Essay: Abuse and False Accusations

In the early 90’s an epidemic arose of adults who claimed to be sexually abused in their childhood by their parents (McHugh, Lief, Freyd, & Fetkewicz, 2004; Saraga & MacLeod, 1997). Most of the sexual abuse was alleged to have started under the age of two (Wakefield & Underwager, 1992), though scientifically proven it is impossible to have memories of sexual abuse before the age of three due to the complexity of such traumatic events (Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008). The adults who accused their parents were not coming of problem families, but rather from relatively functional families (De Rivera, 1997). Most of the siblings of the accusers did not believe the sexual abuse accusations were to be true (Wakefield & Underwager, 1992). Essay: Abuse and False Accusations.
Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse can be described in various ways (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004). It is described by The United States Department of Justice (2015) on their website as: “coercing or attempting to coerce any sexual contact or behaviour without consent.” The prosecutor of The Netherlands talks about sexual abuse when a sexual acts involves the abuse of power or the abuse of age differences (Openbaar Ministerie, n.d.). A more comprehensive definition will be used in this thesis, which is described by the American Psychological Association (APA) (2016) on their website as: “unwanted sexual activity, with perpetrators using force, making threats or taking advantage of victims not able to give consent.” There is no question, being sexually abused has a devastating impact on the psychological, emotional, and psychical aspects on the lives of the victims (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network [RAINN], n.d.). It does not only create fear and anxiety, but has some severe long term consequences (APA, 2016). These could be: substance abuse, self-destructive behaviour, and an increased risk for creating mental problems as depression or the development of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (APA, 2016; Browne & Finkelhor, 1986; Mullen, Martin, Anderson, Romans, & Herbison, 1993). Accusations of sexual abuse have two sides. The consequences of accusing someone of sexual abuse, not only could have devastating effects on the reputation of the person being accused, but in the same way brings psychological and emotional damage with it (Contactgroep Onterechte Beschuldigingen, 2001; Contactgroep Onterechte Beschuldigingen, 2005). Sexual abuse accusations could have a massive, if not catastrophic, impact on the lives of the accuser, the accused, and their families (Kaplan & Manicavasager, 2001; McHugh et al., 2004). Essay: Abuse and False Accusations. People quickly think ‘where there is smoke, there is fire’, so if someone claims to be sexual abused as a child, society thinks there must be some truth to it (Contactgroep Onterechte Beschuldigingen, n.d.). The sexual abuse accusations in the epidemic in the early 90’s show that this is not always the case. Although the sexual abuse was described in much detail, the large majority of the accusations later turned out to be false (McHugh et al., 2004). The fact that more than two decades later there are still cases whereby people get falsely accused and convicted of sexual abuse, indicate that it is rather difficult to make the distinction between true or false statements of sexual abuse (American College of Forensic Examiners, 2010; Friedman, 1997). When a sexual abuse case is brought to court, the accused will be looked upon with suspicion, which makes it harder to stay professional for the individuals who need to determine if the statement of sexual abuse is correct (Raitt & Zeedyk, 2003). Even therapists find it hard to believe that something like being sexually abused could have been made up by their patient (Lief & Fetkewicz, 1997).

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False Accusations The difficulty to distinguish true from false accusations of sexual abuse is also shown in scientific research. Over the years, different studies tried to establish the prevalence of false allegations of rape. These prevalence’s differ from roughly 2% (Brownmiller, 1975; Katz & Mazur, 1979; Norton & Grant, 2008) to 40% (Rassin & Van Der Sleen, 2005) or 41% (Kanin, 1994). Some researchers even accept figures as high as 90% (Stewart, 1981) or 100% (Kanin 1985, in Kanin, 1994). A possible dark number and different methodological errors, like vague terminology and coding criteria, could prevent these studies to provide a real estimate of the prevalence of false allegations of rape (Rumney, 2006; Saunders, 2012). The importance of a definition of what can be viewed as a false accusation or allegation could be one of the explanations of the variety in percentage (Rumney, 2006). Stein (1994) states that: “[t]he term false refers to the whole range of specious allegations, from the consciously fabricated to the delusion” (p. 2). Hedges (2002) states: “an allegation is considered false when it is not possible to establish a direct and clear causal link between actions (or inactions) of the accused and damage sustained by the accusers” (p. 494). Furthermore, police in some countries will classify an allegation of rape false, if for example the complainant lied about how the victim met the rapist, even though the person reports a genuine incident of non-consensual sex (Rumney, 2006; De Zutter, Horselenberg, & Van Koppen, 2016b). Wall and Tarczon (2013) defined false accusations as a false complaint whereby the alleged victim has given intentionally or unintentionally an inaccurate version of the event. Essay: Abuse and False Accusations. False accusations of sexual abuse could be the result of wrongly interpreting the behaviour of the ‘abuser’, indicating the accusation is unintentional (Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008; Wall & Tarczon, 2013). Intimate nursing acts performed on children, mentally disabled or elderly individuals could be interpreted as criminal acts when taken out of context (Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008). Also, parents could be interpreting signals from their child in the wrong way, reasoning he or she suddenly wets the bed again or makes sexual comments could be the result of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) (Gardner, 2001; Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008). Furthermore, a disturbed mental state as the result of a sexual hallucination could be the cause of unintentional false accusations (Balasubramaniam & Park, 2003). This way the accuser thinks she is sexually abused, while in reality this was a hallucination (De Zutter et al., 2016a).
False Memories As mentioned above, false accusations could be the result of delusion or hallucination (Balasubramaniam & Park, 2003; Stein, 1994; De Zutter et al., 2016a). Accusations of sexual abuse could be false, simply because they are based on fantasy and therefore did not occur (Wall & Tarczon, 2013). Knowing the damage sexual abuse could have to a person is enormous, saying that these memories of sexual abuse are false could have the same damaging effects (Raitt & Zeedyk, 2003). Why would someone believe memories of such a traumatic childhood event, when it did not even happen? Although seeming unlikely, this was exactly the case in the early 90’s epidemic, in which the false accusations were in most cases the result of false memories of this traumatic life event (Wakefield & Underwager, 1992). This is shown by the majority of adults who first believed they were sexually abused and later believed these memories were false (McHugh et al., 2004; Mollon, 1996). The accusations these alleged abused adults made, were stated to be based ‘repressed’ and ‘recovered’ memories (Raitt & Zeedyk, 2003). This idea was at the time of the epidemic described by Loftus (1993), who stated that repression of traumatic memories occurred when: “[s]omething shocking happens, and the mind pushes it into some inaccessible corner of the unconscious. Later, the memory may emerge into consciousness” (p. 518). Repression can therefore act as a severe protection mechanism (Holdsworth, 1998). Although it is possible to repress a traumatic childhood event and later recall it, it implies that the memories were accurate and actually happened (Coons, 1997; Raitt & Zeedyk, 2003). But given this was not the case in the epidemic of the early 90’s the term false memory is more fitting – than the term recovered memory – and should therefore be used instead (False Memory Syndrome Foundation [FMSF], 2013; Coons, 1997; Raitt & Zeedyk, 2003). Raitt and Zeedyk (2003) stated that: “the term ‘false memory’ implies that the memories are fabricated, either partially or entirely” (p. 4). Even so, Newman and Lindsay (2009) described false memory as: “a wide variety of memory errors ranging from misremembered word lists to erroneous reports of details in stories to false memories of dramatic life events” (p.2). The Health Council of the Netherlands (2004) adds that these false memories are autobiographical, and are seen as authentic by the individual. As it turns out having false memories of an event is not something rare, most of the childhood memories people have are in fact doubtful (McHugh et al., 2004; Newman & Lindsay, 2009; Pope, 1996). In some cases, it might not be certain whether or not a childhood event really happened in the way it was remembered by an individual, or if it has been completely made up (Newman & Lindsay, 2009; Pope, 1996). Retractions – the process in which individuals state their recovered memories are false – has shown that it is even possible for individuals to develop false memories of CSA (Loftus, 1993; Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008). Essay: Abuse and False Accusations.
Early Mechanisms
It is striking that most adults, (86% in McHugh et al., 2004), were in therapy at the time of the accusations (McHugh et al., 2004; Wakefield & Underwager, 1992). The majority of the adults entered therapy for eating disorders, sexual inhibition or depression (De Rivera, 1997). These psychological problems could in some cases be associated with being sexually abused as a child (De Rivera, 1997), while these memories could sometimes be repressed (Kaplan & Manicavasagar, 2001). In time of the epidemic, CSA had become more and more recognized, and incest even had become a ‘cultural obsession’ (Saraga & MacLeod, 1997). The larger number of the therapists therefore believed those psychological problems were the result of repressed memories of CSA, despite the fact that the psychological problems could have many other causes (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004; Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008; Wakefield & Underwager, 1992). These assumptions made the therapists biased towards sexual abuse as a cause, and made them lose their neutral stance (Coons, 1997; Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008; Wakefield & Underwager, 1992). This phenomenon can be explained by the confirmation bias: “[p]eople in general, therapists included, have a tendency to search for evidence that confirms their hunches rather than search for evidence that disconfirms” (Loftus, 1993, p. 530).Essay: Abuse and False Accusations.  The patients on the other hand, were entering the therapy without memories of sexual abuse, but wanted to understand the cause of their psychological problems (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004; Loftus, 1993; McHugh et al., 2004; Perry & Gold, 1995). This made them vulnerable to the suggestion of the therapist (Leavitt, 1997; McHugh et al., 2004; Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008; Perry & Gold, 1995). The False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) (as cited in Pope, 1996, p. 12) stated “that certain psychotherapeutic techniques, theories and practices have led many people to falsely believe they were sexually abused as children.” These techniques are also referred to as ‘recovered memory therapy’ (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004; Stocks, 1998). In this form of therapy, suggestive questioning is used in order for the memories to be ‘retrieved’ (Loftus, 1993; Nierop & van Den Eshof, 2008). Hence, all techniques stimulate the retrieval of memories, also stimulate the ‘errors’ that are inherent therein (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004, p. 74). Using suggestions therefore makes it difficult to distinguish true from false memories of abuse (Loftus, 1993). It results in being unable to determine if the individual ‘remembered’ these acts of CSA herself, or if they were implanted by suggestion of the therapist (Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008). This is also referred to as source monitoring, in which suggestion makes it unclear from which source (their own experiences or the ideas of the therapies) the memories came from (Thayer & Lynn, 2008). Inadequate source monitoring and the inability to separate fact from fantasy makes the recovered memory therapies enlarge the likelihood of creating false memories (Thayer & Lynn, 2008).
Hypnosis. One of the techniques used by the therapists when CSA was expected was hypnosis (Goldstein, 1997; Feigon & De Rivera, 1998; Porter & Lane, 1996; Stocks, 1998; Wakefield & Underwager, 1992). Frederickson (1992) stated: “[h]ypnosis is a structured process of relaxation designed to produce a state of dissociation. This induced state of dissociation facilitates your ability to get in touch with unconscious parts of yourself, such as feelings, awareness, or memories” (p.149). Hypnosis provides a recollection of fact and fantasy, and will be contagious for the beliefs the therapist held (Perry & Gold, 1995). “[It] has a strong capacity for producing false memories or memories that are distorted by therapist suggestion (Kaplan & Manicavasagar, 2001, p. 347), especially when sensitive to this technique (Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008). Essay: Abuse and False Accusations.
Age regression. Age regression exercises was often used in combination with hypnosis (Fredrickson, 1992; Goldstein, 1997). After the patients was brought in a hypnotic state, the therapist would guide the patient into a phase in their childhood were the abuse was suspected to have happened (Fredrickson, 1992). At this point, the patient believed he or she was a child again, and would therefore act like one (Orne, 1951). The patient was then asked to talk about how he or she felt at that point in their life (Fredrickson, 1992). Most of the time, a memory fragment – not knowing if this memory fragment was real or not – was used as a starting point in therapy (Fredrickson, 1992). Guiding techniques. Guided visualization and imagery techniques were also used to ‘retrieve’ the CSA memories (Goldstein, 1997; Kaplan & Manicavasagar, 2001; Porter & Lane, 1996; Sherman, 1996; Stocks, 1998). Guided imagery is “a form of psychodrama in which the client achieves a relaxed state and then pictures scenarios suggested by the therapist” (Stocks, 1998, p. 428). Therapists guided their patients “to expand on or explore images that have broken through the conscious mind, allowing related images of the abuse to surface” (as cited by Fredrickson, 1992, in Loftus, 1993, p. 527).
Dream interpretation. Another technique that was used is dream interpretation (Loftus, 1993; Porter & Lane, 1996; Stocks, 1998; Wakefield & Underwager, 1992). With dream interpretation the patients were not encouraged to tell a story (Loftus, 1993). However, when discussing CSA with the therapist, the patient could have dreams, or even have nightmares about CSA as the result of this conversation (Loftus, 1993). Different parts or clues in the dreams were interpreted by the therapist as unconscious or ‘repressed’ memories of CSA and were used as a starting point for therapy (Fredrickson, 1992).
Journaling. Furthermore, journaling was used to recover memories of CSA (Goldstein, 1997; Stocks, 1998). With journaling the patients’ starting point was a central feeling, idea (Stocks, 1998) or sometimes “the felt sense than an abusive memory is trying to surface” (Fredrickson, 1992, p. 141). They were asked to write down the sensations, feelings, and thoughts that arose from their central feeling (Stocks, 1998). If the patient did not know what happened to them, they were encouraged to write down what they did remember, and attempt in “nonevaluative stream-of-consciousness writing” (Stocks, 1998, p. 428). Essay: Abuse and False Accusations. Other mechanisms. Additionally, some therapists even used drugs which resulted in hallucinations, while there was already existing evidence this could result in fantasy stories (Goldstein, 1997; Kaplan & Manicavasagar, 2001). If these mentioned techniques did not help ‘recover’ the memories, patients were often send to support, e.g., incest survivor groups, where in some cases peer pressure helped them ‘remember’ (Goldstein, 1997; Loftus, 1993; Stocks, 1998; Wakefield & Underwager, 1992).
Research Question The mentioned therapeutic recovered memory techniques could be an explanation of how false memories are created and how this way patients could be influenced by their therapist (Goldstein, 1997; Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004; Pope, 1996; Porter & Lane, 1996; Saraga & MacLeod, 1997). However, this happened in a time when more than half of the therapists believed that retrieved memories were essentially true, and therefore used e.g., hypnoses and dream interpretation in the ‘recovery’ of memories (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004). Knowledge of the possible dangers of these techniques when retrieving memories have provided for a change in the therapeutic climate, which resulted in these techniques being more carefully used (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004; McHugh et al., 2004). The knowledge that is now known of the dangers in using these techniques could be one of the possible reasons no new epidemic of false accusations has erupted. There will also be a dark number which will affect the numbers of false accusations (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004). According to the Werkgroep Fictieve Herinneringen (Workgroup Fictive Memories ) the numbers of registered alleged victims have decreased in the last couple of years (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004). This was also found by McHugh et al. (2004), who found the accusations declined after 1992. However, there were still cases known up to the year 2000 (McHugh et al., 2004). Between 2003 and 2007 the Landelijke Expertisegroep Bijzondere Zedenzaken (LEBZ) (National Group of Experts on Special Sexual Offences ) has also conducted research on different retrieved memory cases and cases of memories before the age of three (Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008). The LEBZ is a multidisciplinary group of experts which are tasked by the prosecutor to review reports of sexual abuse in order to identify false accusations at an early stage (Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008). The LEBZ will make up a rapport of cases in which the accusations are based on ritual abuse, retrieved memories, and/or memories of abuse before the age of three (Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008). From the 141 cases handled by the LEBZ between 2003 and 2007, 22 cases (15%) regarded retrieved memories, and five cases 0.04%) regarded memories of abuse before the age of three. In most of the cases (69%) the LEBZ investigated, they advised not to prosecute due to serious shortcomings (Nierop & Van Den Eshof, 2008). This indicates that even after the epidemic, there are still cases known were false memories have led to false accusations (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004). This leads to the following research question that will be answered in this thesis: ‘what are – besides usage of the early mechanisms like e.g., hypnosis, dream interpretation or guided imagery – possible personal and external risk factors leading to the creation of false memories?’ This systematic literature study will be used to start closing the gap between the false memories in the early 90’s in which hypnosis and other methods have led to false accusations of CSA, and the latest knowledge in creating false memories. Essay: Abuse and False Accusations. Closing this gap is needed because of the undoing agitation and aversion in society when exposed to cases of CSA (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004). Despite the fact there are still cases know of false accusations as the result of false memories, it is still not clear what the exact percentage of these false accusations are. It is all the more important knowing how to keep this percentage as low as possible by knowing who could be most at risk for developing false memories (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004).
Results
“In even the simplest false memory experiment some people produce false memories and some do not” (Robers, 2002, p. 241). A reason for this could be that individual differences exist regarding the creation of false memories. Demographics, personality and cognitive risk factors, and external risk factors will be discussed.
Demographics Meusel et al. (2012) compared youth (16-23 years old) with middle-aged adults (29-58 years old) and found that youth was more vulnerable for creating false memories. This could be explained due to the development of certain brain networks that continue to develop until approximately the age of 25 (Meusel et al., 2012). This could result in youth and middle-aged adults differ in their response bias. The authors indicated that youth when not certain about a presented item have a greater tendency to falsely recognize that item. Results showed that especially women were more vulnerable for creating false memories than men as the result of negative valence and arousal (Dewhurst et al., 2012). Dewhurst, Anderson, and Knott (2012) found that provided with a negative wordlist, individuals – especially women – became more susceptible of creating false memories, than provided with a neutral wordlist. This could be explained by the fact that women had a less accurate memory for negative emotional information than men (Dewhurst et al., 2012). Additionally, women recalled more negative critical lures than men. The authors stated that women reflected on negative valanced wordlists more than men. It appeared that especially women are more susceptible for negative influences relating to false memory creation (Dewhurst et al., 2012). For example, women experienced a greater affective intensity than men (Dewhurst et al., 2012), this could explain the fact that women rated negative critical lures as more arousing. These results could additionally be explained by the research of Brainerd, Stein, Silveira, Rohenkohl, and Reyna (2008).Essay: Abuse and False Accusations.  They showed that remembering negative wordlists resulted in high levels of false memory. The authors stated that only negative valance had such an effect (Brainerd et al., 2008). Negative valence could reduce the ability to suppress errors, and could result in an increase of familiarity of critical lures, when asked to recognize words. Although it appeared in the study of Brainerd et al. (2008) that negative valance was the main factor in the creating of false memories, they did not look for gender differences. The authors indicated that when controlling for gender, arousal could also play a role in the creating of false memories in women (Brainerd et al., 2008). Therefore, besides negative valence, arousal could also explain the differences between man and women in the creation of false memories.
Peiffer and Trull (2000) found that young women were susceptible to false memories when they had negative affect. This could indicate that those with negative effect had difficulties with concentration, due to not having emotional resources and therefore inaccurate recalled lures (Peiffer & Trull, 2000). However, it could indicate that mood is important in the creation of false memory. Jelinek, Hottenrott, Randjbar, Peters, and Moritz (2008) found a correlation between depression and false memories. Joormann, Teachman, and Gotlib (2009) also found that individuals with a major depressive disorder (MDD) were more likely to falsely recall negative critical lures, than neutral or positive ones. For example, being depressive could make individuals more prone to mood-congruent material, which could explain individuals with MDD to be more susceptible to false memories when negative material was presented (Joormann et al., 2009). Even though Jelinek et al. (2008) found a correlation between depression and false memories, this correlation was not significant when looking at traumatized participants . In spite of these results, they did found that PTSD participants created more false memories than non PTSD participants, except these results were not significant. Though, Zoellner, Foa, Brigidi, and Przeworksi (2000) concluded that traumatized participants created more false memories, especially when critical lures were recalled. Particularly participants with PTSD falsely recalled more critical lures. On the other hand, Zoellner et al. (2000) found when recognizing words, both the traumatized groups with or without PTSD falsely recognized more critical lures. Then again, these results were not significant. Dissociation. Three article examined dissociation or topics related to dissociation (Hyman & Billings, 1998; Porter et al., 2000; Schilling et al., 2013). Results indicate a connection between dissociation and false memories. Dissociation can be described as “[t]he lack of the normal integration of thoughts, feelings, and experiences into the stream of consciousness and memory” (as cited by Bernsthein & Putnam, 1986, in Eisen & Lynn, 2001; p. 50). Hyman and Billings (1998) found scores on the Dissociation Experiences Scale (DES) and false memories creation were related. The DES was used to “measure the frequency of interruptions of the normal integration of consciousness, memory, and identity” (as cited by Bernsthein & Putnam, 1986, in Hyman & Billings, 1998, p. 5). In other words, it was used to measure the “tendency towards dissociation” (Porter et al., 2000, p. 508). However, the experiment by Hyman and Billings was conducted additionally used a technique very close to the imaginary technique used in the early 90’s. This could indicate the correlation between false memories and dissociation could also be the result of suggestive questioning. Though, Porter, Birt, Yuille, and Lehman (2000) also found that individuals who experienced memory distortions scored higher on the DES. This indicated there is possibly a connection between dissociation and the creation of false memories. Related with dissociative experiences are borderline patients (Schilling, Wingenfeld, Spitzer, Nagel, & Moritz, 2013). This would indicate that borderline patients would be more prone to false memories. However, Schilling et al. (2013) did not found this result. Though, this result could be questionable due to a small sample of participants. Toffalini, Mirandola, Drabik, Melinder, and Cornoldi (2013) found that individuals with a depressive-anxious personality trait were more prone to false memories when the presented events were negative. Nevertheless, Roberts (2002) did not found that state anxiety had an effect on the production of false memory. However, this could be the result of the study not being sensitive enough to detect a anxiety state. Essay: Abuse and False Accusations.Furthermore, Toffalini, Mirandola, Coli, and Cornoldi (2014) found that highly anxious young adults created more false memories when presented with negative events. This is supported by research of Cody, Steinman and Teachman (2015), who found that individuals with social anxiety disorder are more susceptible to memory distortions when anticipating social stress. Additionally, those false memories could maintain over time, if continuously exposed to social stress. Roberts (2002) found that individuals who experienced more vivid imagery were more susceptible to false memories if they were stressed. Meaning participants falsely recalled more of studied pictures than those who experienced less vivid imagery. Zoladz et al. (2014) showed the timing of a stressor was crucial for creating false memories. They found that brief stress namely reduces false memories, especially when recalling memories (instead of recognizing). Next to that, Zoladz et al. (2014) found that only in women, stress resulted in recognition and recall of true events. This means that acute stress, if presented for a short period of time, could reduce the susceptibility for creating false memories (Zoladz et al., 2014). Which could also explain why people with social anxiety disorder would continue to maintain having false memories. Ben-Artzi and Raveh (2016) found that having perfectionistic concerns was correlated with false memories, and a higher confidence that these memories were true. “Perfectionistic concerns refers to the tendency to be worried and over-preoccupied with making misstates and with feelings of discrepancy between one’s standards and performance (Ben-Artzi & Raveh, 2016, p. 132).This could be explained as a result of the capacity of the working memory. Due to the fact that worrying consumes the working memory, leaving less working capacity left for other tasks. “The term working memory refers to a brain system that provides temporary storage and manipulation of the information necessary for such complex cognitive tasks as language comprehension, learning, and reasoning” (Baddeley, 1992, p. 556). The role of the working memory was also found to be important in the research of Peter, Jelicic, Verbeek, and Harald (2007). They found that poor simple span working memory was related with susceptibility to false memory. According to Zhu et al. (2010) individuals with low harm avoidance and relatively low cognitive abilities were more likely to create false memories. This could be explained due to having difficulties in separating true from false memories. Due to being less able to clearly remember things as the result of low cognitive abilities, and do not worry about this. This is in line with research from Otgaar, Alberts, and Cuppens (2012). They found that depleted cognitive resources could make individuals susceptible to the creation of false memories., especially when self-control was reduced. “Ego depletion refers to a state of reduced self-control due to engaged acts of self-control” (Otgaar et al., 2012, p. 1674). This could therefore indicate the same false memory creation explanation as the research of Ben-Artzi and Raveh (2016) showed. Intriguingly, results showed that participants remained more accurate for negative word lists than for neutral ones. Indicating that negative material is more resistant to depleted cognitive resources.  Essay: Abuse and False Accusations.
Sanford and Fisk (2009) found that individuals with extravert personalities recalled more critical lures, indicating that extraverts were more susceptible of creating false memories. However, these finding were not supported by other research. Porter et al. (2000) namely showed that lower extraversion scores were related to susceptibility to false memories. They indicated that those who were susceptible in creating false memories were more introvert. This could be explained by the fact that introverts could be less susceptible for creating false memories due to “the heightened arousal and consequent narrowing of attentional focus among introverts may inhibit the proves of spreading activation” (Sanford & Fisk, 2009; p. 975). Differences in results could be explained by the time of the conducted research, as the result of extraverts’ and introverts’ arousal levels peak at different times during the day (Sanford & Fisk, 2009).
External Risks Besides different internal, personal aspects which could make someone susceptible to creating false memories, there are some external risk factors which could make someone susceptible for creating false memories. Cannabis. One article examined heavy cannabis users and found that these individuals were more susceptible in creating false memories (Riba et al., 2015). Chronic cannabis use could lead to structural alterations in different brain areas, e.g., in the hippocampus: “a key area in the memory processing network (Riba et al., 2015, p. 772). These structural changes in the brain could be long lasting, since some areas of the brain continue reducing even after several months of abstinence of cannabis usage (Riba et al., 2015). This could explain the results Riba et al. (2015) found. They namely showed that cannabis users, even when abstinent show an increased susceptibility to false memories than non-users. Using an autobiographical experience (or details) from someone else and telling as if it is someone’s own experience eventually could lead to believing this experience really happened to them. This was proven in research from Brown, Caderao, Fields, and Marsh (2015). When borrowing personal experiences from someone else, individuals are imagining how the event happened, until believing they experienced it themselves (Brown et al., 2015). Knowing that the early mechanisms, like imaginary techniques, could produce false memories, could therefore explain that borrowing personal experiences from someone else would lead to the creation of false memories. Otgaar, Candel, Scoboria, and Merckelbach (2010) showed that children are more susceptible for creating false memory when they had knowledge of an event, than for events of which their knowledge was limited. The authors explained having high knowledge for event as: the fingers of the children being caught in a mousetrap, and explained little script knowledge as: receiving a rectal enema (Otgaar et al., 2010).  Essay: Abuse and False Accusations.The results indicate that children will reject false events when they have low script knowledge, due to this event being extremely memorable than a high script knowledge event (Otgaar et al., 2010). One of the therapeutic techniques that is used in therapy sessions nowadays, is mindfulness. In mindfulness mediation, individuals are encouraged to experience judgement-free thoughts and feelings, with the attention focused on the present moment (Wilson, Mickers, Stolarz-Fantino, Evrard, & Fantino, 2015). Wilson et al. (2015) found that individuals who practiced mindfulness, created more false memories than individuals who did not. This result could be explained due to the resembles with an early mechanism – hypnosis – in which likewise thoughts and feelings are encouraged and this way reality monitoring may be impaired.
Berndt, Diekelmann, Alexander, Pustal, and Kirschbaum (2014) conducted a study with pregnant women (during pregnancy and after childbirth), and found that pregnant women displayed more sleep fragmentation, and had a higher susceptibility to creating false memories than non-pregnant women. One of the explanations that pregnant women created more false memories could be the influences of hormones (e.g., cortisol, progesterone) on the memory (Berndt et al., 2014). However, in their study it is not clear if there is a connection with sleep deprivation and susceptibility to false memories. Though, Frenda, Patihis, Loftus, Lewis, and Fenn (2014) did found that sleep deprivation increased the risk of developing false memories. A possible explanation provided by the authors, could be that sleep deprivation influenced the encoding process of an event, resulting in making memory this way more vulnerable. However, how sleep deprivation affects false memories will also depend on how the experiment was conducted (Frenda et a., 2014).
As an outcome of the early 90’s epidemic, the focus of the creation of false memories was mainly in the therapeutic sphere. In the current thesis, a systematic literature review was conducted, to bring the individual and external risk factors at light in who is most susceptible in creating false memories.

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Looking at demographics, results in the current thesis showed that young adults were more susceptible in creating false memories than middle aged adults. This difference could be explained due to ongoing brain development of young adults (Meusel et al., 2012). However, another study showed when looking only at middle-aged adults and older, false memory does appear to increase with age (Dennis, Bowman, & Peterson, 2014). Essay: Abuse and False Accusations. Furthermore, Dennis, Kim, and Cabeza (2008) showed that older adults (with a mean age of 68) also showed more false memories, due to e.g., decrease in hippocampus activity. Close to those results, results in this thesis showed that the usage of cannabis also changes brain networks, as for instance the hippocampus. Even when abstinent, heavy cannabis use can result in the creation of false memories. It is shown that there are different memory systems, each for different forms of memory (e.g., autobiographical memory) (Burianova, McIntosch, & Grady, 2010). These studies combined could indicate individuals are more susceptible for the creation of false memories when important brain networks change.
Other demographic results in this thesis showed that compared to men, especially women had more negative valence and had more arousal, which could possibly explain the fact that women were more susceptible to create false memories. Furthermore, in the current thesis it was shown that young women were more susceptible for creating false memories when they had negative affect, indicating an importance of mood. The importance of mood was also showing due to the fact that individuals with depression, anxiety, or perfectionistic concerns, were more susceptible for creating false memories, especially when presented with negative material. Being depressed (or anxious), could be the result of negative material being kept in the working memory, with the possibility to rehearse the negative material (Joorman, 2010). This way, when presented with a negative critical lure it looks familiar to the depressed/anxious individual, and will falsely recall it as if they had seen it before (Joorman et al., 2009). Also with perfectionistic concerns, the working memory is too occupied with worrying, and leaving less capacity to remember correctly. Research of Ganley and Vasilyeya (2008) also showed the importance of occupying the working memory with worrying. They found that women with greater anxiety during a math test, asked too much of their working memory, resulting in poor performance on the test. This is in line with the results found in the study of Peter et al. (2007) that poor simple span working memory was related to being susceptible in the creation of false memories. Furthermore, being susceptible for the creation of false memories could as well be the result of having low cognitive abilities. On the other hand, results in the current thesis showed that (healthy) individuals with depleted cognitive resources, created less false memories when negative material was presented. This indicates that when there is less focus on negative material, memory is more accurate than when extremely focused on negative material (which consumes the working memory) as it is with individuals with depression.  Essay: Abuse and False Accusations.
Stress is closely related to depression and anxiety (American Psychological Association, n.d.). Individuals who are stressed appeared to be more susceptible of creating false memories, except when a stressor was presented for a short period of time. This would indicate that individuals with PTSD, who experience severe chronic distress (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) would be more susceptible of creating false memories as well. Bremmer, Shobe, and Kihlstrom (2000) found that abused women with PTSD showed poorer memory than non-abused women. However, no clear significant correlation between PTSD and false memory was found in the current thesis. However, PTSD appears to be correlated with dissociation, since dissociation can serve as a mediator between PTSD and increased false memories (Jelinek et al., 2008).Borderline is as well associated with dissociative symptoms (Schilling et al., 2013), indicating individuals with borderline could also be susceptible of creating false memories. However, results in this thesis showed that borderline patients were not susceptible in creating false memories. These results combined indicate that individuals with dissociative symptoms could be more susceptible for creating false memories. On the other hand, this appears to be less likely when being diagnosed with other psychological problems (which are associated with dissociation). These results are supported by other research, which shows that dissociative experiences have associations with false childhood memories (Qin, Ogle, & Goodman, 2008).
Another result in the current thesis showed that having high script knowledge makes people more susceptible of creating false memories. It is possible that script knowledge could explain why borrowing autobiographical memories of others were also shown to be a risk factor in the creation of false memories. In these cases, individuals told the stories of others more than once, believing this to be their own stories. The same process is going on with having high script knowledge, in which creating false memories of an event depend on the plausibility and memorability of that event (Ghetti & Alexander, 2004; Otgaar et al., 2010). These results are in line with other research. Garcia-Bajos, Migueles, and Anderson (2009) found in an eyewitness study that highly typical actions were resistant for forgetting, due to higher script knowledge.
Furthermore, sleep deprivation was shown to make individuals more susceptible in creating false memories. The importance of sleep in the memory processes was also shown in the study of Landmann et al. (2014). They found that sleep disruptions could contribute to a disturbed memory reorganization. Total sleep deprivation could result in memory loss (e.g., Smith. 1993; Smith, 1995). When sleeping, individuals pass a cycle of five phases of sleep: stages 1, 2, 3, and 4, and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep (American Sleep Association, 2007; Dotto, 1996). Sleep deprivation can result in not completing the stages, e.g., resulting in other stages of sleep to increase or wake up (Tilley & Empson, 1978). Those results indicate that when not completing all stages of sleep, false memories could arise.  Essay: Abuse and False Accusations.