Levine, L. J., Burgess, S. L., & Laney, C. (2008). Effects of discrete emotions on young children’s suggestibility. Developmental Psychology, 44, 681–694. Purpose of the Study. Levine, Burgess, and Laney (2008) conducted a study to investigate the effect of children’s emotions on their memory abilities and the likelihood that their memory accuracy would decline due to leading questions about their memories for a story. This knowledge may be useful in determining the conditions under which children’s memories are less likely to be accurate, which is important in various applied situations, such as when children must testify in court about something they experienced. Method of the Study. Four- and six-year-old children participated in the study. Each child was presented with three stories. A task at the end of each story was designed to elicit happiness, sadness, or anger. This manipulation of emotion was conducted by asking the children to help the character in the story in order to win a prize for themselves. Happiness was elicited by a successful winning of the prize with the correct response. Sadness was elicited by presenting no opportunity (after the instructions) to win the prize (i.e., no target was presented in the task). Anger was elicited by withholding the prize after a correct response from the child. The children were asked how they were feeling after the emotion manipulation occurred at the end of each story. Free recall of the events in the story then occurred. Suggestibility was then measured with leading questions about the story, with five out of the seven questions containing false information. This procedure was followed for all three stories. Results of the Study. To check that the emotion manipulation actually elicited the appropriate emotions in the children, their emotional self-reports and coded facial expressions were compared for each emotional condition. A majority of the children showed the appropriate emotion for each condition. Thus, it was concluded that the children’s emotions were effectively manipulated. For free recall, emotion condition did not affect memory abilities; however, 6-year-olds (M = 10.97) did recall more accurate pieces of information about the study than 4-year-olds (M = 8.24). For memory suggestibility, emotion condition did affect memory suggestibility. Children in the sadness and anger conditions responded incorrectly more often to the inaccurate leading questions than the children in the happiness condition. Figure B.6 illustrates these results. In addition, 4-year-olds showed more suggestibility than 6-year-olds. Conclusions of the Study. Levine et al. (2008) concluded that whereas free-recall abilities are not affected by emotion condition in children, suggestibility due to misleading questions is affected by emotion condition. Negative emotions, such as anger and sadness, lead to more inaccurate responses to false leading questions. In addition, younger children were more likely to be misled by the questions than the older children. Thus, emotional states and type of questioning should be considered when testing the memories of young children. What type of developmental design was used in this study? Explain your answer ?
Levine, L. J., Burgess, S. L., & Laney, C. (2008). Effects of discrete emotions on young children’s suggestibility. Developmental Psychology, 44, 681–694.
Purpose of the Study. Levine, Burgess, and Laney (2008) conducted a study to investigate the effect of children’s emotions on their memory abilities and the likelihood that their memory accuracy would decline due to leading questions about their memories for a story. This knowledge may be useful in determining the conditions under which children’s memories are less likely to be accurate, which is important in various applied situations, such as when children must testify in court about something they experienced.
Method of the Study. Four- and six-year-old children participated in the study. Each child was presented with three stories. A task at the end of each story was designed to elicit happiness, sadness, or anger. This manipulation of emotion was conducted by asking the children to help the character in the story in order to win a prize for themselves. Happiness was elicited by a successful winning of the prize with the correct response. Sadness was elicited by presenting no opportunity (after the instructions) to win the prize (i.e., no target was presented in the task). Anger was elicited by withholding the prize after a correct response from the child. The children were asked how they were feeling after the emotion manipulation occurred at the end of each story. Free recall of the
Results of the Study. To check that the emotion manipulation actually elicited the appropriate emotions in the children, their emotional self-reports and coded facial expressions were compared for each emotional condition. A majority of the children showed the appropriate emotion for each condition. Thus, it was concluded that the children’s emotions were effectively manipulated. For free recall, emotion condition did not affect memory abilities; however, 6-year-olds (M = 10.97) did recall more accurate pieces of information about the study than 4-year-olds (M = 8.24). For memory suggestibility, emotion condition did affect memory suggestibility. Children in the sadness and anger conditions responded incorrectly more often to the inaccurate leading questions than the children in the happiness condition. Figure B.6 illustrates these results. In addition, 4-year-olds showed more suggestibility than 6-year-olds.
Conclusions of the Study. Levine et al. (2008) concluded that whereas free-recall abilities are not affected by emotion condition in children, suggestibility due to misleading questions is affected by emotion condition. Negative emotions, such as anger and sadness, lead to more inaccurate responses to false leading questions. In addition, younger children were more likely to be misled by the questions than the older children. Thus, emotional states and type of questioning should be considered when testing the memories of young children.
What type of developmental design was used in this study? Explain your answer ?
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