1 University of Cambridge, UK.
2 University of Haifa, Israel.
Child Maltreat. 2019 Aug;24(3):310-318. doi: 10.1177/1077559519831382. Epub 2019 Mar 17.
Children's testimony is often critical to the initiation of legal proceedings in abuse cases. In forensic interviews, the expression of emotions can powerfully enhance both the quality of children's statements and perceptions that their statements are coherent and credible. However, children rarely express their emotions when reporting abusive events. The Revised The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol (RP) was designed to emphasize socioemotional communication during forensic interviews and thus should be associated with more extensive and diverse expressions of emotions by alleged victims of abuse. The present study focused on forensic interviews (178 using the Revised and 100 using the Standard NICHD Protocol) with victims of physical child abuse whose allegations were corroborated using independent evidence. Detailed content coding showed that the RP was associated with the expression of more different emotions, more expression of abuse-related emotions, and more expression of emotions related to the interview context. Emotional expressiveness was associated with increased informativeness, and the association between the type of protocol and informativeness was fully mediated by emotional expressiveness. These results suggest that the Revised Protocol facilitates the expression of emotions by alleged victims of abuse in a way that enhances the value of children's testimony in multiple ways.
儿童证言在虐待案件的法律程序启动中往往至关重要。在法医访谈中，情感表达可以有力地提高儿童陈述的质量，并使他们的陈述被认为是连贯和可信的。然而，儿童在报告虐待事件时很少表达自己的情感。修订后的国家儿童健康与人类发展研究所（NICHD）协议（RP）旨在强调法医访谈中的社会情感交流，因此，与虐待行为的所谓受害者更广泛和更多样化的情感表达应该相关联。本研究重点关注了使用修订版和标准版 NICHD 协议（178 次使用修订版和 100 次使用标准版）进行的法医访谈，这些访谈对象是经独立证据证实的身体虐待儿童的受害者。详细的内容编码显示，RP 与更多不同情感的表达、更多与虐待相关情感的表达以及更多与访谈背景相关情感的表达有关。情感表达与信息量的增加有关，协议类型和信息量之间的关联完全由情感表达来介导。这些结果表明，修订后的协议以增强儿童证言价值的多种方式促进了虐待行为所谓受害者的情感表达。
