Post traumatic stress affects children's resistance to interrogative suggestibility and the ability to give answers with high discrepancy detection in repeated suggestive interviews

Abstract

Traumatic events can lead to the development of post-traumatic stress with consequences on the cognitive, emotional and relational functioning of children and adolescents, impacting their suggestive vulnerability. The present study aims to verify how post-traumatic stress (PTS) can increase children's suggestibility by constantly reducing their ability to provide Resistant Behavioral Responses (RBR) when exposed to repeated suggestive interviews. Participants were 104 children aged 11-15 years recruited in various Italian middle and high schools. All children completed the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS 1 and GSS2), a nonverbal IQ test, and the Traumatic Symptoms Checklist for Children (TSCC). The results showed that PTS had significant positive correlations with suggestibility scores and negative correlations with “No” and “Direct Explanation” answers.  Children with high PTS showed higher suggestibility scores on GSS1 and GSS2 than children with low PTS and provided fewer “no” and “direct explanation” responses. Multivariate analysis of variance models highlighted how high levels of PTS affected the ability to resist to yield and psychoemotional pressure in both repeated parallel interviews (Shift), leading children to provide fewer RBR responses with high discrepancy detection ability. Forensic implications are discussed in order to PTS on suggestibility.