LINGUISTIC AND SOCIOEMOTIONAL INFLUENCES ON THE ACCURACY OF CHILDRENSREPORTS

A basic but largely neglected issue in research on the reliability of children's testimony is the impact of certain questioning tactics (e.g ., use of legalese and socioemotional intimidation) on the accuracy of children's reports,ln the present study, 5- to 7-year-old children we re interviewed about a standardized play event with free-recall cues a nd detailed questions that were specific or misleading. Linguistic com plexity of questions (complex or simple) and socioemotional context of interview (supportive or intimidating) were varied between subjects. Results indicated that children were significantly less accurate in re porting the event when questioned with complex, developmentally inappr opriate questions rather than simple questions, yet children rarely vo iced their comprehension failures. In addition, children interviewed b y a warm, supportive interviewer were more resistant to misleading que stions about the event than were children interviewed in an intimidati ng manner Theoretical interpretations and implications for investigati ve interviewing and policy are discussed.