A systematic review of the validity of Criteriabased Content Analysis in child sexual abuse cases and other field studies
Date
2024
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Psychology, Crime & Law
Abstract
Criteria-based Content Analysis (CBCA) has been primarily employed to
assess the credibility of child sexual abuse (CSA) allegations. However,
several studies on the validity of CBCA have focused on
autobiographical events other than CSA. Because of the differences
between real cases and the laboratory, we focused specifically on
CBCA field studies on both CSA and other areas of application. We
formally assessed several ground-truth criteria (and other
methodological aspects) in a pool of 36 field studies. Seven archival
studies (six of which were on CSA) and seven quasi-experiments
(none of which was on CSA) were found to be either
methodologically sound (12 studies) or acceptable with reservations
(two studies), and were therefore included. We describe the paradigm
and methods used in each study. Across studies, most CBCA criteria
significantly differed between truthful and deceptive accounts, with
similar medium to large effect sizes for the methodologically sound
quasi-experiments and archival CSA studies. Our review shows that
CBCA criteria may discriminate in domains other than CSA. The
implications for the real-world usage of CBCA are discussed.
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Keywords
Child sexual abuse, credibility assessment, ground truth, field studies, deceptio, CBCA
Citation
Sporer, S. L., & Masip, J. (2024). A systematic review of the validity of Criteria-based Content Analysis in child sexual abuse cases and other field studies. Psychology, Crime & Law, 1-42.