Research Information System
Thesis Type: Postgraduate
Institution Of The Thesis: Middle East Technical University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology, Turkey
Approval Date: 2016
Thesis Language: English
Student: ESRA DEMİRKAN
Principal Supervisor (For Co-Supervisor Theses): Başak Şahin Acar
Co-Supervisor: Mine Mısırlısoy
Abstract:In the current study, we aimed to investigate interrogative suggestibility of children for watched vs. interacted events by suggestive questions after the event. Participants were 55 Turkish children (nwatched = 27, ninteracted = 28) and the age range was 48 to 63 months (Mage = 56.78 months, SD = .49). Different than the preceding studies, a tablet computer game was used to present the material in the present study. Children either actively interacted with the tablet game or passively watched the screen-captured recording of that game for two minutes. Post event suggestion was provided by suggestive questions that comprised of leading and affirmative types of questions. The suggestive questions were varied depending on their plausibility in the context of a farming game. Furthermore, a feedback was given to children in order to explore whether they change their initial answers or not. The feedback was created cautiously with the purpose of making the negative feedback milder for preschool children. Results revealed that the main effect of type of suggestibility and feedback was statistically significant. In line with our hypotheses, participants showed higher false recall rates in leading questions than affirmative questions and also showed greater false recall rates after feedback. Moreover, the interactions between the feedback and plausibility; and between the plausibility and the type of suggestibility were statistically significant. Incompatible with our hypotheses, the main effect of plausibility and the main effect of type of experience were not significant. The findings of the study were interpreted in the discussion section.