The challenge of repeated conduct allegations: What updated research tells us

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Witnesses to repeated conduct generally use more uncertain language than witnesses to single events; investigators must understand why and adjust their interviewing approach accordingly.
• Credibility assessments in bullying matters require particular care. It is important not to automatically treat hedged language regarding repeated conduct allegations as evasion.

This article builds on the practical guidance for approaching bullying investigations provided in our recent article, Workplace bullying investigations: A practical guide for investigators.

In this article, we:

• explore the challenges that arise with repeated conduct allegations
• share strategies to help investigators obtain the particulars needed for a procedurally fair investigation.

Unique challenges of repeated conduct allegations

Bullying complaints often involve broad claims of repeated conducted over a long period which can be especially difficult to investigate.

Common claims investigators hear include:

• ‘They said this to me all the time.’
• ‘They never included me in any of these conversations.’
• ‘This happened every week for two years.’

These types of complaints are common in bullying matters because bullying, by definition, involves repeated behaviour. But they can create real investigative challenges, and investigators should understand why.

Recent research published in Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (Paterson, Deck, Wang & Carnemolla, 2025, This is what happened… I think?: Indicators of uncertainty when witnesses recall a single or repeated event) sheds important light on this.

Across two studies, researchers found that witnesses to repeated events used significantly more ‘hedge words’ – phrases like ‘I think,’ ‘I guess’ or ‘maybe’ than witnesses to a single event. Repeated-event witnesses were also more likely to explicitly state that they could not remember certain details.

The researchers explain this through source-monitoring theory: when events are highly similar and occur repeatedly, it becomes cognitively difficult to attribute specific details to a particular instance. The witness genuinely struggles to say exactly when something happened, or what was said on a specific occasion, because the individual instances have blurred together in memory.

This has two significant practical implications for investigators.

1. A complainant who says ‘I think it was around March… or maybe April… he usually said something like that’ is not necessarily being evasive or unreliable. They may be accurately reflecting the genuine cognitive difficulty of particularising one instance from many. Investigators should not automatically treat hedged or uncertain language as a credibility problem.
2. Investigators cannot simply accept broad, generic accounts as sufficient to ground a finding. The legal test of fairness requires that allegations set out specific conduct and not generalities. Investigators must work to particularise the allegations, even where the complainant finds this difficult.

Particularise allegations of repeated conduct

Given what the research tells us about how witnesses to repeated events recall and describe their experiences, investigators can use specific techniques to help complainants particularise their accounts:

• Use a timeline approach. Ask the complainant to help you construct a rough timeline of events. Research has pointed to the efficacy of using a physical or visual tool that can help interviewees organise and sequence details of a repeated event and recall specific instances (Hope et al., 2019; Kontogianni et al., 2021, as cited in Paterson et al., 2025). A simple written chronology built during the interview can help anchor memories to specific occasions. [Note that a trauma-informed approach to interviewing potential trauma victims requires extra care to avoid requiring interviewees to recall information chronologically, so a timeline may need to be developed sensitively and gradually.]
• Anchor to external events. Help the complainant connect incidents to external reference points: ‘Was this before or after the team restructure?’ ‘Was it around the time of the performance review?’ ‘Do you remember what season it was?’ External anchors can help separate individual instances that have blurred together in memory.
• Ask for the best example. Where a complainant describes a pattern of conduct, ask: ‘Can you give me the clearest example you can remember – the one that stands out most?’ This often provides the most particularised account and can form the basis of a specific allegation.
• Ask for the most recent example. ‘Can you tell me about the last time this happened?’ Recent events are typically easier to recall with specificity than earlier ones.
• Distinguish the ‘script’ from a specific incident. Complainants describing repeated conduct often shift into what researchers call ‘generic’ or ‘script-based’ language, describing what ‘usually’ happened rather than what happened on a specific occasion. When you notice this shift, gently redirect: ‘You’ve described what usually happened. I’d like to focus on one specific time. Can you pick one occasion and tell me about that?’
• Ask about what changed. Where the respondent is the complainant’s manager, ask early about the working relationship and specifically what changed and when. This question often reveals very different types of conduct – retaliation, a deteriorating relationship, or a manager who was always like this and the complainant finally got tired of it. All three are different cases requiring different investigative approaches.
• Ask the question they almost didn’t answer. At the end of the interview, ask: ‘Is there anything you almost mentioned but didn’t?’ This can prompt complainants to share important detail they thought was unrelated, or context they left out.
• Ask about others. ‘Has this happened to anyone else, that you know of?’ If the answer is yes, further interviews may lead to the investigation scope expanding. If the answer is no, that is also useful as it may indicate an interpersonal issue rather than a systemic one. Pay attention to hesitations. A pause before ‘no’ or ‘I don’t want to drag anyone else into this,’ could be important evidence that may require follow up.

A note on credibility and repeated-event witnesses

The research by Paterson et al (2025) also found that there is a tendency to rate repeated-event witnesses as less credible than single-event witnesses – even when they are telling the truth – and in some studies, even less credible than witnesses who are lying.

Investigators should be alert to this bias. A complainant who struggles to particularise dates, who uses hedged language, or who gives inconsistent accounts of which specific incident involved which specific detail, may be doing so because of the genuine cognitive challenges of repeated-event recall, not because they are fabricating.

Credibility assessments in bullying matters require particular care. It is important not to treat hedged language as evasion. As the research by Paterson et al. (2025) confirms, phrases like ‘I think it was a Tuesday’ or ‘he said something like that’ are normal features of repeated-event recall, not indicators of fabrication. Probe gently for more detail, but do not automatically treat uncertainty as a credibility problem in itself.

More information

Q Workplace Solutions’ team of experienced and legally qualified investigators is trusted by public and private organisations, including ASX-listed companies and government agencies, to investigate complex and often highly sensitive allegations of employee wrongdoing. The team also undertakes reviews of organisations, divisions, or units, and provides training, coaching and external advisory support to internal investigators and teams. Our expert team has documented best practice investigation approaches and processes, including how to approach bullying investigations, in the industry-recognised expert guide, Workplace Investigations: Principles and Practice (2nd Edition).

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