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Hindi Research Article
Adult Judgments of Children's Veracity: The Role of Parenthood and Interpersonal Sensitivity
Tony Cassidy*School of Psychology, University of Ulster, Coleraine, N Ireland, United Kingdom
- *Corresponding Author:
- Tony Cassidy
Department of Psychology
School of Psychology, University of Ulster
Coleraine, N Ireland, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 28 70123025
E-mail: t.cassidy@ulster.ac.uk
Received Date: November 28, 2014, Accepted January 19, 2015, Published Date: January 23, 2015
Citation: Cassidy T (2015) Adult Judgments of Children's Veracity: The Role of Parenthood and Interpersonal Sensitivity . J Child Adolesc Behav 3:178. doi:10.4172/2375-4494.1000178
Copyright: © 2015 Tony Cassidy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Abstract Background: Previous research has shown that parents perform better than non-parents in correctly identifying deception in children’s testimony. Objectives: To test the efficacy of different professionals in determining if a child is being truthful controlling for parental status. Methodology: In an experimental study 4 groups of participants, police officers (n=45), teachers (n=42), social workers (n=44), and early childhood studies students (n=47), judged the accuracy of children’s testimony in video recordings of 5 different children. Results: Parents, particularly female parents, performed consistently at better than chance levels in correctly classifying children. Ethnicity had a negligible impact on performance. In addition those who performed best scored significantly higher on interpersonal sensitivity, and within parents those who correctly classified children scored higher on family sensitivity. Conclusions: There appears to be something about the skills acquired as a parent in interacting with children that might usefully inform the training of those who have to make judgements about children’s veracity.
