Children’s lies and their detection: Implications for child witness testimony

The veracity of child witness testimony is central to the justice system where there are serious consequences for the child, the accused, and society. Thus, it is important to examine how children’s lie-telling abilities develop and the factors that can influence their truthfulness. The current review examines children’s lie-telling ability in relation to child witness testimony. Although research demonstrates that children develop the ability to lie at an early age, they also understand that lie-telling is morally unacceptable and do not condone most types of lies. Children’s ability to lie effectively develops with age and is related to their increasing cognitive sophistication. However, even children’s early lies can be difficult to detect. Greater lie elaboration requires greater skill and children’s ability to lie effectively improves with development and as a function of cognitive skill. Different methods of promoting children’s truthful reports as well as the social and motivational factors that affect children’s honesty will be discussed.     

White lie-telling in children for politeness purposes

Prosocial lie-telling behavior in children between 3 and 11 years of age was examined using an undesirable gift paradigm. In the first condition, children received an undesirable gift and were questioned by the gift-giver about whether they liked the gift. In the second condition, children were also given an undesirable gift but received parental encouragement to tell a white lie prior to being questioned by the gift-giver. In the third condition, the child's parent received an undesirable gift and the child was encouraged to lie on behalf of their parent. In all conditions, the majority of children told a white lie and this tendency increased with age. Coding of children's facial expressions using Ekman and Friesen's (1978) Facial Action Coding System revealed significant but small differences between lie-tellers and control children in terms of both positive and negative facial expressions. Detailed parental instruction facilitated children's display of appropriate verbal and nonverbal expressive behaviors when they received an undesirable gift.     

TV heroes: The impact of rhetoric and deeds

Two experiments examined the influence of children's cartoons and their prosocial messages on the behavior and judgments of kindergarten, second, and fourth grade children. Three conditions or types of programs were used: purely prosocial (moral lesson but no aggression); and purely aggressive (no moral lesson). Behavioral, evaluative, and comprehension measures were taken. All children were able to distinguish the protagonist and antagonist. Older children grasped the implications of the stories but younger children, especially those in the prosocial/aggressive condition, did not. Scores of children in the prosocial/aggressive condition were significantly lower on message comprehension than those of subjects in the purely prosocial condition. Implications for the relationship of behaviors (prosocial actions) to judgments, portrayal of aggressive heroes on television programs, and the acceptance of aggression as normative behaviors, are discussed.     

Real and ideal self-images in second- and fifth-grade children: Reliability,validity and factorial structure

The reliability, construct validity, and factorial structure of three self-image instruments were assesses in a total of 80 second- and fifth-grade children. Both real self-images (children's current views of themselves) and ideal self-images (the self views to which children aspire) were assessed. the split-half and test—retest reliabilities of the instruments were adequate even for children's as young as second graders. Stronger evidence of construct validity was found for the older children, although the intercorrelation patterns for both age groups were characterized by larger correlations between assessments of real and ideal self-images using the same instrument than between assessments of the same component of the self-image across the three instruments. Contrary to predictions gener ated by developmental theory, the factor analyses provided non evidence of increasing differentiation of the self-image with age. They did, however, reveal that second and fifth graders distinguish distinctly different functional domains within their self-images.     

Children’s early mental number line: Logarithmic or decomposed linear?

Recently, the nature of children’s mental number line has received much investigation. In the number line task, children are required to mark a presented number on a physical number line with fixed endpoints. Typically, it was observed that the estimations of younger/inexperienced children were accounted for best by a logarithmic function, whereas those of older/more experienced children were reflected best by a linear function. This led to the conclusion that children’s mental number line transforms from logarithmic to linear with age and experience. In this study, we outline an alternative interpretation of children’s performance in a number line task. We suggest that two separate linear representations for one- and two-digit numbers may exist in young children and that initially the integration of these two representations into the place value structure of the Arabic number system is not fully mastered. When testing this assumption in a sample of more than 120 first graders, we observed that the two-linear model consistently provided better fit indexes. We conclude that instead of assuming a transition from logarithmic to linear coding, performance differences could also be accounted for by an improvement in integrating tens and units into the Arabic place value system.     

Chinese children's evaluations of white lies: weighing the consequences for recipients

This research examined how Chinese children make moral judgments about lie telling and truth telling when facing a “white lie” or “politeness” dilemma in which telling a blunt truth is likely to hurt the feelings of another. We examined the possibility that the judgments of participants (7-11 years of age, N = 240) would differ as a function of the social context in which communication takes place. The expected social consequences were manipulated systematically in two studies. In Study 1, participants rated truth telling more negatively and rated lie telling more positively in a public situation where telling a blunt truth is especially likely to have negative social consequences. In Study 2, participants rated truth telling more positively and rated lie telling more negatively in a situation where accurate information is likely to be helpful for the recipient to achieve future success. Both studies showed that with increased age, children’s evaluations became significantly influenced by the social context, with the strongest effects being seen among the 11-year-olds. These results suggest that Chinese children learn to take anticipated social consequences into account when making moral judgments about the appropriateness of telling a blunt truth versus lying to protect the feelings of another.     

The influence of negligence, intention, and outcome on children’s moral judgments

Piaget (1932) and subsequent researchers have reported that young children’s moral judgments are based more on the outcomes of actions than on the agents’ intentions. The current study investigated whether negligence might also influence these judgments and explain children’s apparent focus on outcome. Children (3–8 years of age) and adults (N = 139) rated accidental actions in which the valences of intention, negligence, and outcome were varied systematically. Participants of all ages were influenced primarily by intention, and well-intentioned actions were also evaluated according to negligence and outcome. Only two young children based their judgments solely on outcome. It is suggested that previous studies have underestimated children’s use of intention because outcome and negligence have been confounded. Negative consequences are considered to be important because children assume that they are caused by negligence. The findings indicate that young children can show sophisticated understanding of the roles of intention and negligence in moral judgments.     

Money can’t buy love: Asymmetric beliefs about gift price and feelings of appreciation

Across three studies, we identify an asymmetry between gift-givers’ and gift-recipients’ beliefs about the link between gift price and feelings of appreciation. Gift-givers expected a positive correlation between how much they spent on a gift and the extent to which gift-recipients would appreciate the gift because gift-givers assume that more expensive gifts convey a higher level of thoughtfulness. Gift-recipients, in contrast, reported no such association between gift price and their actual feelings of appreciation. This effect occurred regardless of whether the individual’s role and the magnitude of the gift were manipulated or measured in the field. Taken together, these findings cast doubt on whether gift-givers can draw on their personal experience as gift-recipients in order to identify meaningful gifts for others.     

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.     

Developmental change in young children's use of haptic information in a visual task: the role of hand movements

Preschoolers who explore objects haptically often fail to recognize those objects in subsequent visual tests. This suggests that children may represent qualitatively different information in vision and haptics and/or that children’s haptic perception may be poor. In this study, 72 children (2½-5 years of age) and 20 adults explored unfamiliar objects either haptically or visually and then chose a visual match from among three test objects, each matching the exemplar on one perceptual dimension. All age groups chose shape-based matches after visual exploration. Both 5-year-olds and adults also chose shape-based matches after haptic exploration, but younger children did not match consistently in this condition. Certain hand movements performed by children during haptic exploration reliably predicted shape-based matches but occurred at very low frequencies. Thus, younger children’s difficulties with haptic-to-visual information transfer appeared to stem from their failure to use their hands to obtain reliable haptic information about objects.     

Health Status and Peer Relationships in Early Adolescence: The Role of Peer Contact, Self-esteem, and Social Anxiety

We examined associations between children’s health status and the quality of their peer relationships, as well as factors that may account for individual variation in the quality of chronically ill and healthy children’s peer relationships. Our sample included 268 children (138 boys; 130 girls) with 149 European-Americans and 119 African-Americans. There were 91 children with a chronic illness; 35 with asthma, 26 with diabetes, and 30 with obesity. Chronically ill children were characterized by teachers as displaying less prosocial behavior, less overt aggression, and less relational aggression with peers than healthy children. Chronically ill children reported lower levels of peer contact and higher levels of social anxiety than healthy children. Among chronically ill children those with high self-esteem were more prosocial and less aggressive than those with low self-esteem. Our findings suggest that chronically ill children are at risk for peer relationship difficulties, but that self-esteem may serve as a protective factor against poor peer relationships for some chronically ill children.     

同伴拒绝、同伴接纳与农村留守儿童的心理适应：亲子亲合与逆境信念的作用*

以424名农村儿童为被试,基于留守儿童和非留守儿童之间的比较,在同伴关系的背景下探讨了亲子亲合与个体逆境信念对儿童攻击、学业违纪与孤独感的作用。结果表明：(1)同伴拒绝能显著增加儿童的攻击、学业违纪与孤独感,同伴接纳则显著降低儿童的学业违纪与孤独感,亲子亲合、积极的逆境信念能够显著降低儿童的孤独感;(2)亲子亲合对同伴拒绝与儿童攻击、学业违纪之间关系的调节效应在双亲外出儿童与非留守儿童群体中存在差异：高亲合条件下,同伴拒绝与非留守儿童的攻击、学业违纪之间存在显著关联,但是在双亲外出儿童中,这些关联不再显著;(3)亲子亲合能够调节同伴接纳与儿童孤独感之间的关系：在低亲合条件下,同伴接纳能够显著降低儿童的孤独感,但是二者在高亲合条件下不再存在关联。结果提示,农村留守儿童与父母间的紧密情感联结对于促进其心理适应具有保护作用,同伴接纳对儿童的亲情缺失具有补偿作用。     

The regulation of dependency in parent-child relationships

We propose that the insecurities about a close other’s regard that make it difficult for low self-esteem people to form satisfying romantic relationships also create difficulties in family relationships. Our study revealed that low self-esteem mothers and children felt less loved by one another than did high self-esteem mothers and children. These feelings of not being loved partially accounted for the tendency of low self-esteem children and mothers to be dissatisfied with their relationships. Ironically, however, low self-esteem children’s insecurities about how much their mothers loved them were not warranted by the strength of their mother’s love. Taken together, these findings suggest that the processes that regulate attachment to significant others extend to familial as well as romantic relationships.     

4-6岁儿童数学认知中的多元表征研究

本研究以早期儿童数学认知中的数、数运算以及模式三个维度为切入点,对来自上海市的120名4-6岁儿童采用个别面试法考察其数学认知中的多元表征,采用描述性统计、多元方差分析、卡方检验等方法探查儿童多元表征的发展特点、相互关系及影响因素。结果表明：4-6岁儿童已具备初步的数、数运算、模式的多元表征能力,其中数的多元表征能力最好;4-6岁儿童在数、模式的多元表征中未出现明显的年龄差异与性别差异,在数运算多元表征中有明显的年龄差异,无性别差异;儿童使用的表征形式数量随年龄增长相应增加,且更倾向于使用描绘性表征中的实物情境表征与教具模型表征;4-6岁儿童数、数运算、模式的多元表征能力之间存在一定的相关;除年龄之外,已有学习经验、学习材料的呈现样式也是影响儿童多元表征的可能性因素。     

Are children's faces really more appealing than those of adults? Testing the baby schema hypothesis beyond infancy

This study examined adults’ evaluations of likeability and attractiveness of children’s faces from infancy to early childhood. We tested whether Lorenz’s baby schema hypothesis (Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie (1943), Vol. 5, pp. 235-409) is applicable not only to infant faces but also to faces of children at older ages. Adult participants were asked to evaluate children’s faces from early infancy to 6 years of age in terms of their likeability and attractiveness, and these judgments were compared with those of adult faces. It was revealed that adults judged faces of younger children as more likeable and attractive than faces of older children, which were in turn judged as more likeable and attractive than adult faces. However, after approximately 4.5 years of age, the baby schema no longer affected adults’ judgments of children’s facial likeability and attractiveness. These findings suggest that the baby schema affects adults’ judgments of not only infant faces but also young children’s faces. This influence beyond infancy is likely due to the fact that facial cranial growth is gradual during early childhood and certain crucial infantile facial cues remain readily available during this period. Future studies need to identify these specific cues to better understand why adults generally show positive responses to infantile faces and how such positive responses influence the establishment and maintenance of social relationships between young children and adults.     

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.     

The relations between children's communicative perspective-taking and executive functioning

Two experiments investigated children’s communicative perspective-taking ability. In Experiment 1, 4- to 5-year-old children were tested on two referential communication tasks, as well as on measures of inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Results document children’s emergent use of the perspective of their speaking partner to guide their communicative behaviors in both a production and comprehension task. In Experiment 2, 3- to 4-year-old children used a speaker’s perspective to guide their interpretation of instructions. In both experiments, egocentric interpretations of speaker requests were negatively correlated with children’s inhibitory control skills. Results of these studies demonstrate that young children can differentiate between information that is accessible to the speaker versus privileged knowledge, and use this information to guide their communicative behaviors. Furthermore, the results suggest that children’s inhibitory control skills allow them to inhibit their own perspective, enabling them to make use of their communicative partner’s perspective.     

Children’s mapping between symbolic and nonsymbolic representations of number

When children learn to count and acquire a symbolic system for representing numbers, they map these symbols onto a preexisting system involving approximate nonsymbolic representations of quantity. Little is known about this mapping process, how it develops, and its role in the performance of formal mathematics. Using a novel task to assess children’s mapping ability, we show that children can map in both directions between symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical representations and that this ability develops between 6 and 8 years of age. Moreover, we reveal that children’s mapping ability is related to their achievement on tests of school mathematics over and above the variance accounted for by standard symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical tasks. These findings support the proposal that underlying nonsymbolic representations play a role in children’s mathematical development.     

流动儿童的压力和社会支持状况及社会支持保护作用的研究

对流动儿童的领悟社会支持状况以及流动儿童的社会支持在压力与心理适应之间的关系中是否起调节作用进行了探索。给334名流动儿童和237名城市儿童及其家长施测青少年生活事件量表（ASLEC）、领悟社会支持量表（PSSS）和Achenbach儿童行为量表（家长版）（CBCL）。结果发现,流动儿童的领悟社会支持得分显著低于城市儿童,层次多元回归分析的结果表明,社会支持在压力与心理适应之间的关系中起调节作用,表明社会支持对流动儿童的心理适应起保护作用。