Topic
Suggestibility
About: Suggestibility is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1562 publications have been published within this topic receiving 50605 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
1 / 3
Papers
TL;DR: There are reliable age differences in suggestibility but that even very young children are capable of recalling much that is forensically relevant, and a synthesis of this research posits three "families" of factors--cognitive, social, and biological--that must be considered if one is to understand seemingly contradictory interpretations of the findings.
Abstract: The field of children's testimony is in turmoil, but a resolution to seemingly intractable debates now appears attainable. In this review, we place the current disagreement in historical context and describe psychological and legal views of child witnesses held by scholars since the turn of the 20th century. Although there has been consistent interest in children's suggestibility over the past century, the past 15 years have been the most active in terms of the number of published studies and novel theorizing about the causal mechanisms that underpin the observed findings. A synthesis of this research posits three "families" of factors--cognitive, social, and biological--that must be considered if one is to understand seemingly contradictory interpretations of the findings. We conclude that there are reliable age differences in suggestibility but that even very young children are capable of recalling much that is forensically relevant. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of expert witnesses.
1,394 citations
Book•
1 Jan 2001980 citations
Book•
6 Jan 2003TL;DR: In this paper, the identification and measurement of 'oppressive' police interviewing tactics in Britain is discussed. But the authors focus on the psychological aspects of false confessions and the psychology of false belief leading to a false confession.
Abstract: About the Author.Series Preface.Preface.Acknowledgments.Introduction. PART I: INTERROGATIONS AND CONFESSIONS. Interrogation Tactics and Techniques. Interrogation in Britain. Persons at Risk During Interviews in Police Custody: the Royal Commission Studies. The Identification and Measurement of 'Oppressive' Police Interviewing Tactics in Britain. Why do Suspects Confess? Theories. Why do Suspects Confess? Empirical Findings. Miscarriages of Justice and False Confessions. The Psychology of False Confession: Research and Theoretical Issues. The Psychology of False Confession: Case Examples. PART II: LEGAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS. The English Law on Confessions. The American Law on Confessions. The Psychological Assessment. Suggestibility: Historical and Theoretical Aspects. Interrogative Suggestibility: Empirical Findings. PART III: BRITISH COURT OF APPEAL CASES. The Effects of Drugs and Alcohol Upon the Reliability of Testimony. The Court of Appeal. The 'Guildford Four' and the 'Birmingham Six'. Psychological Vulnerability. Police Impropriety. Misleading Special Knowledge. PART IV: FOREIGN CASES OF DISPUTED CONFESSIONS. Four High Profile American Cases. Canadian and Israeli Cases. Murder in Norway: a False Belief Leading to a False Confession. References. Appendix. Index.
850 citations
TL;DR: The findings indicate that although misled subjects are capable of identifying the source of their memories of misleading suggestions, they nonetheless sometimes misidentify them as memories derived from the original event.
Abstract: We examined the possibility that eyewitness suggestibility reflects failures of the processes by which people normally discriminate between memories derived from different sources. To test this hypothesis, misled and control subjects were tested either with a yes/no recognition test or with a "source monitoring" test designed to orient subjects to attend to information about the sources of their memories. The results demonstrate that suggestibility effects obtained with a recognition test can be eliminated by orienting subjects toward thinking about the sources of their memories while taking the test. Our findings indicate that although misled subjects are capable of identifying the source of their memories of misleading suggestions, they nonetheless sometimes misidentify them as memories derived from the original event. The extent to which such errors reflect genuine memory confusions (produced, for example, by lax judgment criteria) or conscious misattributions (perhaps due to demand characteristics) remains to be specified.
559 citations
TL;DR: There do not appear to any strict boundary conditions to this conclusion, and preschool children will sometimes succumb to suggestions about bodily touching, emotional events, and participatory events.
Abstract: In this review, we describe a shift that has taken place in the area of developmental suggestibility. Formerly, studies in this area indicated that there were pronounced age-related differences in suggestibility, with preschool children being particularly susceptible to misleading suggestions. The studies on which this conclusion was based were criticized on several grounds (e.g. unrealistic scenarios, truncated age range). Newer studies that have addressed these criticisms, however, have largely confirmed the earlier conclusions. These studies indicate that preschool children are disproportionately vulnerable to a variety of suggestive influences. There do not appear to any strict boundary conditions to this conclusion, and preschool children will sometimes succumb to suggestions about bodily touching, emotional events, and participatory events. The evidence for this assertion is presented in this review.
557 citations
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Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 15 |
| 2024 | 18 |
| 2023 | 33 |
| 2022 | 63 |
| 2021 | 44 |
| 2020 | 38 |