Evidence from Developmental Psychology
From the Journal Developmental Psychology
What follows is a brief look at just one of many reliable peer-reviewed journals. Even within this one journal there is plenty of evidence to shed doubt on Janov’s primal theory of child development. I will take two articles and discuss them briefly, and I will list still more for you to investigate yourself.
In Brainerd and Reyna’s 1996 study “Mere Memory Testing Creates False Memories in Children” published in Developmental Psychology it was found that in cued memory tests with 5 and 8 year olds, that false memory recall occurred in response to cues (recognition aids to memory) that were not actually part of the original list. The false memory recall, as you would expect, went down if there was repetition in the initial learning. The results of one experiment (experiment 1) showed more false memory recall in the younger children (5 year olds). The main contribution of this article seems to be that with prompted cues to memory type tests (recognition tests) it seems that false memory increases with each subsequent test. This may be due to the false cues in the testing confusing the memory recall of the original experience. This study shows the importance of not planting suggestive aids-to-memory (recognition cues to memory that could possibly be false) when testing memory – which has implications in the legal system and in therapies that deal with memory recall of childhood events.
In Robinson, Riggs and Samuel’s 1996 study “Children’s Memory for Drawings Based on a False Belief” preschool children observed someone make a false drawing of the contents of a box, and then they saw the actual contents of the box. In recalling the actual contents of the box, the children were more accurate at recalling the false drawings than the actual contents of the box. The results contradict the idea that if children would recall the physically real over the false suggestion (in this case the false drawing). This study again highlights the importance of not using suggestive cues to recall in order to obtain more accurate recall of memory.
Below includes even more articles I don’t have time to discuss here, but please check them out. Email me if you do not have access to these articles.
REFERENCES
Ackil, J., & Zaragoza, M. (1998, November). Memorial consequences of forced confabulation: Age differences in susceptibility to false memories. Developmental Psychology, 34(6), 1358-1372. Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0012-1649.34.6.1358
Anastasi, J., & Rhodes, M. (2008, May). Examining differences in the levels of false memories in children and adults using child-normed lists. Developmental Psychology, 44(3), 889-894. Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0012-1649.44.3.889
Brainerd, C., & Reyna, V. (2002, January). Recollection rejection: How children edit their false memories. Developmental Psychology, 38(1), 156-172. Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0012-1649.38.1.156
Brainerd, C., & Reyna, V. (1996, May). Mere memory testing creates false memories in children. Developmental Psychology, 32(3), 467-478. Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0012-1649.32.3.467
Ghetti, S., Qin, J., & Goodman, G. (2002, September). False memories in children and adults: Age, distinctiveness, and subjective experience. Developmental Psychology, 38(5), 705-718. Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0012-1649.38.5.705
Quas, J., Malloy, L., Melinder, A., Goodman, G., D’Mello, M., & Schaaf, J. (2007, July). Developmental differences in the effects of repeated interviews and interviewer bias on young children’s event memory and false reports. Developmental Psychology, 43(4), 823-837. Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0012-1649.43.4.823
Metzger, R., Warren, A., Shelton, J., Price, J., Reed, A., & Williams, D. (2008, January). Do children ‘DRM’ like adults? False memory production in children. Developmental Psychology, 44(1), 169-181. Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0012-1649.44.1.169
Robinson, E., Riggs, K., & Samuel, J. (1996, November). Children’s memory for drawings based on a false belief. Developmental Psychology, 32(6), 1056-1064. Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0012-1649.32.6.1056
Ruffman, T., Perner, J., Naito, M., Parkin, L., & Clements, W. (1998, January). Older (but not younger) siblings facilitate false belief understanding. Developmental Psychology, 34(1), 161-174. Retrieved December 11, 2008, doi:10.1037/0012-1649.34.1.161
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Also see the reliable textbook The Developing Person, Berger (2003) and / or the much recommended The Development of Children by Cole, Cole and Lightfoot (2005). There are so many subtle and small bits of evidence I picked up in my child development course, and then in a developmental psychology course, that each seemed to contradicted primal theory. To try to communicate all those bits of evidence is to risk someone saying “well that doesn’t disprove primal” or “why is that relevant?” to each part of the puzzle I present. As a whole though, I got the impression that primal theory may be seriously wrong.
To take just one example, according to primal theory you would predict that the kids that are given the most freedom of expression and movement will be the most psychologically healthy in adulthood. I still hold on to the idea that may be true to a degree, but the evidence from parenting styles apparently point to an authoritative style (teaching and guiding style) as being best, authoritarian (strict, inflexible) as being not good, and permissive as being the worse. Be aware that these studies exist. According to primal theory, wouldn’t permissive parenting be the best? Why does it not turn out to be that way? What is primal theory neglecting, and where may it be just flatly wrong. Don’t believe me though; check out the evidence independently in the field of developmental psychology.
