The interactive roles of narrative processing and emotion negativity/lability in relation to autonomic coordination.

Emotion regulation (ER) is a multifaceted construct, involving behavioral, cognitive, and physiological processes. Although autonomic coordination is theorized to play a crucial role in adaptive functioning, few studies have examined how different individual and contextual factors together may contribute to such coordination. This study examined the joint influences of narrative processing and emotional negativity/lability (N/L) traits on the coordination of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems in a sample of 112 children, ages 8-12 years (Mage = 10.15 years, SD = 1.33). Children completed a stress-induction task followed by an interview about the task. Children's trait-level N/L was assessed via parent-report on the Emotion Regulation Checklist. Narrative processing was assessed and coded based on children's narrative accounts of the event (i.e., causal coherence, overall emotional tone). Indexes of sympathetic (skin conductance response, SCR) and parasympathetic (respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA) functioning were derived from physiological data obtained during the interview. Results revealed that children's trait-level N/L and narrative processing of the stressful event interacted to predict the RSA-SCR correlation. Specifically, children who were high on either N/L or narrative causal coherence, but not both, demonstrated significant RSA-SCR correlation. Similarly, children with high N/L and negative-to-neutral narratives, as well as those with low N/L and neutral-to-positive narratives, exhibited significant RSA-SCR correlation. This work provides empirical evidence that narrative processing and trait N/L, together with RSA-SCR correlation, work in tandem to regulate emotional arousal.

The influence of parent conversation goal and structure on children's event reports.

Parents vary in conversational goals and style when discussing events with their children-two aspects of parent socialization that may be related, or exert opposing influence on the development of young children's report accuracy (a critical factor in children's eyewitness reports). In a sample of 116 parent-child dyads (M age = 53.17 months, range: 36-72 months), we examined the roles of parent social conversation goals (parent-reported and experimentally manipulated) and parent cognitive elaboration in children's ability to accurately report about a laboratory event. Parent cognitive elaboration varied by conversation goal and was positively associated with child accuracy across age but only when parents strongly endorsed social conversation goals. Parent questioning strategies and children's response accuracy varied with age. This work has implications for how we understand short- and long-term impacts caregivers exert on children's event reporting and suggests that even very young children are sensitive to variations in parent questioning practices.

Fact- and emotion-focused conversations elicit differential patterns of reporting and distress in children.

We examined the role of emotion- versus fact-focused conversations in the details children reported about a stressful event and whether the details provided were prompted or spontaneously offered. We also tested how these conversational strategies, in conjunction with children's emotion regulation skills, influenced children's event-related distress. Children (N = 100 8- to 13-year-olds) experienced a stressor in the laboratory and were randomly assigned to participate in a fact-focused conversation (prompted about objective event elements) or an emotion-focused conversation (prompted about subjective reactions to the event) with an unfamiliar adult. Caregivers reported on children's emotion regulation skills. Children reported more overall prompted and spontaneous details in the fact-focused condition, but reported proportionally more spontaneous details than prompted detail in the emotion-focused condition compared to the fact-focused condition. Children with lower emotion regulation skills found the emotion-focused conversation (but not the fact-focused conversation) about the laboratory stressor significantly less distressing than children with high emotion regulation skills (when controlling for initial distress about the task). We propose that combining both fact- and emotion-focused conversational techniques may be most effective for encouraging detailed disclosures from children and for providing a respite from distress for children with emotion-regulation difficulties.

Talking about emotions: Effects of emotion-focused interviewing on children's physiological regulation of stress and discussion of the subjective elements of a stressful experience.

This is the first study to examine the effect of questioning children about emotions and cognitions versus facts on children's stress reactivity and regulation, as well as children's abilities to discuss their subjective experiences, in the context of adult-child discussions about a stressful event. A total of 80 8- to 12-year-old children participated in a stressful laboratory task (i.e., Trier Social Stress Test). Following the task, half of the children were engaged in an emotion-focused conversation with an adult interviewer about the event, and half were engaged in a fact-focused conversation. Electrodermal and cardiac preejection activity and respiratory sinus arrhythmia were derived at baseline, during the laboratory stressor, and during the conversation to index stress reactivity and regulation. Children's narratives were coded for indicators of emotion processing (i.e., positive and negative emotion words, cognitive words [e.g., think, know]). Children's English language abilities, self-reported stress, and several parent-report measures (demographics, child life stress, and children's emotion regulation strategies) were also obtained. Results indicate that the emotion-focused interview facilitated children's discussions of their subjective experiences without increasing their stress reactivity and that children showed enhanced physiological stress regulation during the emotion-focused interview. This research will be of interest to those in the fields of child narratives, stress, and social context as well as to parents and practitioners interested in improving children's understanding, reporting, and recovery after stressful experiences.

Order of Encoding Predicts Young Children's Responses to Sequencing Questions.

We propose that young children exhibit an order of encoding bias, such that they are inclined to report or act out events in the order in which they were originally encoded. This bias helps to explain why children assume that events they first hear described are in chronological order and why they often appear to understand "after" better than "before" when they are questioned about experienced events. Asking children about a sequence of events as a whole (in particular using "first") could avoid order of encoding biases, because children would not have to answer questions about events within the sequence. In the present study, 100 2- to 4-year-old children participated in creating simple stories in which a story child interacted with five objects, thus creating five unrelated events. Children then responded to questions asking them to identify which action occurred "before" and "after" the third event and which action occurred "first" and "last" in the story. We hypothesized that (1) children would exhibit a tendency to answer "before" and "after" questions with the event that occurred after the queried event, thus impairing performance on "before" questions; (2) children would respond more accurately to questions about what occurred "first" and "last" than to questions about "before" and "after"; (3) children would respond more accurately to questions about "first" than questions about "last," and (4) children's performance would improve with age. The hypotheses were supported. Critically, children's errors when responding to "before"/ "after" questions were consistent with an order of encoding bias.

Individual Differences in Children's Suggestibility: An Updated Review.

The present review is intended as an overview of our current understanding of how children's individual characteristics, in terms of demographic, cognitive, and psycho-social variables, may influence their susceptibility to suggestion. The goals are to revisit conceptual models of the mechanisms of suggestibility, to provide an updated practical guide for practitioners, and to make recommendations for future research. Results suggest that children with intellectual impairment and those with nascent language skills may be particularly vulnerable to suggestion. Further, memory for separate events, theory of mind, executive function, temperament, and social competence may not be related to suggestibility, whereas additional work is needed to clarify the potential contributions of knowledge, stress, mental health, parental elaborative style, and adverse experiences/maltreatment to children's suggestibility.

Differential effects of direct and cross examination on mock jurors' perceptions and memory in cases of child sexual abuse.

When children testify in cases of child sexual abuse (CSA), they often provide minimal responses to attorneys' questions. Thus, how attorneys ask questions may be particularly influential in shaping jurors' perceptions and memory for case details. This study examined mock jurors' perceptions after reading an excerpt of a CSA trial transcript. Participants' memory of the excerpt was tested after a two-day delay. We examined how reading a direct or cross-examination excerpt that included either high or low temporal structure impacted participants' perceptions, verdict decisions and memory reports. We found that participants who read a direct examination excerpt rated the child witness as more credible, were more likely to convict the defendant and had more accurate memory reports than those who read a cross-examination excerpt, regardless of temporal structure. Suggestions for improving jurors' comprehension and recall of child statements presented as evidence in CSA cases are discussed.

Using implicit encouragement to increase narrative productivity in children: Preliminary evidence and legal implications.

Statements made by children in a range of legal settings can irrevocably impact their family structure, relationships, and living environment. Because these statements can fundamentally alter children's futures, efforts have been made to identify methods to enhance children's reports by increasing comprehensiveness, completeness, and accuracy. Interviewer support has broadly been considered a method of interest, but variations in what constitutes "support" have highlighted the need for greater specificity in documenting how different facets of supportive behaviors relate to children's reporting tendencies. In this review, we describe work focused on the effects of interviewer support, on children's memory completeness and accuracy. We then describe to a subset of interviewer behaviors that encourage elaboration in dyadic interactions: back-channeling and vocatives. We present preliminary evidence suggesting that these utterances, referred to as implicit encouragement, can increase the amount of detail provided without compromising accuracy. Implications for custody evaluations are discussed.

Relations between Attorney Temporal Structure and Children's Response Productivity in Cases of Alleged Child Sexual Abuse.

PURPOSE: Previous research has demonstrated that attorney question format relates to child witness' response productivity. However, little work has examined the relations between the extent to which attorneys provide temporal structure in their questions, and the effects of this structure on children's responding. The purpose of the present study was to address this gap in the literature in order to identify methods by which attorneys increase children's response productivity on the stand without risking objections from opposing counsel for "calling for narrative answers". METHODS: In the present study we coded criminal court transcripts involving child witnesses (5-18 years) for narrative structure in attorney questions and productivity in children's responses. Half of the transcripts resulted in convictions, half in acquittals, balanced across key variables: child age, allegation severity, the child's relationship to the perpetrator, and the number of allegations. RESULTS: Prosecutors and defense attorneys varied substantially in their questioning tactics. Prosecutors used more temporal structure in their questions and varied their questioning by the age of the child. These variations had implications for children's response productivity. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that temporal structure is a novel and viable method for enhancing children's production of case-relevant details on the witness stand.

Attorney Questions Predict Jury-eligible Adult Assessments of Attorneys, Child Witnesses, and Defendant Guilt.

Children are often the primary source of evidence in maltreatment cases, particularly cases of child sexual abuse, and may be asked to testify in court. Although best-practice protocols for interviewing children suggest that interviewers ask open-ended questions to elicit detailed responses from children, during in-court testimony, attorneys tend to rely on closed-ended questions that elicit simple (often "yes" or "no") responses (e.g., Andrews, Lamb, & Lyon, ; Klemfuss, Quas, & Lyon, ). How then are jurors making decisions about children's credibility and ultimately the case outcome? The present study examined the effect of two attorney-specific factors (e.g., temporal structure and questioning phase) on mock jurors' perceptions of attorney performance, child witness credibility, storyline clarity, and defendant guilt. Participants were randomly assigned to read a trial excerpt from one of eight conditions and were then asked to evaluate the attorney, child witness, and the case. Selected excerpts were from criminal court case transcripts and contained either high attorney temporal structure (e.g., use of temporal markers) or low temporal structure (e.g., frequent topic switching), involved direct or cross-examination, and represented cases resulting in a conviction or acquittal. Child responses were kept consistent across all excerpts. Results showed that participants perceived the attorney's performance and child's credibility more favorably and thought the storyline was clearer when attorneys provided high rather than low temporal structure and when the excerpt contained direct rather than cross-examination. Participants who read a direct rather than cross-examination excerpt were also more likely to think the defendant was guilty. The study highlights the impact of attorney questioning style on mock jurors' perceptions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Stress at encoding, context at retrieval, and children's narrative content.

Research concerning the relations between stress and children's memory has been primarily correlational and focused on memory volume and accuracy. In the current study, we experimentally manipulated 7- and 8-year-olds' and 12- to 14-year-olds' experienced stress during a to-be-remembered event to examine the effects of stress on the content of their memory. We further manipulated the degree of interviewer support at retrieval to determine whether it moderated the effects of stress at encoding on memory. Children's age, gender, stress at encoding, and interviewer support all influenced the type of information included in their narrative reports. Most notably, across ages, children who experienced a more stressful event but were questioned in a supportive manner provided the largest ratio of terms representing internal states such as those about cognitions and emotions. Results suggest that how children process past events may be influenced by both the nature of the event itself and the context within which it is recalled.

Yes, no, maybe so: Caregiver autonomy support, conversation context, and children's memory performance.

The extant literature on the use of autonomy support during caregiver-child conversations has focused primarily on conversations about fun, shared experiences, with limited consideration of unshared experiences or attention toward the role of conversation context. The present study examined how autonomy support, conversation context, and child age interact to predict 3-to-5-year-old children's disclosure of accurate information when discussing an unshared past event with their caregiver and an experimenter. Dyads (N = 111) were recruited from two locations (Miami, Florida and Orange County, California) by research recruitment firms. Children completed a standardized activity alone and then discussed the activity with their caregiver. The context of the discussion was manipulated so that dyads focused on either accumulating facts (Fact condition) or having fun (Fun condition). Afterward, children discussed the activity with a neutral interviewer. Caregivers in the fact condition were less autonomy supportive when discussing the activity than those in the fun condition. During the caregiver-child interview, caregiver autonomy support was negatively associated with children's disclosure of correct event details for those in the fun condition only. Caregiver autonomy support was negatively associated with children's correct details during the experiment-child interview across both context conditions. While older children provided more correct details during both interviews, there were no other age-related effects. These results demonstrate that conversation context moderates the link between autonomy support and children's autobiographical memory performance. Past contradictory findings in the field are discussed in light of these results. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Promoting Adolescents' Social Responsibility through Parent-Adolescent Conversations about the COVID-19 Pandemic.

PURPOSE: This longitudinal mixed-method study examined the content and qualities of parent-adolescent conversations about the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether discourse about social responsibility (i.e., care for others and health protective behaviors [HPBs]) within conversations predicted changes in adolescents' socially responsible behavior across the first year of the pandemic. METHODS: Participants were 122 ethnically/racially diverse parent-adolescent dyads from Southern California. In spring 2020 (Time 1), adolescents completed an online survey measuring their engagement in HPBs (e.g., social distancing) and prosociality (both pandemic-specific and global). A few months following survey completion (Time 2), parent-adolescent dyads engaged in an audio-recorded conversation about the pandemic. In winter 2020 (Time 3), adolescents' engagement in HPBs and prosociality were reassessed via an online survey. RESULTS: Dyads spent 25% of conversational turns, on average, discussing social responsibility (4% and 21% of turns discussing care for others and HPBs, respectively). Internal state language reflecting emotion terms was positively correlated with the proportion of conversational turns spent discussing care for others and negatively associated with conversational turns spent discussing HPBs. Regression analyses revealed that both care for others and HPB conversation themes uniquely predicted increases in adolescents' engagement in HPBs over time; however, care for others was a stronger predictor (ß = 0.24 vs. ß = 0.16). Discussions about care for others (but not HPBs) predicted increases in pandemic-specific prosociality, but not global prosocial behavior. DISCUSSION: Parent-adolescent conversations may be rich ground for the socialization of adolescents' social responsibility during crises and can inform best practices for engaging adolescents in current and future community health initiatives.

Parent-Adolescent Conversations About COVID-19 Influence Adolescents' Empathic Concern and Adherence to Health Protective Behaviors.

PURPOSE: This longitudinal investigation assessed how the frequency of parent-adolescent conversations about COVID-19, moderated by adolescents' stress, influenced adolescents' empathic concern and adherence to health protective behaviors (HPBs) throughout the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Participants were 181 adolescents (Mage = 15.23 years; 51% girls; 47% Latinx) and their parents. Frequency of parent-adolescent conversations about COVID-19 (i.e., pandemic-related symptoms, health behaviors, and social effects), empathic concern toward vulnerable others, and adolescent HPBs were assessed via surveys in the first months of the pandemic, and empathic concern and HPBs were assessed again nine months later. RESULTS: Results revealed that more frequent parent-adolescent conversations early in the pandemic predicted increased adherence to HPBs throughout the pandemic when adolescents reported low stress (direct effect), but conversation frequency predicted decreased adherence to HPBs via reduced empathic concern when adolescents reported high stress (indirect effect). CONCLUSIONS: Parents and other socialization agents, such as teachers, should be sensitive to adolescents' stress before engaging them in frequent conversations about the pandemic to mitigate the potential negative impact these conversations may have on adolescents' empathic concern and adherence to HPBs. Decreasing adolescents' stress may be an initial step in promoting effective message transference. Collective action (including wearing masks and receiving the vaccine) remains critical to overcoming COVID-19. The current study contributes to our understanding of the processes underlying adolescents' adherence to recommended HPBs, which is critical as pandemic fatigue and stress continue to rise.

What the stories children tell can tell about their memory: narrative skill and young children's suggestibility.

The authors examined the relation between children's narrative ability, which has been identified as an important contributor to memory development, and suggestibility. Across 2 studies, a total of 112 preschool-aged children witnessed a staged event and were subsequently questioned suggestively. Results from Study 1 indicated that children's ability to provide a high-quality narrative of the event was related to resistance to suggestive questions, and narrative ability appeared to supersede age as a predictor of such resistance. In Study 2, children's general language and narrative abilities were measured in addition to their ability to produce a high-quality narrative about the target event. These results replicated Study 1's findings that children's ability to produce a high-quality narrative of a previously experienced event predicted resistance to suggestion. However, the quality of children's autobiographical memory narratives predicted shifting from denial to assent. Findings are considered in light of narrative's role in memory development and underlying mechanisms that may explain children's suggestibility.

Attachment, household chaos, and children's health.

INTRODUCTION: Despite growing interest in the links between sociocontextual factors and children's behavioral functioning, few studies have investigated how such factors, in combination, relate to health outcomes or vary across mental and physical well-being. We evaluated the direct and interactive associations of parental attachment and household chaos with preschool-age children's mental and physical health. METHOD: Ninety-four parents completed questionnaires about their attachment styles, disorganization and confusion in the home, and their children's health functioning. RESULTS: Attachment avoidance and anxiety in parents predicted poorer mental health in children, particularly in highly chaotic homes. Moreover, parental attachment anxiety, but not avoidance, predicted poorer reported physical health in children and, in conjunction with chaotic homes, more hospitalizations. DISCUSSION: The results help illuminate how multiple domains in children's immediate environment jointly influence their physical and mental health and how these influences may vary across domains of functioning. Findings have implications for targeting interventions to have impact across facets of children's health. (PsycINFO Database Record

Attorneys' Questions and Children's Productivity in Child Sexual Abuse Criminal Trials.

We investigated the links between questions child witnesses are asked in court, children's answers, and case outcome. Samples of acquittals and convictions were matched on child age, victim-defendant relationship, and allegation count and severity. Transcripts were coded for question types, including a previously under-examined type of potentially suggestive question, declarative questions. Children's productivity was conceptualized in a novel way by separating new from repeated content and by adjusting the definition based on the linguistic demands of the questions. Attorneys frequently used declarative questions, and disconcertingly, attorneys who used these and other suggestive questions more frequently were more likely to win their case. Open-ended and closed-ended questions elicited similar levels of productivity from children, and both elicited more productivity compared with suggestive questions. Results highlight how conceptualization of questions and answers can influence conclusions, and demonstrate the important real-world implications of attorney questioning strategies on legal cases with child witnesses.

Unwarranted Assumptions about Children's Testimonial Accuracy.

We examine eight unwarranted assumptions made by expert witnesses, forensic interviewers, and legal scholars about the reliability of children's eyewitness reports. The first four assumptions modify some central beliefs about the nature of suggestive interviews, age-related differences in resistance to suggestion, and thresholds necessary to produce tainted reports. The fifth unwarranted assumption involves the influence of both individual and interviewer factors in determining children's suggestibility. The sixth unwarranted assumption concerns the claim that suggested reports are detectable. The seventh unwarranted assumption concerns new findings about how children deny, disclose, and/or recant their abuse. Finally, we examine unwarranted statements about the value of science to the forensic arena. It is important not only for researchers but also expert witnesses and court-appointed psychologists to be aware of these unwarranted assumptions.