Confirmation bias in simulated CSA interviews: How abuse assumption influences interviewing and decision‐making processes?

Abstract

Purpose: Research has shown that confirmation bias plays a role in legal and forensic decision-making processes and, more specifically, child interviews. However, previous stud-ies often examine confirmation bias in child interviews using non-abuse-related events. We enrich the literature by examining interviewers’ behaviours in simulated child sex-ual abuse (CSA) cases.Method: In the present study, we used data from a series of experiments in which participants interviewed child avatars to examine how an assumption of abuse based on prelimi-nary information influenced decision-making and inter-viewing style. Interview training data (Ninterview = 2084) from eight studies with students, psychologists and police officers (N = 377) were included in the analyses.