LE3 .A278 2001

2001

Symons, Sonya

Acadia University

Master of Science

Masters

Clinical Psychology

Psychology

This study investigated whether telling children to confabulate answers to questions about events that never occurred would result in them later reporting that these events had occurred. A developmental comparison was made to determine whether differences exist between 6-7 year old and 10-11 year old children. Twenty-seven grade 1 children and 35 grade 5 children participated. Children were interviewed on two occasions, one week apart, about three different events. In the first interview they were asked to tell everything they could remember about a true event and a false event and reassured that it was fine if they didn't remember. For the third event (also false) they were asked to make something up if they couldn't remember what happened. In the second interview children were asked whether each of these three events and a fourth (false) event not discussed in the first interview had ever happened to them. More children assented to false events that had been discussed (47%) or confabulated about (42%) in the first interview than to false events that were presented for the first time in the second interview (15%). There was no difference, however, between events confabulated about and those simply discussed. The event types also differed on the number of details and confidence rating provided by participants. Developmental differences were shown in the number of false events assented to with grade one students assenting to fewer false events discussed and false events not discussed before than grade five students. Further, participants showed a significant increase in self-esteem following participation in this study. Results are discussed in terms of their developmental significance and their implications for methods of interviewing children.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:3050