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Effect of age, temperament, and drawing activity on the suggestibility of children

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to empirically explore the effect of a drawing activity on children’s memory accuracy during investigative interviews. The accuracy of children’s memories according to their age, their temperamental factors, and the presence or absence of a drawing activity as an auxiliary tool during an investigative interview was examined among 60 children aged 5 − 8 years. The effect of the drawing activity differed according to the child’s age and temperament. For children aged 7 − 8 years, the effect of the drawing activity did not significantly differ according to the child’s shyness level, whereas for younger children (aged 5 − 6 years), the effect of the drawing activity—that is, the number of correct rejections to the interviewer’s suggestive questions—differed depending on their degree of shyness. Specifically, the shyer the children in the drawing condition, the greater their degree of resistance to the suggestible questions during the interview, compared to those in the control condition. Based on the present findings, the value of using additional tools with consideration of the temperamental characteristics and age of the victim is discussed in the context of child investigative interviews.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the the author. The data are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all the participants and their parents for participating in this study.

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  1. Department of Liberal Arts and Education, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea

    Seungjin Lee

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Lee, S. Effect of age, temperament, and drawing activity on the suggestibility of children. Curr Psychol 43, 599–608 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04308-7

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