USC Child Interviewing Lab, Los Angeles, CA
As an intern in the USC Child Interviewing Lab in the Gould School of Law, under the instruction of Professor Thomas Lyon, I was assigned to some intern-typical tasks, but also more challenging projects that made this experience extremely unique and purposeful. I already have an interest in psychology in the criminal justice system, which, in itself, offers the motivation to make a step towards reinforcing justice in the legal system and law enforcement; however, this internship was particularly provocative and inspiring due to the heinous nature of the crimes involved and the vulnerable subjects we hope to protect. Having entered the experience expecting to deal with interviews of child witnesses, I was shocked to discover that the lab mainly deals with child victims, most commonly, of sexual abuse. I had to brace myself before listening to a fragile child victim recount the details of the crime, often committed by someone they trusted. However, as this lab works towards debunking the widespread assumption that children are unreliable witnesses and victims, this serious topic only gave me more motivation to contribute to the current projects to restore the dependability of child testimony.
Due to legal restrictions and protections over the court materials and interviews with child victims and witnesses, I had to receive clearance to transcribe the interviews through training on the Ten Step Investigative Interview Protocol. The nature of the training focuses on allowing the child to take control and recount the crime in their own words and at their own pace. This was painful to listen to as children recalled terrible memories and described topics they should never have to know about at such a young age. Even our own emotional responses to the shocking content was motivational, as we can only imagine the intense physical and emotional pain these children underwent due to the crime, even in the legal proceedings afterwards in which they needed to recall the pain they likely hoped to never speak of again.
A bigger project that I worked on involved an extensive coding scheme for an experimental study examining children’s disclosure propensities. More specifically, I was reading through interview transcripts and coding the particular responses that child subjects gave to the different prompts. Coding these responses in a thorough, uniform manner enhances and ensures the accuracy and reliability of the eventual analyses of the data. Another project I worked on involved the literature review relating to jury-eligible persons’ perception of child witnesses and the dynamics of sexual abuse. This task included identifying relevant articles and studies to the topic of our study and summarizing the methods and findings in order to make it more convenient for the main researchers to access. As I am often assigned to do literature reviews in my psychology courses and research assistantship, this was valuable practice to scan and comprehend articles and studies more quickly and effectively.
At the USC Child Interviewing Lab I was surrounded by lab directors, post-docs, research employees, and fellow interns who had so much to share about how this work experience fit into their college and post-college experiences. They offered me a realistic wake-up call that obstacles and uncertainty are normal in this transition and are necessary in order to discover one’s professional calling. Specifically, as I am hesitant to decide whether I should pursue a career immediately or commit to further education, it was really helpful to observe different journeys and trajectories.
While I find that my foundation as a psychology major was solidified by this experience, it was also instrumental in making this internship as impactful as it was. Being exposed to different types of studies and research strategies was extremely useful, particularly when I was brainstorming topics for my senior thesis and planning the initial methods and measures. I am so thankful for the networking aspect of this internship that will probably continue to prove extremely advantageous, as I remain in contact with those I worked with. As for career directions, I was initially hesitant to consider psychological research as I did not have any full-time experience in that field. However, working in this lab and around people who have been in research work for much of their career was helpful in learning what type of people are suited for this type of work and the different tasks I may have never realized were involved. Although I am, naturally, still not set on what I plan to do after college, I am happy to say that psychological research would be an amazing career choice that I will definitely consider. It is not only important to have research experience for most careers in the field of psychology, but also gratifying to be a part of the process in which discoveries are made.
I would like to thank the ’68 Center for Career Exploration and the friends and family of Liz Gray Erickson ’89 for this experience. I am unbelievably grateful and will always work to repay them through my future work in the field.
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