Moral Suggestibility: The Complex Interaction of Developmental, Cultural and Contextual Factors

SUMMARY In Study 1, 193 children, half in New York City and half in Recife, Brazil, heard hypothetical dilemmas about whether to keep a promise or tell the truth. An adult interviewer suggested the alternative to the child’s initial choice. Younger children (5 to 8 year olds) were more suggestible than older children (10 to 12 year olds), US more than Brazilian children; and suggestibility occurred more frequently from promise to truth than vice versa. In Study 2, children in each country were interviewed either by an older adult or by a ‘teenager’. Suggestibility was greater when the interviewer was an adult than a teenager in the US, but not in Brazil. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental trajectories, from heteronomy to autonomy, and authority relations within cultures. Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. The study of suggestibility has a long history, but it was not until the early part of the last century that the scientific study of suggestibility came into prominence with persistent and intermittently successful searches for developmental and individual regularities (e.g. Stern, 1910; Whipple, 1912). The original and subsequent research found that under some conditions, developmental and individual regularities exist, with younger children reported to be more suggestible than older children, and some individuals more susceptible to suggestions than others. In recent years, interest has been renewed because of controversies surrounding children’s eyewitness testimony and, as such, there have been many studies of child memory and suggestibility (reviewed by Ceci & Bruck, 1995). While controversies remain, many of these studies report that younger children, especially those 4 years old and under, are generally more suggestible than older children. As Ceci and Bruck (1995) have noted, this developmental trend is probably due to differences in social acquiescence as well as in memory capacity. However, exceptions to this generalization have been reported (e.g. Goodman & Clarke-Stewart, 1991). Also,