The McMartin case began when one mother accused her ex-husband and the son of the owner of the daycare center of abusing her son (McMartin Timeline, 1998). The accusation apparently frightened other parents, who allowed their children to be interviewed even when the children denied they had been abused. Accusations against fathers motivated research in the 1990s, when young women began to report they had remembered an event for the first time (i. e. , a recovered memory).
Most of the reported memories were of being sexually abused by their fathers, and most of these young women had the “help” of therapists who insisted sexual abuse had occurred and that the memory of it remained, but needed to be recovered (reviewed in Bowers & Farvolden, 1996). While it would be unethical for a researcher to use the techniques that therapists had used to plant false memories of sexual abuse, there have been studies where memories of events that aren’t even possible have been planted, such as remembering the first few days of one’s life (reviewed in Loftus, 1997).
The readiness of people to believe accusations is not limited to sexual abuse. It is part of a tradition, at least in America, of a predilection for believing the worst, as when in the late 17th century, innocent women died because the good people of Salem believed the women were witches and when in the 1950s we saw communists under our beds, in our universities, and in the movie industry (Johnson, 2005).
The good news is that developments in forensic DNA testing has resulted in overturning the wrongful convictions of more than 180 prisoners, including more than 135 (more than 75%) who had been convicted on the basis of eyewitness identification (Wells, Memon, & Penrod, 2006). However, although DNA evidence has made it easier to convict the guilty and harder to convict the innocent, there is a potential problem. We leave DNA all over our homes – in our hairbrushes, on drinking glasses, in sweaty t-shirts, indeed on our sheets.
Planting evidence hardly is a new phenomenon, but clearly it is now easier to do. As discussed above, it isn’t difficult to use suggestion so that someone remembers an event that never occurred. It also is true that in many divorce and custody cases, parents have reported that their children had accused their other parents of sexual abuse and it has been difficult for the courts to separate true and false accusations (e. g. , Goldstein & Tyler, 1998; Schuman, 1986).
Although more men than women have been accused (Bowers & Farvolden, 1996), we don’t know whether more men than women have been guilty or whether more women than men have made false accusations. Clearly, there have been both true and false accusations. One partner might want a divorce because he or she believes the other partner has abused their child or children. On the other hand, those who are divorcing often have strong negative emotions towards each other or may be motivated by obtaining a more favorable custody decision when a partner has been accused of abuse (Goldstein & Tyler, 1998).
DNA evidence in divorce or custody cases could result in protecting children from sexually abusive parents – but if the DNA had been planted, children, especially if they eventually realize they had not been abused (as has happened to women who had reported “recovered” memories, Loftus, 2002), could be harmed and the lives of innocent parents could be destroyed. The purpose of the current research was to assess beliefs about a parent’s guilt when there is no DNA evidence, DNA evidence alone, or DNA evidence with knowledge it could have been planted (DNA condition).
Because more men than women have been accused of abuse, as reported above, the gender of the accused also was varied. Following convention (i. e. , previous research), gender of participant also was a factor. After participants read a scenario that corresponded with their experimental condition, they indicated the extent to which they believed in the parent’s guilt, based on a 5-point scale (Appendix A).
Thus a 2 x 2 x 3 (participant’s gender x gender of accused x DNA condition) between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) design was used, where the dependent variable was the 5-point rating scale. The most important hypothesis was that there would be a main effect of DNA condition. Based on the importance placed on DNA evidence, those receiving the scenario with DNA evidence and no information about the possibility that the evidence could have been planted were hypothesized to believe more strongly in the parent’s guilt than those in the other two DNA conditions.