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Malloy The Conductor Of The Experiment Essay

Decent Essays

In this experimental investigation, Malloy (2016) the conductor of the experiment, wants to test children’s recantation of adult wrongdoing. Specifically, how often children recant the truth about adult wrongdoings after disclosing and whether children’s age and caregivers supportiveness predict recantation. This study involves two pairs of age group, 6 and 7 year olds vs. 8 and 9 year olds, and two type of caregiver supportiveness: supportive vs. unsupportive. The children participated in an interactive “health and safety” event that had 3 puppets in the “Do Not Touch” box. The experimenter told the children that they’re not suppose to touch the puppets, but if they were very careful it should be ok. The toy puppet broke in the experimenter's’ hand and claimed that they shouldn’t have played with …show more content…

You did a great job telling the truth about what happened! So, if anyone asks you again, you should keep telling the truth about the lady breaking the puppet." Or unsupportive mothers who said, “I heard you told that the lady broke the puppet. The lady will probably get into big trouble for that! So, if anyone asks you again, I think you should try to fix it and say that she didn’t break the puppet”. Interviewer 2 asked the same questions (focusing on the transgression) as interviewer 1. The researchers have found that about 23.3% of the 73 children recanted their prior disclosure during interview 2. None of the children who had the caregiver supportiveness recanted their disclosure, whereas 46% of the children with unsupportive caregivers recanted. There was no age differences in the recantation, but it was revealed that 21% of the children in the 6 and 7 year old age group recanted and 26% of the 8 and 9 year olds recanted as well, thus making the 8-9 year olds more likely to maintain their recantation throughout interview

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