Verbal ability, self-control, and close relationships with parents protect children against misleading suggestions

Suggestibility to misleading questions about events that occurred in a laboratory playroom visit 9 months earlier was assessed in 70 5-year-old children (54% boys). Six measures of children's suggestibility were coded from videotaped and transcribed interviews: agreement with false suggestions that the research assistant had undressed them, hit them, hurt them, touched them on the bottom, and done bad things, and a overall rating of suggestibility. These measures of suggestibility were related to characteristics of the child and family that had been collected over the course of a longitudinal study beginning when the children were I month of age. Children who had more advanced verbal abilities, adaptive inhibitory control, and close and secure relationships with supportive and psychological healthy parents were better able to resist the interviewer's suggestive questions and persuasive attempts. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.