Coping with Sexual Abuse

General consensus exists in the psychological literature with regard to what constitutes child sexual abuse (CSA) and the negative implications for victims of CSA throughout the course of their lives. Recently, different types of cognitive strategies that victims may use to cope with CSA and the possible effects of these coping strategies on memory have received considerable empirical attention. The first aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the current literature about why, how, and when victims of CSA use the cognitive coping strategies of false denial, disclosure, and recantation to cope with psychological, emotional, and even interpersonal implications of their abuse. Over the years, disclosure is the one strategy that has been researched extensively, whereas research on false denial and recantation has barely just begun. The second aim is to provide a recent overview of the relationship between coping strategies and memory in the context of CSA. Specifically, we will discuss how false denials may have the potential to negatively affect a victim’s memory. Finally, we present an argument for the need to undertake research into insufficiently examined coping strategies such as false denial and recantation

Forgetting having denied: The "amnesic" consequences of denial

The concept of denial has its roots in psychoanalysis. Denial has been assumed to be effective in blocking unwanted memories. In two experiments, we report that denial has unique consequences for remembering. In two experiments, participants viewed a video of a theft and half of the participants had to deny seeing certain details in the video whereas the other half had to tell the truth. One day later, all participants were given a source monitoring recognition or recall task. In these tasks, they were instructed to indicate (1) whether they could remember talking about certain details and (2) whether they could recollect seeing those details in the video. In both experiments, we found that denial made participants forget that they talked about these details while leaving memory for the video unaffected. This denial-induced forgetting was evident for both the source monitoring recognition and recall tests. Furthermore, when we asked participants after the experiment whether they could still not remember talking about these details, participants who had to deny were most likely to report that they forgot this. In contrast to a widely held belief, we show that denial does not impair memory for the experienced stimuli, but that it has a unique ability to undermine memory for what was talked about

Denial-Induced Forgetting: The Memory Impairing Effects of Simulated Amnesia for a Mock Crime

The present study examined whether mock offenders who were instructed to falsely deny crime details or to simulate amnesia consequently experienced denial-induced forgetting (DIF). Ninety-three university students were asked to commit a mock crime and were subsequently randomly assigned to one of three conditions before completing a memory test probing their knowledge of the mock crime. False deniers were asked to deny that they committed the mock crime, the amnesia simulators were instructed to fake having no memory of the mock crime, while truth-tellers served as controls. The following day, all groups completed a second memory test in which they were asked to respond truthfully. Results showed that participants in the false denial condition did not experience memory impairment for the mock event. However, memory for details discussed in the first memory test on the first day was significantly impaired on the second day in the simulated amnesia group thereby evincing DIF. This simulated amnesia group also had lower recollection and belief rates in the occurrence of true details for the mock event in comparison to the other groups.. These findings suggest that offenders can develop inaccurate memories for discussed details, and may end up with both diminished recollections and belief in their own memory after having simulated amnesia for their offences

The effect of coping strategies on memory for traumatic virtual reality (VR) video details

Many factors are capable of thwarting the processes involved in the creation, storage and retrieval of memory. Scientific results on the extent to which these cognitive strategies hinder memory processes in sexual abuse victims are varied depending on the particular strategy of focus (e.g., false denial, truth telling and fabrication). Some researchers have already demonstrated the undermining effects of specific strategies, for example, the effect of false denials on memory (Otgaar, Howe, Smeets, & Wang, 2016). This study will assess how different coping strategies affect participants’ memories for traumatic details from a virtual reality (VR) video

(Update) Swedish Judges’ Perceptions of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Victim Credibility

In Swedish criminal court, assessments of child victim veracity are made by a panel of professional and lay judges (i.e., ordinary citizens). Previous research has shown that both groups may be inclined to rely on subjective evaluations in their assessments of veracity. This can be problematic in CSA cases, as based on the coping mechanism that is used, children’s post crime behaviours do not always match preconceived expectations