Hey, Wait a Minute!

On February 1, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof published an op-ed entitled “Dylan Farrow's Story,” containing excepts from a letter by Ms. Farrow which repeated allegations that her adoptive father, Woody Allen, sexually molested her in 1992 when she was seven. She claims to still suffer from post-traumatic stress. Allen denies the allegation. A police-appointed medical team concluded that she was not molested and the charges were dropped in 1993.

Kristof's column has been followed by several articles by people claiming to be feminists and progressives who argue that Ms. Farrow should be believed and Woody Allen should be ostracized. I find this disturbing both as a social psychologist and as a citizen. As a psychologist, I am aware of research on the false memory syndrome—a condition in which people's lives are affected by memories that are objectively false, yet strongly believed. Although many people find the idea of false memories counterintuitive, their existence is well-documented. We should be extremely skeptical of claims of sexual abuse, especially of children, unless there is corroborating physical evidence. These expressions of outrage directed at Woody Allen appear to disregard his legal presumption of innocence and to recall some of the moral panic surrounding child abuse in the 1980s.

False memories have been documented by studies in which a number of children were exposed to the same experience. Some of them were randomly assigned to an experimental group that receives misleading post-event information, while the remainder served as the control group. For example, in one study, 3-year-old children were given a routine physical by a doctor that did not involve a genital exam, but following leading questioning, 70% of the children falsely reported that the doctor touched their genitals. Similar results have been found with older children.

Stephen Ceci and Maggie Bruck summarize a number of variables that have been shown to produce false accusations by children:

• Suggestive questioning. A suggestive question presumes a particular answer, such as “Did he touch your pee-pee?” rather than “What happened next?”
• Repeated questioning. Children may deny abuse at first, but if you keep asking the same question, they may assume their first answer was wrong and switch to “yes.”
• Selective reinforcement. If the interviewer ignores denials but reinforces accusations with attention and praise, the child will make further accusations.
• Stereotyping the suspect. This refers to telling the child that the defendant is a bad person.
• Telling the child that others have reported abuse. This increases conformity pressure.
• Anatomically correct dolls. The child's attention is riveted on the one feature that makes them different from other dolls. They are very effective in producing false accusations and should never be used.

Both Ceci and Elizabeth Loftus have shown that very complex and detailed false memories can be created in adults as well as children. Here's a preview of a very professionally done video about Ceci's research on children's memories. The 37-minute video can be found here.

What about the accusations against Woody Allen? The alleged incident occurred after Woody Allen and Mia Farrow ended their 12-year relationship when Allen announced his intention to marry Farrow's adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Not surprisingly, Mia Farrow has hated him ever since. On the day in question, Allen visited Farrow's home in Connecticut to try to resolve their custody dispute. In a house filled with people, many of them hostile to him, Allen is alleged to have taken Dylan to the attic and touched her inappropriately. Afterwards, it was claimed that her underpants were missing. 

When Mia Farrow questioned her, she is said to have told Mia what happened. Mia recorded the accusations on a videotape that contains several stops and starts, and took it to the police. In subsequent interviews, Dylan changed her story several times. The court assigned an investigative team from the Yale-New Haven Hospital headed by Dr. John Leventhal to investigative the charges. Here are some quotes from Dr. Leventhal's testimony:

• “Even before the claim of abuse was made last August, the view of Mr. Allen as an evil and awful and terrible man permeated the household.”
• “Those were not minor inconsistencies. She told us initially that she hadn't been touched in the vaginal area, and she told us that she had, then she told us that she hadn't.”
• “We had two hypotheses: one, that these were statements made by an emotionally disturbed child and then became fixed in her mind. And the other hypothesis was that she was coached or influenced by her mother. We did not come to a firm conclusion. We think that it was probably a combination.”

One commentary on the case claims that if you believe Allen is innocent, you are calling Dylan a liar. This is not the case. When children are prompted to make false reports, they believe those accusations to be true and sometimes suffer traumas similar to those they would have experienced had they actually been molested. The child has actually been victimized by whoever was responsible for planting the false memory.

Another claim is that failure to believe Dylan Farrow's story is symptomatic of a patriarchal society and that siding with Woody Allen shows that you have been “rape cultured.” In fact, both men and women have been falsely accused and sometimes convicted of sexually abusing both boys and girls. Their guilt or innocence is an empirical, not an ideological, question. The cause of feminism is not helped by false accusations of male abuse of women and girls.

Woody Allen's reputation for eccentricity probably makes it more likely the public will believe this story. But the award for the most unintentionally funny commentary goes to an author who cherry-picked scenes from Woody Allen's 49 films and a segment from one of his many interviews to suggest that they are evidence of his guilt. And speaking of awards, does anyone believe that the timing of Kristof's column was merely coincidental? Will Cate Blanchett lose the Best Actress award as a result?

The probability that Woody Allen is guilty is not zero. However, I think it's much closer to zero than most people think.

Update (2/9/14):

The New York Times has published a reply by Woody Allen in which he blames Mia Farrow for coaching their daughter to make the accusation against him.

You may also be interested in reading:

"We Need You to Tell Us That This is What Happened"