Differences in suggestibility between 5-6 and 10-11 year olds: The relationship with self confidence

Differences in suggestibility and recall between 5-6 and 10-11 year olds we re investigated. It was hypothesized that younger children would be mole su ggestible than older children and that differences in self confidence betwe en older and younger children would influence these differences. It was als o predicted that older children would recall more information than younger children, and that this age difference would be less strongly influenced by self confidence. Forty-one 5 and 6 and fifty-six 10 and 11 year olds were interviewed about a video they had witnessed. Several factual and misleadin g questions were asked, and the percentage of correct answers to the factua l questions (to measure recall) and the percentage of incorrect answers to the misleading questions (to measure suggestibility) were calculated. The l evel of self confidence of the children was measured with six items of the Behavioural Academic Self Esteem Scale (BASE), reflecting self confidence. The outcomes supported the hypotheses: Younger children were more suggestib le than older children and this difference disappeared when controlled for self confidence. Older children gave more information about the event than younger children, and these age differences were, to much less extent, infl uenced by their self confidence.