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Understanding of Trust and Honesty[edit]

Young children have a reputation for credulity or believing something without having any proof that it is true. It is known that much of people’s knowledge about the world is not attained directly from experience, but instead indirectly from what other people tell us. However, people can deliberately deceive or mislead, be misunderstood, or be mistaken. [1] It is important that people develop the necessary skills to assess the likelihood of what they are being told. By the age of 4, children often learn to not trust what someone says when they have repeatedly misled them; however, 3 year-olds often continue to believe what a person tells them even when that person has repeatedly deceived them. [2] Researchers[3] have investigated if 3 year-olds’ willingness to believe others is based on a general bias to expect others to behave in helpful ways (i.e., general trust in others) or a selective bias to testimony (i.e., specific trust in what people tell them). Evidently, 3 year-old children have a robust selective bias to trust testimony, especially if they can see the speaker. This robust trust in testimony may be adaptive in the early years as they are learning language and their way around the world.[4]

Children learn much of what they know from what others tell them. In other words, testimony is a power source of information. However, some people are more credible than others. Children are not just passive recipients of testimony from others, but actively evaluate information to decide whether or not to believe it. Children become sensitive to the differences in knowledge and reliability in what people say; subsequently, they use that information to avoid learning from unreliable or problematic sources.[5] There are many factors or cues that children, by the age of 4, take into consideration when making judgements about either the trustworthiness of a person or whether or not to trust what a person says. For instance, traits, motivations, age, level of perceptual access, and reasoning or support for their claims.

Traits and Motivation[edit]

Almost all human institutions (e.g., family, community, business, government) are built on a foundation of trust.[6] There are many factors that influence children’s trust in people and one of the most important is honesty.[7] There are various schools of philosophical thought that posits honesty to be morally right and lying to be morally wrong. On one end of the continuum, philosophers like Bok[8], Kant [9], and St. Augustine[10] hold a deontological view that focuses on intrinsic duties relating to the treatment of others. In other words, telling the truth is intrinsically right and lying is intrinsically wrong. On the other end of the continuum is the utilitarian view that emphasizes the greater good, specifically with respect to the outcome of one’s act. Therefore, lying and its moral implications are context dependent.[11] In some situations, such as when being polite to spare another person’s feelings, making a “prosocial lie” or deliberate false statement are endorsed. In both Eastern and Western cultures, both adults and children adhere to the utilitarian perspective when giving moral evaluations of truths and lies in different social situations. [12] In terms of people’s characteristics, children tend to place trust in people who are honest, smart, and kind. [13] However, they also consider the person’s intent or motivation. For example, from age 7, children consider both honesty and benevolence when making trust judgments about other people, and older children are more likely to trust people who tell prosocial lies (to avoid hurting another person’s feelings or to help another person) than young children. [14] For younger children, one’s honesty is the more important than their motivation when it comes to lying and as they age, they increasingly place weight on another person’s motivation. The relationship between telling the truth and trusting the person is stable, but when it comes to lying, children consider the motivation of the speaker when deciding whether or not to trust them.

Age and Reliability[edit]

Children evaluate the credibility of a speaker by evaluating how reliable that person has been in the past, as well as can make predictions about a speaker based on their age. [15] As young as 3 years-old, children prefer to trust an unfamiliar adult rather than an unfamiliar child. [16] At the same time, young children spontaneously keep track of the prior history of a person’s accuracy or inaccuracy (reliability) and prefer to learn from someone with a good track record. [17] Children commonly interpret the speaker’s history of inaccuracy as a lasting trait and so the speaker is considered an unreliable informant, at least within the domain they have been wrong about. However, under certain conditions, children may excuse a person’s past inaccuracy and later trust that person for information. If a speaker has limited information (e.g., lack of perceptual access) in making a claim – for example, inaccurately identifying a toy while blind-folded – then children as young as 3 years-old appropriately excuse their past inaccuracy especially when they are later well-informed.[18] Still, if a speaker has full access to information in making a claim, children continue to regard him/her as unreliable. Thus, children consider both the prior history of accuracy and the level of perceptual access the speaker has when they are making a claim.

When considering both age and reliability, age often is the cue used to determine another’s credibility. For example, 3 and 4 year-olds found adults to be trustworthier than peers unless the peer demonstrated greater reliability (i.e., adult incorrectly mislabelled objects, whereas peer correctly labelled them). [19] Therefore, children will trust adults more than their peers unless there is a reason to doubt the adult.

Reasoning or Support[edit]

Young children appreciate that people generally think and act sensibly when reasons are present, but at the same time, young children can evaluate a person's claim by assessing the quality of the reasons they provide.[20] Thus, children create an epistemic profile of a person based on the quality of reasons they offer when making a claim.[21] As young as 3 years-old, children understand the difference between good and bad reasons for making a statement. For example, if someone was asked to identify what was inside a backpack, children judged the following as good reasons to trust their claim: reliable testimony (“My teacher told me there’s a book in the bag. I think that there’s a book”), looking (“Before I came here, I looked and saw a ball in the bag. I think there’s a ball in there”), and inference (“It’s a backpack. Backpack holds books. I think there’s a book in there”).[22] On the other hand, desire (“I like crayons. I want there to be crayons in the bag. I think that there are crayons in there”), pretense (“I like to pretend. I’m going to pretend that there’s a sandwich in the bag. I think there’s a sandwich in there”), and guessing as bad reasons.[23] Children know that these bad reasons are mental states that they and others may often hold, but also appreciate that these reasons are not reliable means for drawing specific conclusions. Moreover, 3 and 4 year-olds can also choose the more reasonable of two people and continue to seek, as well as, accept new information from the more credible person (the one who had better reasons in the past).[24]

Development of Distrust[edit]

People are not always reliable and it is important to be able to differentiate between good sources and bad sources of information. Assessing one’s reliability is based on the knowledgability of speaker, but their motives/intentions is also crucial. People may not always be motivated to tell the truth; instead, they lie to promote their own interest[25] or the interest of others.[26] As children age, they become better at distinguishing between helpful vs. deceptive people and this development occurs in preschool. Vanderbilt and colleagues recently investigated these age differences and the role theory of mind has on the development of distrust.[27] 3 year-olds are not able to identify who is trying to help or trick another person and accept advice from both helpers and trickers. On the other hand, 4 year-olds are more sceptical and could differentiate between helpers and trickers, but had no preference in choosing whom to accept advice from. There may be a mismatch between knowledge and behaviour among 4 year-olds, in which they do not understand the implications of their knowledge and how to successfully apply it to their behaviour. 5 year-olds systematically preferred advice from helpers. Ultimately, theory of mind, or children’s understanding of mind, is related to selective trust in helpers (vs. trickers). Beginning from 5 years-old, children understand a person’s prior history of deception and use that understanding to make reliability judgments about that person.

As research indicates, children are highly susceptible to a "suggestibility effect", producing "false memories" (see false memory) and/or "incorrect, post-event information" (see misinformation effect) when asked to engage in memory recall. [28] This is most prominent in forensic interviewing and child witness testimony. [29]

Theoretical Models of Memory Development[edit]

Trace-Integrity Model[edit]

According to this model, younger children are more likely to experience "memory intrusions" due to weaker memory traces. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). It indicates that children who have difficulty with conflicting mental representations (see mental representation), are likely to overwrite their original memories with misinformation due to "multiple contradictory representations". Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). The critical assumption is that a "fuzzy/verbatim" memory trace can be inaccurately represented as "gist", or a concrete, single event that has been influenced by a variation of other memory traces. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). [30]

Improper interviewing includes forensic techniques that are considered to be "risky and ineffective".<ref name="cronch2006"> Each of the following techniques can create critically negative consequences in witness testimony and potentially result in "false allegations and reduced likelihood of conviction":

  1. Use of reinforcement: For example, if an interviewer utilizes rewards and punishments to coerce disclosure
  2. Social influence: If an interviewer informs a child of another child's disclosure or recollection
  3. Asking suggestive or leading questions: This can occur when an interviewer provides a child with information that is new
  4. Removing the child from direct experience: For example, asking a child "what might have happened"

Clumsy interviewing involves interviews that fail to include best practices and recommended techniques. <ref name="cronch2006"> Interviewers who are not properly trained in forensic techniques can fail to follow structured interview guidelines and significantly impact the outcome of a child's witness testimony. Clumsy interviewing can most often occur when an interviewer lacks skill, forgets important procedures and even during a lack of appropriate and necessary supervision. <ref name="cronch2006">

In order to prevent improper forensic interviewing, researchers suggest numerous methods to reduce suggestibility and misinformation effects, such as taping interviews, recording transcripts, ensuring supervision by a qualified professional, experience in working with children, training in forensic interviewing, specifically how to accurately ask questions, and maintaining a comfortable, open environment. <ref name="cronch2006">

Types of Interviewing[edit]

The Cognitive Interview[edit]

This method utilizes cognitive theory as a focal point to develop interview methodology. The cognitive interview, first developed in 1992 by researchers Fisher and Geiselman, was originally developed for adults and later modified for children. It utilizes two major perspectives from cognitive theory, including the "encoding specificity principle", and a "multi-component view of memory traces". <ref name="goodman2007">

Specifically, this method utilizes four major instructions <ref name="goodman2007">:

  1. Report everything: for example, "tell me everything you remember"
  2. Context reinstatement: for example, "think back to where you were at the time"
  3. Reverse order: for example, "now that you told me what happened, try to remember it again but this time starting at the end and recounting it in reverse chronological order"
  4. Change perspective: for example, "what would the perpetrator have seen and heard?"
The NICHD Protocol[edit]

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) developed an investigative protocol in 2000 to create a structured interview technique for children, specifically those of child sexual abuse. [29] <ref name="cronch2006">

It utilizes the following techniques<ref name="goodman2007">:

  1. Introductory phase: This is necessary for rapport building
  2. Practice in free-recall: for example, "tell me about your last birthday party"
  3. Information about the ground rules: for example, "It's okay to say "I don't know""
  4. Open ended questions: "Tell me why you came to talk to me"
Stepwise Interview[edit]

This methodology utilizes open ended questions through a "funnel-like strategy". <ref name="goodman2007"> It is primarily used for legal purposes, and is quite often used in Canada. <ref name="goodman2007"> This interview begins with open-ended questions and/or free recall and slowly incorporates more focused questions. <ref name="goodman2007">

Allegation Blind Interviews[edit]

This strategy stresses that an interviewer should refrain from gathering information prior to an interview in order to reduce suggestibility, leading questions and increase interviewer patience and attentiveness. <ref name="cronch2006"> This also enhances the interviewers ability to be non-judgmental and objective. <ref name="cronch2006">

Truth-lie Discussions[edit]

This method is most useful prior to commencing abuse-related questioning, as it allows the interviewer to create a baseline with the child about what is "truth" and what is a "lie". <ref name="cronch2006"> The interviewer is encouraged to ask questions with specific, but general examples, such as "Tell me a lie about this chair". <ref name="cronch2006"> This strategy has been proven to result in less misinformed child testimony. <ref name="cronch2006">

Touch Survey[edit]

This survey instrument was developed on the basis that "touch falls on a continuum", and is beneficial to screen for child abuse. <ref name="cronch2006"> It includes questions surrounding the child's experiences with touch, such as, kissing, hugging, hitting, etc., including where they have been touched and by who. <ref name="cronch2006"> Researchers suggest that this tool might be more useful when used in conjunction with other forensic strategies. <ref name="cronch2006">

Recommendations for Forensic Interviewing[edit]

Although there are varying suggestions for structured forensic interviewing, researchers provide context into best practices that can significantly reduce suggestibility, false memories and the misinformation effect: <ref name="cronch2006">

  1. Interviews should be conducted in a safe, child-friendly environment
  2. A child's age should be considered when being interviewed, and practices should be modified accordingly
  3. Structured interview protocol should always be utilized
  4. Interviewers should engage in professional training when possible
  5. Ground rules are essential for the beginning of the interview so that the child is aware of the type of responses they can provide
  1. ^ Nurmsoo, E., & Robinson, E. J. (2009). Children's trust in previously inaccurate informants who were well or poorly informed: When past errors can be excused. Child Development, 80, 23-27.
  2. ^ see, for example, Mascaro, O., & Sperber, D. (2009). The moral, epistemic, and mind- reading components of children’s vigilance towards deception. Cognition, 112, 367–380.
  3. ^ Jaswal, V. K., Carrington Croft, A., Setia, A. R., & Cole, C. A. (2010). Young children have a specific, highly robust bias to trust testimony. Psychological Science, 21, 1541-1547.
  4. ^ see, for example, Baier, A. (1986). Trust and anti-trust. Ethics, 96, 231–260.
  5. ^ see, for example, Birch, S. A. J., Vauthier, S. A., & Bloom, P. (2008). Three- and four-year-olds spontaneously use others’ past performance to guide their learning. Cognition, 107, 1018– 1034. Sabbagh, M. A., & Baldwin, D. A. (2001). Learning words from knowledgeable versus ignorant speakers: Links between preschoolers’ theory of mind and semantic development. Child Development, 72, 1054–1070.
  6. ^ see Xu, F., Evans, A. D., Li, C., Li, Q., Heyman, G., & Lee, K. (2013). The role of honesty and benevolence in children’s judgments of trustworthiness. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 37, 257-265.
  7. ^ Bacon, F. (1999). Selected philosophical works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
  8. ^ Bok, S. (1978). Lying: Moral choice in public and private life. New York, NY: Random House.
  9. ^ Kant, I. (1949). On a supposed right to lie from altruistic motives. In L.W. Beck (Ed.), Critical of practical reason and other writings (pp.346–350). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
  10. ^ Augustine, St. (1952). Treaties on various issues. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.
  11. ^ see for example, Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  12. ^ see for example, Fu, G., Evans, A. D., Wang, L., & Lee, K. (2008). Lying in the name of collective good: A developmental study. Developmental Science, 11, 495–503.
  13. ^ Lane, J. D., Wellman, H. M., & Gelman, S. A. (2013). Informants' traits weigh heavily in young children's trust in testimony and in their epistemic inferences. Child Development, 84(4), 1253-1268.
  14. ^ see Xu, F., Evans, A. D., Li, C., Li, Q., Heyman, G., & Lee, K. (2013). The role of honesty and benevolence in children’s judgments of trustworthiness. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 37, 257-265.
  15. ^ see, for example, Jaswal, V. K., & Neely, L. A. (2006). Adults don't always know best: Preschoolers use past reliability over age when learning new words. Psychological Science, 17, 757-758.
  16. ^ Taylor, M., Cartwright, B.S., & Bowden, T. (1991). Perspective taking and theory of mind: Do children predict interpretive diversity as a function of differences in observers’ knowledge? Child Develop- ment, 62, 1334–1351.
  17. ^ Birch, S. A. J., Vauthier, S. A., & Bloom, P. (2008). Three- and four-year-olds spontaneously use others’ past performance to guide their learning. Cognition, 107, 1018– 1034.
  18. ^ Nurmsoo, E., & Robinson, E. J. (2009). Children's trust in previously inaccurate informants who were well or poorly informed: When past errors can be excused. Child Development, 80, 23-27.
  19. ^ see, for example, Jaswal, V. K., & Neely, L. A. (2006). Adults don't always know best: Preschoolers use past reliability over age when learning new words. Psychological Science, 17, 757-758.
  20. ^ see, for example, Wellman, H. M., & Bartsch, K. (1988). Young children’s reasoning about beliefs. Cognition, 30, 239–277.
  21. ^ Koenig, M. A. (2012). Beyond semantic accuracy: Preschoolers evaluate a speaker’s reasons. Child Development, 83, 1051-1063.
  22. ^ Koenig, M. A. (2012). Beyond semantic accuracy: Preschoolers evaluate a speaker’s reasons. Child Development, 83, 1051-1063.
  23. ^ Koenig, M. A. (2012). Beyond semantic accuracy: Preschoolers evaluate a speaker’s reasons. Child Development, 83, 1051-1063.
  24. ^ Koenig, M. A. (2012). Beyond semantic accuracy: Preschoolers evaluate a speaker’s reasons. Child Development, 83, 1051-1063.
  25. ^ Heyman, G. D., & Legare, C. H. (2005). Children’s evaluation of sources of information about traits. Developmental Psychology, 41, 636–647.
  26. ^ Heyman, G. D., Sweet, M. A., & Lee, K. (2009). Children’s reasoning about lie-telling and truth-telling in politeness context. Social Development, 18, 728–746.
  27. ^ Vanderbilt, K. E., Liu, D., & Heyman, G. D. (2011). The development of distrust. Child Development, 82, 1372-1380.
  28. ^ Welch-Ross, M. K., Diecidue, K., & Miller, S. A. (1997). Young children's understanding of conflicting mental representation predicts suggestibility. Developmental Psychology, 33(1), 43-53.
  29. ^ a b Goodman, G.S., Melinder, A. (2007). Child witness research and forensic interviews of young children: A review. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 12, 1-19.
  30. ^ Cronch, L. E., Viljoen, J. L., & Hansen, D. J. (2006). Forensic interviewing in child sexual abuse cases: Current techniques and future directions. Aggression and Violent Behaviour, 11, 195-207.
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