Memories Are Highly Complex, Overly Malleable, And...

Saipriya Sagiraju Psych 392A-Section 7 Ben Pawlish November 16, 2015 Title Memories are highly complex, overly malleable, and immensely mistaken. Thesis: Children are un trust worthy because of this, this, and this. Main ideas Form childhood, people are raised knowing that lying to cover up their mistakes is unacceptable, and that they should always tell the truth. However, when children start attending school they also start developing white lies due to â€Å"anti- and pro social purposes.† This tendency to say white lies positively correlates with the age of the individual. Most people use the society they are surrounded by as a reason behind their white lies. People will be constantly fighting if it were not for white lies, which is†¦show more content†¦The only form of evidence is the child words. â€Å"Child sexual abuse can take place within the family, by a parent, step-parent, sibling or other relative†¦. When sexual abuse has occurred, a child can develop many distressing feelings, thoughts and behaviors†(Citation). Child sexual abuse is a traumatic event that a child will most likely reme mber for the rest of their life. Additionally, this autobiographical memory in children, Peterson and her colleagues conducted a study on 2-13year old children who had to be rushed to the emergency room due to a major injury. The children were interviewed after â€Å"6-months, one year or two years† immediately after the surgery. At 6-months children remembered 75 percent of the information correctly. At one year children remembered 57 percent of the information correctly. Therefore, even after a long gap between the injury and the interview children still recalled the traumatic event, so when a child tells his parent that his teacher sexually abused him then it an information that should be trusted. The beliefs that children are unable invent stories about sexual abuse led to the imprisonment of many innocent people. This outbreak of sexual abuse cases started of in the early 80s, where children claimed that their teacher, parent, doctor, or baby sitter sexually abused them. When a person is sexually abused one expects to see physical signs of â€Å"sexual penetration† that provide solid evidence to