Children's memory and suggestibility about a distressing event: the role of children's and parents' attachment.
Our goal was to identify individual difference predictors of children's memory and suggestibility for distressing personally experienced events. Specifically, we examined children's and parents' attachment orientations and children's observable levels of distress, as well as other individual difference factors, as predictors of children's memory and suggestibility. Children (N=91) aged 3 to 6years were interviewed about inoculations received at medical clinics. For children whose parents scored as more avoidant, higher distress levels during the inoculations predicted less accuracy, whereas for children whose parents scored as less avoidant, higher distress levels predicted greater accuracy. Children with more rather than less positive representations of parents and older rather than younger children answered memory questions more accurately. Two children provided false reports of child sexual abuse. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.
Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA. Electronic address: yoojin.chae@ttu.edu.
Yoojin
Y
Chae
Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. Electronic address: ggoodman@ucdavis.edu.
Gail S
GS
Goodman
Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
Rakel P
RP
Larson
Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, 0317 Oslo, Norway.
Else-Marie
EM
Augusti
Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Deborah
D
Alley
Stress & Motivated Behavior Institute, Department of Neurology and Neurosciences, New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ 07101, USA.
Kirsten M
KM
VanMeenen
Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Michelle
M
Culver
Department of Pediatrics, University of California, Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, CA 95816, USA.
Kevin P
KP
Coulter
D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D051379:Mice; D009769:Object Attachment; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010552:Personality Assessment; D012718:Set, Psychology; D013404:Suggestion; D013694:Temperament
Attachment; Avoidance; Child abuse; Children; Memory; Suggestibility