Rapport: Little effect on children’s, adolescents’, and adults’ statement quantity, accuracy, and suggestibility

Rapport building is widely recommended in eyewitness interview situations and is a critical component in some interview protocols. However, empirical evidence on the effectiveness of rapport building on memory performance is scant. The current experiment examined the effects of different levels of rapport (none, minimal, extensive) on children’s, adolescents’, and adults’ memory (N = 229). Participants viewed a video of a mock theft and received one of three possible rapport manipulations. They then provided a free narrative of what they had seen, followed by 18 cued (suggestive and nonsuggestive) questions. In general, we found limited evidence of positive effects of rapport building on statement quantity and accuracy across age groups. Adolescents did profit more from extensive rapport building compared to no rapport. In line with the idea of a linear development of memory measures with age, adolescents generally fell in-between the other two age groups across different memory measures. The current study encourages systematic experimental research on the effect of rapport building on eyewitness memory.

融洽关系建立（rapport building）在目击者访谈场景中被广泛推荐，且是部分访谈范式的核心组成部分。然而，有关融洽关系建立对记忆表现有效性的实证证据却十分匮乏。本实验考察了不同程度的融洽关系建立（无、轻度、全面）对儿童、青少年及成人记忆表现的影响（有效样本量N=229）。参与者观看了一段模拟盗窃的视频，并接受三种融洽关系干预方案中的一种。随后，他们先对所见内容进行自由叙述，之后完成18道提示性问题（涵盖暗示性与非暗示性两类）。总体而言，我们发现，在各年龄组中，融洽关系建立对陈述信息量与准确性的积极影响的实证证据较为有限。与未进行融洽关系建立的组别相比，青少年从全面融洽关系建立中获益更多。契合记忆指标随年龄呈线性发展的理论观点，青少年在各类记忆指标上的表现普遍介于另外两个年龄组之间。本研究呼吁开展更多有关融洽关系建立对目击者记忆影响的系统性实验研究。