The effect of multiple childhood sexual assaults on mock-jurors' perceptions of repressed memories
✍ Scribed by Jonathan M. Golding; Sandra A. Sego; Rebecca Polley Sanchez
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 120 KB
- Volume
- 17
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0735-3936
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The eect of multiple childhood sexual assaults on the believability of a repressed memory of the assault was assessed using mock jurors. Participants read a ®ctional civil trial summary about a child sexual assault case presented in one of three reporting conditions: (a) immediate conditionÐthe alleged victim testi®ed immediately after the assault(s); (b) repressed con-ditionÐthe alleged victim reported the assault(s) 20 years later, after remembering it/them for the ®rst time; or (c) no-repressed conditionÐthe alleged victim reported the assault(s) 20 years later, but the memory of the assault(s) had been present for those years. The number of assaults was either one or 30. The results showed that for all reporting conditions 30 alleged assaults led to relatively more decisions for the plainti than the defendant, and greater believability of the plainti. The increases in decisions rendered and believability were also generally true for the immediate condition compared to when there was a delay in reporting. The results are discussed in terms of mock jurors' perceptions of child sexual assault, both those reported immediately and those reported after many years.