and motivational barriers that inhibit spontaneous disclosure of

their abuse, children must be asked specific questions about it

over a period of time. In part, this assumption is supported by

the findings that children will provide more detailed answers to

specific or cued questions than to open-ended questions. With

age, children acquire cognitive structures that assist the or-

ganization of events into coherent narratives, and the need for

specific questions declines. But when specific questions must

be asked, such questioning comes with a cost; answers to spe-

cific questions are more error prone than those to open-ended

questions (see Ceci & Bruck, 1995). The clinical practice of

asking leading questions to children suspected of abuse is

nonetheless defended by claiming that children will not falsely

report abuse when asked specific questions (e.g., Rudy &

Goodman, 1991).

Address correspondence to Maggie Bruck, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Di- vision of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 600 N. Wolfe St., Balti- more, MD 21287-3325; e-mail: [email protected].

CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

Volume 13—Number 6 229Copyright r 2004 American Psychological Society

Because the CSAAS model was based not on empirical data

but on clinical intuitions, we recently reviewed the literature to

determine its empirical support (London, Bruck, Ceci, & Shu-

man, in press). We identified 10 studies in which adults with

histories of childhood abuse were asked to recall their disclo-

sures in childhood. Across studies, an average of only 33% of

the adults remembered disclosing the abuse in a timely fashion.

These data support the view that sexually abused children are

silent about their victimization and delay disclosure for long

periods of time.

Although these studies are informative on the issue of delay of

reporting, because the participants were never asked, ‘‘As a

child, did anyone ever ask you or question you about abuse?’’

the data are silent on the phenomena of denial and recantation.

Another set of studies provides some data relevant to this point.

We identified 17 studies that examined rates of denial and re-

cantation by sexually abused children who were asked directly

about abuse when they were assessed or treated at clinics. The

rates of denial at assessment interviews were highly variable

(4% to 76%), as were the rates of recantation (4% to 27%). We

found that the methodological adequacy of each study (sam-

pling procedures, validation of sexual abuse) was directly re-

lated to the denial and recantation rates observed; the weakest

studies produced the highest rates. For the 6 methodologically

superior studies, the average rate of denial was only 14%, and

the average rate of recantation was 7%. Thus, although the

retrospective studies of adults show that children do not dis-

close abuse, the studies of children’s response patterns indicate

that if they are directly asked, they do not deny, but tell.

In part, the myth about children’s patterns of disclosure has

persisted because documentation of the first stage of the CSAAS

model (children are silent and delay disclosures) has been in-

terpreted as evidence for the full model, according to which

denial and recantation are common. Also, as shown by our re-

cent review and analysis, the most commonly cited studies in

the literature are those that support the model—but sadly, these

are the methodologically weakest of the studies.

Even if it is conceded that children will not deny their abuse

when asked, the question of how to elicit disclosures remains.

Even though there are known risks of using leading or specific

questions, perhaps these are necessary to elicit reports or de-

tails from sexually abused children who feel frightened,

ashamed, or guilty. This claim has recently been challenged by

Lamb, Sternberg, and their colleagues, who constructed a

structured interview protocol and then trained interviewers in

its use. The protocol requires trained interviewers to encourage

suspected child abuse victims to provide detailed life-event

narratives through the guidance of open-ended questions (e.g.,

‘‘Tell me what happened’’; ‘‘You said there was a man; tell me

about the man’’). The use of specific questions is allowed only

after exhaustive free recall. Suggestive questions are highly

discouraged. In their latest study, Lamb et al. (2003) examined

the interviews of police officers trained on the protocol with 4- to

8-year-old children who had made allegations of sexual abuse.

Lamb et al. found that 83% of all allegations and disclosures

were elicited through free-recall questions (78% for pre-

schoolers), and 66% of all children identified the suspect

through open-ended questions (60% for preschoolers). These

data dispel the belief that interviewers need to bombard chil-

dren with suggestive techniques in order to elicit details of

trauma; rather, children can provide detailed information

through open-ended prompts, and if a child denies abuse when

asked directly, there is no scientifically compelling evidence

that the child is ‘‘in denial.’’ Abused children usually disclose

the abuse when directly asked.

MISCONCEPTION #2: SUGGESTIVE INTERVIEWS CAN

BE INDEXED BY THE NUMBER OF LEADING

QUESTIONS

According to our model of the factors that influence suggesti-

bility (Bruck, Ceci, & Hembrooke, 2002), the suggestiveness

(and thus the risk of eliciting false information) of an interview

is not directly reflected by the number of leading questions, but

rather is indexed by how interviewer bias plays out in the target

interview, as well as in all previous interviews. Interviewer bias

characterizes interviewers who hold a priori beliefs about the

occurrence of certain events and, as a result, conduct their

interviews so as to obtain confirmatory evidence for these be-

liefs without considering plausible alternative hypotheses.

When children provide such interviewers with inconsistent or

bizarre evidence, it is either ignored or interpreted within the

framework of the biased interviewer’s initial hypothesis. Ac-

cording to our model, interviewer bias influences the entire

architecture of interviews and is revealed through a variety of

suggestive interviewing techniques, including the use of re-

peated specific questions (some of which may be leading) within

and across interviews; implicit or explicit threats, bribes, and

rewards for the desired answer; stereotype induction

(e.g., telling children the suspected perpetrator ‘‘does bad

things’’); and guided imagery (asking children to create a mental

picture of a specific event and to think about its details; see Ceci

& Bruck, 1995). Although each suggestive technique is asso-

ciated with error, the risk for false statements is greatly aug-

mented when interviews contain a combination of suggestive

techniques, which increase the salience of the interviewer’s

bias.

There is considerable empirical support for this model. When

children are questioned about events they did not experience

(e.g., seeing a thief steal food from the day-care center; Bruck

et al., 2002) or about nonoccurring details within experienced

events (e.g., ‘‘the man put something yucky in your mouth’’;

Poole & Lindsay, 2001), their reports are more error prone if

these techniques are used than if the questioning takes place in

a neutral, nonsuggestive manner.

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Forensic Developmental Psychology

Sometimes suggestive interviews can be void of leading

questions; and sometimes leading questions may not pose a risk

to the reliability of children’s reports in the absence of inter-

viewer bias. For example, Garven, Wood, and Malpass (2000)

asked kindergarten children to recall details about a visitor

named Paco who came to their classroom and read a story, gave

out treats, and wore a funny hat. The children were asked

misleading questions about plausible events (e.g., Did Paco

break a toy?) and about bizarre events (e.g., Did Paco take you

to a farm?). Some of the children were given selective feedback

after their answers to the misleading questions. ‘‘No’’ responses

were negatively evaluated, as in the following exchange:

Interviewer: Did Paco take you somewhere in a helicopter?

Child: No.

Interviewer: You’re not doing good.

‘‘Yes’’ responses were positively evaluated, as the following

example illustrates:

Interviewer: Did Paco break a toy?

Child: Yes.

Interviewer: Great; you’re doing excellent now.

This group of children provided the desired but false answer

to 35% of the plausible questions and to 52% of the bizarre

questions. In contrast, a second group of children who did not

receive this selective feedback falsely agreed with 13% of the

plausible and 5% of the bizarre questions. Thus, a simple count

of misleading and leading questions would not reflect the sug-

gestiveness of the interviews in this study; the children fre-

quently agreed with the false suggestions only when the

selective reinforcement provided sufficient information con-

cerning the bias of the interviewer. Two weeks later, when the

children were asked nonleading questions with no selective

feedback, the same level of between-groups differences was

obtained. Thus, interviewer bias in a prior interview has

long-lasting negative effects on accuracy in a later unbiased

interview.

MISCONCEPTION #3: SUGGESTIBILITY IS PRIMARILY

A PROBLEM FOR PRESCHOOLERS

Although much of the literature pays lip service to the concept

that suggestibility exists at all ages, including in adults, the

primary view is that preschool children are disproportionately

suggestible, and that there should be less concern about the

tainting effects of suggestive interviews with older school-aged

children. The focus on younger children reflects the dispro-

portionate number of studies of preschool children at the end of

the 20th century. This practice was directly motivated by fo-

rensic concerns of the day; in a number of high-profile criminal

cases, preschool children made horrific claims about sexual

abuse. Although the case facts showed that these children had

been subjected to highly suggestive interviews, at that time

there was no relevant body of scientific literature to indicate the

risk of such interviews in producing false allegations about a

range of salient events. When researchers began to fill in this

empirical void, most of the studies focused on preschoolers, and

few examined age-related differences. Those that did include

age comparisons usually found that the older children rarely fell

sway to suggestion, leading to the conclusion that only pre-

schoolers are suggestible (e.g., Ceci, Ross, & Toglia, 1987).

However, this conclusion is discrepant with the findings of

another body of literature showing that many of the suggestive

techniques used in the child studies also produce tainted re-

ports or false memories in adults (e.g., see Loftus, 2003). By

inference, one might assume that children in middle childhood

must also be quite suggestible, given that both younger and

older groups are.

Recent evidence supports this view: Susceptibility to sug-

gestion is highly common in middle childhood, and under some

conditions there are small to no developmental differences in

suggestibility. For example, Finnilä, Mahlberga, Santtilaa, and

Niemib (2003) staged an event (a version of the Paco visit we

described earlier) for 4- to 5-year-olds and 7- to 8-year-olds.

One week later, half the children were given a low-pressure

interview that contained some misleading questions with abuse

themes (e.g., ‘‘He took your clothes off, didn’t he?’’). The other

children received a high-pressure interview; they were told that

their friends had answered the leading questions affirmatively,

they were praised for assenting to the misleading questions, and

when they did not assent, the question was repeated. In both

conditions, there were no significant age differences in the

percentage of misleading questions answered affirmatively, al-

though a significant number (68%) were assented to in the high-

pressure condition (see also Bruck & London, 2003; Zaragoza,

Payment, Kichler, Stines, & Drivdahl, 2001). It has also been

found that under some conditions, older children are more

suggestible than younger children (e.g., Finnilä et al., 2003;

Zaragoza et al., 2001).

MISCONCEPTION #4: MULTIPLE SUGGESTIVE

INTERVIEWS ARE NEEDED TO TAINT A REPORT

The final misconception is that it is very difficult to implant

memories or to taint reports, and that false reports occur only

when multiple suggestions are repeated over time (e.g., Ceci &

Bruck, 1995). However, many studies have reported that chil-

dren can incorporate suggestions about salient events after a

single interview. In the study by Garven et al. (2000), for ex-

ample, children’s reports were significantly tainted after a sin-

gle suggestive interview. Moreover, one interview had lasting

effects: Children’s initial inaccurate responses to the sugges-

tions may have reflected social pressure; however, their con-

tinued false reports when queried by different (neutral)

Volume 13—Number 6 231

Maggie Bruck and Stephen Ceci

interviewers at later sessions reflected their false belief that the

events planted by suggestion had actually occurred.

Recent evidence also suggests that, contrary to common

psychological principles, there are a number of circumstances

in which one suggestive interview produces the same amount of

taint as two or more suggestive interviews. The risks that a

second interview will increase suggestibility depend on the

spacing of the interviews and also on the memory strength of the

original event (Melnyk & Bruck, in press).

Finally, there can be significant tainting of reports and pro-

duction of false beliefs when interviews are only very mildly

suggestive. For example, Poole and Lindsay (2001) had parents

read their children short narratives that outlined the children’s

previous encounters with a character known as Mr. Science at

the researchers’ laboratory. Unknown to the parents, some of the

details in the stories were inaccurate, and thus were not expe-

rienced by the children when they met Mr. Science. Nonethe-

less, even under these mildly suggestive conditions, significant

numbers of children (4- to 8-year-olds) later told an interviewer

that they had experienced the suggested events (e.g., ‘‘The man

put something yucky in my mouth’’).

CONCLUSION

We have reviewed some recent advances in the field of forensic

developmental psychology that challenge four common mis-

conceptions, some of which have acquired the status of urban

legends in the field of clinical practice and forensic psychology.

The data indicate that there should be greater concern that

interviews with possible victims of child abuse are conducted

using scientifically validated methods and less concern that

true victims will deny that they were abused.

Theoretically, these new findings challenge current views of

the developmental trends in suggestibility, and thus of the de-

velopmental mechanisms underlying children’s suggestibility.

Traditionally, researchers studied candidate mechanisms (e.g.,

theory of mind—knowledge that other people may have feel-

ings, intentions, and beliefs different from one’s own; social

compliance) that were known to develop by the end of the

preschool years (because it was thought that suggestibility was

greatly reduced by that time). However, if suggestibility levels

remain relatively high throughout childhood, a new perspective

is required. For example, the relationship of suggestibility to

skills that develop throughout childhood (e.g., resolution of

conflicting information, insight into a questioner’s motives)

should become the focus of future study. It may also be useful to

examine whether there are developmental changes in the

mechanisms underlying suggestibility, with different mecha-

nisms playing a causal role at different developmental levels.

Recommended Reading Ceci, S.J., & Bruck, M. (1995). (See References)

Rabinowitz, D. (2003). No crueler tyrannies. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Summit, R. (1983). (See References)

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children’s true and false narratives. Developmental Review, 22, 520–554.

Bruck, M., & London, K. (2003, April). Memory and suggestibility during middle childhood. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Tampa, FL.

Ceci, S.J., & Bruck, M. (1995). Jeopardy in the courtroom. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Ceci, S.J., Ross, D., & Toglia, M. (1987). Suggestibility of children’s

memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 116, 38–49.

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