Are Two Heads Better Than One?

Investigations of suspected child maltreatment attempt to limit the number of times children are questioned, but case features sometimes necessitate more than one interview. Because repeated interviews can sometimes enhance children’s testimony, the use of “extended” or “multi-session” forensic interviews is increasingly popular with child protection professionals.

Despite widespread agreement that such interviews should be non-duplicative and follow best-practice questioning strategies, there is little guidance regarding the more practical considerations that arise when conducting repeated interviews with children.

In a paper published in Law and Human Behavior (Online First Publication, August 26, 2019), Sonja Brubacher and colleagues tackled a question frequently raised by practitioners in such cases: Should repeated interviews with children use the same interviewer or a different interviewer across sessions?

This seemingly straightforward question raises a number of complex issues and potential logistical challenges for agencies. For example, interviewer familiarity may foster trust, leading to greater candor among alleged victims. On the other hand, children might report more information over time due to reminiscence (the recollection of new information in a subsequent interview) or because personal stories become easier to share, rendering interviewer familiarity a moot point.

In addition, if using a familiar interviewer does enhance the quality of children’s testimony, is there anything agencies can do if they cannot use the same person when questioning children on multiple occasions?

To address these questions, Brubacher and her colleagues conducted a laboratory study that manipulated interviewer familiarity (familiar or unfamiliar) and interviewer supportiveness (supportive or neutral demeanor) for 160 children (5 to 9 years).

Children spent 10 minutes with an assistant (“Mr. Science”) engaged in various science activities to learn about germs and personal hygiene.

Prior to the activities, a different assistant told children about two rules for the session:

• they were not to open a cabinet in the corner of the room because it didn’t belong to the research team
• Mr. Science was not allowed to touch their skin, purportedly because the staff was concerned about spreading cold and flu among visitors

Between activities, Mr. Science coaxed children to join him in six acts of wrongdoing associated with the rules (e.g., opening up a Top Secret box they found in the cabinet).

Several days later, a different assistant questioned children about their time with Mr. Science.

For half of the children, the interviewer displayed supportive behaviors (she smiled, used children’s names, leaned in, made frequent eye contact). For the other half of the children, the interviewer displayed a neutral demeanor that minimized supportive behaviors.

A few days later, either the same or a different interviewer questioned children a second time, using the same interviewing style the child had experienced in the first interview.

The team found that children interviewed in a supportive manner reported more wrongdoing during the second interview than those questioned by an interviewer who displayed a neutral demeanor. Children also reported more false information to supportive interviewers in the second interview (though when both interviews were considered together, there were no differences across conditions in how much false detail children provided).

The only effect of interviewer familiarity was that children reported more new acts of wrongdoing (things they had not shared in the first interview) to unfamiliar interviewers.

Although more research is needed, the findings reveal that interviewer familiarity appears to be less critical than interviewer supportiveness for facilitating children’s testimony under certain circumstances.

This is good news for practitioners and trainers of forensic interviewers because integrating interviewer supportiveness into investigative protocols, accompanied with proper training, could be relatively straightforward.

Citation

• Brubacher, S. P., Poole, D. A., Dickinson, J. J., La Rooy, D., Szojka, Z. A., & Powell, M. B. (2019). Effects of interviewer familiarity and supportiveness on children’s recall across repeated interviews. Law and Human Behavior. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000346

Note: This article is in the Forensic Psychology topic area. View more articles in the Forensic Psychology topic area.

Sonja Brubacher is a senior research fellow in the Centre for Investigative Interviewing/Griffith Criminology Institute at Griffith University. Her primary research focuses on best practice interviewing for child witnesses, with an emphasis on the preparatory activities (rapport, ground rules, and narrative practice) that take place before allegations are discussed.

Debra Poole is a professor of psychology at Central Michigan University. Her research has explored the impact of repeated questioning and misinformation from parents on children's event reports, how children respond to different question forms, their ability to report the sources of knowledge, and the risks and benefits of interview props. She is the author of Interviewing Children: The Science of Conversation in Forensic Contexts (2016).

Jason Dickinson is a professor of psychology at Montclair State University. He directs The Talking Lab, whose work is designed to inform public policy through research on children's testimony and investigative decision-making.

David La Rooy is a senior lecturer in the School of Law and Social Sciences at Royal Holloway University of London. He has conducted applied research for several decades and has a long-standing interest in learning to better understand the effects of repeated interviews in forensic interviews with children.

Zsófia Szojka is a teaching fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research focuses on the impact of multiple forensic interviews on the quality of children's testimony.

Martine Powell is a professor in the Griffith Criminology Institute and Founding Director of the Centre for Investigative Interviewing at Griffith University. Her research focuses on investigative interviewing — particularly of vulnerable witnesses — and evidence-based methods of teaching interviewing skills that will be sustained long-term in the field.