The roles of child temperament and interviewer support on children's reports of adult wrongdoing

Researchers have demonstrated that interviewer supportive behaviors positively affect children's abilities to provide information about their experiences in many circumstances, but there is some evidence that supportiveness effects may be influenced by children's temperament. The associations among interviewer support, child temperament, and children's propensity to disclose adult transgressions during free recall remain unclear. Children (N = 132) 5 to 9 years old partook in an event where an adult confederate committed six transgressions. The children were interviewed a few days later; half by a supportive interviewer and half by a neutral interviewer. Within two to three months of their participation, the children's teachers completed a questionnaire to describe each child's temperament. While interviewer support did not predict these children's disclosure of transgressions, dimensions of child temperament and individual factors did. Specifically, children's disclosure tendencies were predicted by how socially flexible and task-oriented they were. Additionally, the interviewers' questioning behavior was impacted by children's level of reactivity. Taken together with other research, the results provide further evidence that behaviors of both the interviewers and the children in the interview process are relevant to facilitating children's disclosures of sensitive information.