Can children learn to resist repeated leading questions and social pressures?

In forensic context children who are victims or witnesses of crime are often heard multiple times and often using leading questions, social pressing and stressful. The main aim of the present study is verify the effects of repeated suggestive interviews on level of suggestibility and resistant behavioural responses (RBR; Gudjonsson et al. 2021). The study involved 110 children aged 10-15 years who were administered the GSS2 and 6 months later GSS1 (Gudjonsson, 1997). Older children showed a significant reduction in the levels of yielding in the second administration, while the levels of shift related to negative criticism remained unchanged. Age and IQ may reduce in older children the effect of leading questions and improve RBR. The results showed that younger children maintain a stable suggestive vulnerability and constant use of the same strategies to cope with cognitive and social risk factors of interrogative suggestibility, while older children could reduce their levels of yield and use more resistant responses that defer to greater source monitoring and less adherence to external expectations. Children when exposed to repeated suggestive interviews may learn to cope the more cognitive aspects of misleading questions while being less able to handle social-emotional pressures.