Learning through observing: Effects of modeling truth‐ and lie‐telling on children’s honesty

The current study examined the influence of observing another's lie‐ or truth‐telling – and its consequences – on children's own honesty about a transgression. Children (N = 224, 5–8 years of age) observed an experimenter (E) tell the truth or lie about a minor transgression in one of five conditions: (a) Truth‐Positive Outcome – E told the truth with a positive outcome; (b) Truth‐Negative Outcome – E told the truth with a negative outcome; (c) Lie‐Positive Outcome – E lied with a positive outcome; (d) Lie‐Negative Outcome – E lied with a negative outcome; (e) Control – E did not tell a lie or tell the truth. Later, to examine children's truth‐ or lie‐telling behavior, children participated in a temptation resistance paradigm where they were told not to peek at a trivia question answer. They either peeked or not, and subsequently lied or told the truth about that behavior. Additionally, children were asked to give moral evaluations of different truth‐ and lie‐telling vignettes. Overall, 85% of children lied. Children were less likely to lie about their own transgression in the TRP when they had previously witnessed the experimenter tell the truth with a positive outcome or tell a lie with a negative outcome.     

Young children's self‐benefiting lies and their relation to executive functioning and theory of mind

It is well established that children lie in different social contexts for various purposes from the age of 2 years. Surprisingly, little is known about whether very young children will spontaneously lie for personal gain, how self‐benefiting lies emerge, and what cognitive factors affect the emergence of self‐benefiting lies. To bridge this gap in the literature, we situated children between 2 and 4 years of age in a zero‐sum game where children must lie to their opponent if they wanted to win a desirable reward. We found that the majority of young children did not lie even when they experienced personal losses repeatedly. However, some children spontaneously lied during the game; as the game progressed, more children lied. Further, we found that children's theory of mind understanding and executive functioning in terms of a combination of inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility had significant positive and unique correlations with how frequently children lied for personal gain. The present results taken together with the existing findings regarding children's lies for self‐protection and politeness purposes suggest that the act of lying begins early in life. Further, its emergence and development are influenced by children's specific cognitive abilities in the domains of theory of mind understanding and executive functioning.

Highlights

• The study investigated whether very young children will spontaneously lie for personal gain.
• This study used a zero‐sum game to elicit children's self‐benefiting lies. Results showed the majority of young children did not lie, and it is related to children's theory of mind understanding and executive functioning.
• The act of lying begins early in life, and its emergence and development are influenced by children's specific cognitive abilities in the domains of theory of mind understanding and executive functioning.

     

Are there limits to collectivism? Culture and children's reasoning about lying to conceal a group transgression

This study explored the effects of collectivism on lying to conceal a group transgression. Seven‐, 9‐, and 11‐year‐old US and Chinese children (N=374) were asked to evaluate stories in which protagonists either lied or told the truth about their group's transgression and were then asked about either the protagonist's motivations or justification for their own evaluations. Previous research suggests that children in collectivist societies such as China find lying for one's group to be more acceptable than do children from individualistic societies such as the United States. The current study provides evidence that this is not always the case: Chinese children in this study viewed lies told to conceal a group's transgressions less favourably than did US children. An examination of children's reasoning about protagonists' motivations for lying indicated that children in both countries focused on an impact to self when discussing motivations for protagonists to lie for their group. Overall, results suggest that children living in collectivist societies do not always focus on the needs of the group. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Processes underlying deception: an empirical analysis of truth and lies when manipulating the stakes

The aim of the present experiment was to examine to what extent participants experience attempted control, cognitive load and arousal when they lie and tell the truth under lower‐stakes and higher‐stakes conditions. We expected both differences and similarities between truth tellers and liars. We expected that participants would experience these processes to a higher degree when they lied compared to when they told the truth (differences), but we also expected that both liars and truth tellers would be keen to make a convincing impression; and that raising the stakes would affect liars and truth tellers in a similar way (similarities). A total of 128 participants lied and told the truth during an interview (lying and truth telling was counterbalanced). Stakes were manipulated by informing half of the participants that their interviews would be recorded on videotape and would be analysed and evaluated by police officers. The predictions were supported. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Promoting Honesty: The Influence of Stories on Children's Lie‐Telling Behaviours and Moral Understanding

Moral stories are a means of communicating the consequences of our actions and emphasizing virtuous behaviour, such as honesty. However, the effect of these stories on children's lie‐telling has yet to be thoroughly explored. The current study investigated the influence of moral stories on children's willingness to lie for another individual. Children were read one of three stories prior to being questioned about an accidental wrongdoing: (1) a positive story, which emphasized the benefits of being honest; (2) a negative story, which outlined the potential costs of lying; and (3) a neutral story, which was unrelated to truth‐telling or lie‐telling. Initially, most children withheld information about the event. Older children were better able to maintain their lies throughout the interview. However, when asked direct questions, children in the positive story condition were more likely to tell the truth than those in the negative and neutral conditions. No significant differences were found between the negative and neutral story conditions. The present study also investigated the relationship between children's conceptual understanding and behaviour. The findings revealed that children's knowledge of truths and lies increased with age. Children who lied had significantly higher conceptual scores than those who did not lie. Furthermore, the type of story children were read had a significant impact on their evaluations of true and false statements. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Young children can tell strategic lies after committing a transgression

This study investigated whether young children make strategic decisions about whether to lie to conceal a transgression based on the lie recipient's knowledge. In Experiment 1, 168 3- to 5-year-olds were asked not to peek at the toy in the experimenter's absence, and the majority of children peeked. Children were questioned about their transgression in either the presence or absence of an eyewitness of their transgression. Whereas 4- and 5-year-olds were able to adjust their decisions of whether to lie based on the presence or absence of the eyewitness, 3-year-olds did not. Experiments 2 and 3 manipulated whether the lie recipient appeared to have learned information about children's peeking from an eyewitness or was merely bluffing. Results revealed that when the lie recipient appeared to be genuinely knowledgeable about their transgression, even 3-year-olds were significantly less likely to lie compared with when the lie recipient appeared to be bluffing. Thus, preschool children are able to make strategic decisions about whether to lie or tell the truth based on whether the lie recipient is genuinely knowledgeable about the true state of affairs.     

Liar,liar: Consistent lying decreases belief in the truth

This study investigated the effects of lying on belief ratings for autobiographical childhood events. Participants lied by trying to convince the experimenter that likely events had not happened and that unlikely events had happened. Participants consistently lied, consistently told the truth, and alternated lying and truth telling across two sessions. Results showed that consistent false assents increased belief in those false events and that consistent false denials decreased belief in those true events. False denials had a larger influence on belief than did false assents. False assents that were told first were more likely to increase in belief than were false assents told in the second session. False denials decreased belief in the true event regardless of when they were told. These results suggest that lying influences confidence ratings both by increasing belief in a lied‐about event and by decreasing belief in a true event.     

Detecting Deceit Via Analyses of Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior in Children and Adults

This experiment examined children's and undergraduates' verbal and nonverbal deceptive behavior, and the extent to which their truths and lies could be correctly classified by paying attention to these responses. Participants (N= 196) aged 5–6, 10–11, and 14–15, as well as university undergraduates, participated in an erasing the blackboard event, and told the truth or lied about the event afterwards. Nonverbal and verbal responses were coded, the latter with Criteria‐Based Content Analysis and Reality Monitoring. Although children and undergraduates demonstrated different behaviors (for example, the children obtained lower CBCA scores and made more movements), actual cues to deceit were remarkably similar across different age groups (for example, both 5–6‐year‐olds and undergraduates obtained lower CBCA scores and made fewer movements while lying). A combination of verbal and nonverbal lie detection methods resulted in more correct classifications of liars and truth tellers than the verbal and nonverbal lie detection methods individually, with the combined method obtaining hit rates as high as 88%.     

Moral Evaluations of Lying for One's Own Group

This study investigated the development of moral judgments of blue lies, which occur when a speaker makes false statements to benefit a group of which he or she is a member. We investigated this issue in China, where there is substantial emphasis on the nature of children's associations with groups they belong to. Participants ranged in age from 9 to 17, and we asked them to evaluate lies that were told to benefit a team representing a speaker's class, school, or country. Judgments varied systematically as a function of age, with the 17‐year‐olds rating lying for any form of collective less negatively than did the younger age groups. In addition, across the age groups, children's affinity tended to shift from smaller groups to broader and more abstract collectives: 9‐ and 11‐year olds were least critical of blue lies told to benefit a speaker's class, 13‐year olds were least critical of blue lies told to benefit a speaker's school, and 17‐year olds were least critical of blue lies told to benefit a speaker's country. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Promising to tell the truth makes 8‐ to 16‐year‐olds more honest

Techniques commonly used to increase truth‐telling in most North American jurisdiction courts include requiring witnesses to discuss the morality of truth‐ and lie‐telling and to promise to tell the truth prior to testifying. While promising to tell the truth successfully decreases younger children's lie‐telling, the influence of discussing the morality of honesty and promising to tell the truth on adolescents' statements has remained unexamined. In Experiment 1, 108 youngsters, aged 8–16 years, were left alone in the room and asked not to peek at the answers to a test. The majority of participants peeked at the test answers and then lied about their transgression. More importantly, participants were eight times more likely to change their response from a lie to the truth after promising to tell the truth. Experiment 2 confirmed that the results of Experiment 1 were not solely due to repeated questioning or the moral discussion of truth‐ and lie‐telling. These results suggest that, while promising to tell the truth influences the truth‐telling behaviors of adolescents, a moral discussion of truth and lies does not. Legal implications are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Young Deceivers: Executive Functioning and Antisocial Lie‐telling in Preschool Aged Children

The present study examined the emergence of antisocial lie‐telling in very young children. Lie‐telling was studied in relation to executive functioning skills and children's abilities to identify both truths and lies. A total of 65 children (M_{age in months} = 31.75, SD = 1.87) participated in a modified temptation resistance paradigm (TRP; designed to elicit spontaneous lies). Executive functioning was measured through an inhibitory control task and a forward search planning task. The Truth/Lie Identification task was administered (Lyon, Carrick, & Quas, 2010 ) to measure children's abilities to accurately distinguish truths and lies. During the TRP, a total of 89.23% children peeked at the toy when a research assistant left the room, and of those children, 29.31% lied to the research assistant. Significant differences on executive functioning measures were found between lie‐tellers and confessors, as well as for the Truth/Lie Identification task. Lie‐tellers had higher scores on measures of inhibitory control and forward search planning. Lie‐tellers also had higher accuracy on the Truth/Lie Identification task than confessors. This study provides a unique contribution to the literature by examining 2.5‐year‐old children's emerging lie‐telling abilities, a relatively understudied age during which fledgling lie‐telling emerges. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adult Detection of Children's Selfish and Polite Lies: Experience Matters

Five groups of participants (N = 150) with differing amounts of experience working with children were assessed on their ability to detect children's lying or truth telling. Children's lies were told for antisocial reasons (i.e., self‐serving lies) and for prosocial reasons (i.e., to benefit others). Overall, adults were more accurate at identifying children's dishonest statements than their true statements, and children's antisocial lies were detected more accurately than were their prosocial lies. While adults without experience were poor at detecting child lie tellers and truth tellers, adults with extensive child experience were better at distinguishing children's lies and truths.     

Lying in the elementary school years: verbal deception and its relation to second-order belief understanding

The development of lying to conceal one's own transgression was examined in school-age children. Children (N=172) between 6 and 11 years of age were asked not to peek at the answer to a trivia question while left alone in a room. Half of the children could not resist temptation and peeked at the answer. When the experimenter asked them whether they had peeked, the majority of children lied. However, children's subsequent verbal statements, made in response to follow-up questioning, were not always consistent with their initial denial and, hence, leaked critical information to reveal their deceit. Children's ability to maintain consistency between their initial lie and subsequent verbal statements increased with age. This ability is also positively correlated with children's 2nd-order belief scores, suggesting that theory of mind understanding plays an important role in children's ability to lie consistently.     

The role of perseveration in children's symbolic understanding and skill

In the first few years of life, children become increasingly sensitive to the significance of a variety of symbolic artifacts. An extensive body of research has explored very young children's ability to use symbol‐based information as a guide to current reality. In one common task, for example, children watch as a miniature toy is hidden in a scale model, and are then asked to retrieve a larger version of the toy from the corresponding place in the room itself. Two‐and‐a‐half‐year‐old children perform very poorly in most versions of this task. Their most common error is to perseverate; that is, they search again at the location where the toy was last hidden. Two studies examined the degree to which 2¹/₂‐year‐olds’ high rate of perseveration and poor performance stem from problems with inhibitory control. Results showed that problems with inhibitory control contribute very little to 2¹/₂‐year‐old children's difficulty with the task. Instead, the results confirm young children's great difficulty appreciating and exploiting symbol–referent relations.     

Children's Antisocial and Prosocial Lies to Familiar and Unfamiliar Adults

Although parents frequently instruct children not to lie, children often observe lie‐telling within the family environment. To date, no empirical research has examined children's spontaneous lie‐telling to different lie‐recipients. The current study examined children's spontaneous deceptive behaviour to parents and unfamiliar adults. In Experiment 1 (N = 98), children's (ages 6–9) antisocial lies to a parent or an unfamiliar adult were examined using a modified Temptation Resistance Paradigm. In Experiment 2, (N = 99) children's (ages 6–9) prosocial lies to a parent versus an unfamiliar adult were examined using the Disappointing Gift Paradigm. Results indicate that, across different types of lies, children are more likely to lie to an unfamiliar adult than to a parent. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adults' ability to detect children's lying

Adults are poor deception detectors when examining lies told by adults, on average. However, there are some adults who are better at detecting lies than others. Children learn to lie at a very young age, a behavior that is socialized by parents. Yet, less is known about the ability to detect children's lies, particularly with regard to individual differences in the ability to detect this deception. The current study explored adult raters' ability to discern honesty in children who lied or told the truth about committing a misdeed. Results showed that adults are no better at detecting children's lies than they are with adult lies. In particular, adults were very poor at identifying children's honest statements. However, individual differences did emerge, suggesting that the ability to detect lying in children might be facilitated by relevant experience working with children. Implications for legal and mental health contexts are discussed.     

Children tell white lies to make others feel better

We investigated whether children tell white lies simply out of politeness or as a means to improve another person's mood. A first experimental phase probed children's individual insight to use white lies when prosocial behaviour was called for. We compared a situation in which a person had expressed sadness about her artwork and the goal was to make her feel better (Sad condition) with a situation in which a person was indifferent about her work (Neutral condition). Children at 7 years and older were more likely to tell a white lie than the blunt truth in the Sad over the Neutral condition. Five‐year‐olds showed only a trend. A second phase tested whether children selectively use white lie telling after it was modelled by an adult. Results showed that after modelling, children from all age groups were significantly more likely to use white lies in the Sad condition than in the Neutral condition. Taken together, these results show that children are attentive to another person's affective states when choosing whether to tell a white lie or tell the truth. We discuss the emergence of this behaviour in relation to children's developing social cognition and the increasing sophistication of children's prosocial behaviour.     

Looking Good and Lying to Do It: Deception as an Impression Management Strategy in Job Interviews

The present study investigated job applicants' use of deception. The study examined applicants' deception on written applications, as well as in a job interview; whether individuals would lie to conform to job requirements; and whether extraversion and self-monitoring are related to lying. Fifty-nine candidates completed an application and interview. After the interview, candidates were informed that they were actually participating in an experiment. They then watched a videotape of their interview and indicated any lies they told. As hypothesized, it was found that applicants lied both on the job applications and during the interview, primarily to appear to conform to job requirements. Furthermore, candidate extraversion was positively correlated with number of lies told, although self-monitoring was unrelated to lying.     

小学儿童的道德行为及其与道德观念的相关——诚实原则和集体主义价值观冲突情境下的研究

研究探讨了585名7、9、11岁的小学儿童在诚实原则和集体主义价值观冲突的真实情境下的道德行为及其与道德观念的相关。结果表明,在诚实原则和集体主义价值观冲突情境下,小学儿童的道德行为主要受到诚实原则的支配,表现为:为集体说谎行为发生率都很低;随着年龄的增长,小学儿童的为集体说谎行为的发生率显著增高;小学儿童的为集体说谎行为不存在性别差异;7岁、9岁儿童的为集体说谎行为与集体观念无关,11岁儿童的为集体说谎行为与集体观念显著正相关。     

Young children are more likely to cheat after overhearing that a classmate is smart

Research on moral socialization has largely focused on the role of direct communication and has almost completely ignored a potentially rich source of social influence: evaluative comments that children overhear. We examined for the first time whether overheard comments can shape children's moral behavior. Three‐ and 5‐year‐old children (N = 200) participated in a guessing game in which they were instructed not to cheat by peeking. We randomly assigned children to a condition in which they overheard an experimenter tell another adult that a classmate who was no longer present is smart, or to a control condition in which the overheard conversation consisted of non‐social information. We found that 5‐year‐olds, but not 3‐year‐olds, cheated significantly more often if they overheard the classmate praised for being smart. These findings show that the effects of ability praise can spread far beyond the intended recipient to influence the behavior of children who are mere observers, and they suggest that overheard evaluative comments can be an important force in shaping moral development.