Children participation to negative and positive events and resistance to suggestibility

Research studies on suggestibility have shown both how the ability of children to resist suggestive questions increases when they are the protagonists and not the mere observers of the event. Our research is part of this line of studies; it has the objective of analyzing whether resistance to suggestibility is favoured either by participation in the event or by the emotive connotation of the event. The research protocol was realized in three phases. In the first phase, the participants experienced three different events (neutral; negative-participated and positive-participated) in which they were involved as protagonists. After one week and after one month, the children were first asked to perform a free re-evocation and later interrogated on the three events by 27 questions (non-suggestive, misleading and tag). The participants at first and second phases were 124 children of between 7 and 10 years (average age = 8.56), of whom 58 were girls and 66 boys. At thirth phase participated 71 children. The results show significant differences in resistance to misleading and tag questions, which is connected to the type of event. In particular, after one week and one month, the questions on the negative-participated event received the greatest number of correct answers and the lowest number of incorrect answers, in connection with both misleading and tag questions.