Dissertation

The Reliability of Children's Event Reports to Their Mothers

Lawson, Monica

2016

Overview

Children involved in maltreatment investigations often discuss allegations with their mothers before formal reports are made to authorities. The primary purpose of the current study was to evaluate the amount and the accuracy of information children reported to their mothers about a non-shared experience. Children aged 4- to 7-years-old (N = 142) individually participated in a staged event and discussed the experience with their mothers approximately six-days later. Prior to interviewing children, mothers were provided with some details about the non-shared event. Accurately-biased mothers had accurate information about the event. Inaccurately-biased mothers had both accurate and inaccurate information about the experience. Individual difference factors including children's age, maternal reminiscing style, and attachment quality were hypothesized to moderate the relationship between maternal bias and children's reports. The results revealed older children had highly reliable reports regardless of maternal bias or maternal reminiscing style. However, younger children with inaccurately biased and high elaborative mothers reported less accurate and more inaccurate information about the event compared to younger children with inaccurately-biased and low elaborative mothers. Additionally, children of mothers with insecure attachment quality reported fewer details and made more inaccurate statements regarding the event. Results suggest that the mnemonic consequence of discussing past experiences with mothers varies depending on maternal bias, children's age, maternal reminiscing style, and attachment quality. Forensic and theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Developmental psychology / Psychology
• ISBN: 9781369980554, 1369980558