Week 12 - Children's Lying Behavior

Question 1

What were younger children more likely than older children to identify as lies?

Answer 1

Swearing or “naughty words”
Children around 6 years old classified such words as lies

Exaggeration -> Disappears at around 8 years of age

Mistakes
Would not consider the speaker’s intentions when determining what a lie is
Thus, they would consider honest mistakes as lies
Disappears at around 8 years of age

Question 2

What do 5-year old/younger children do to decide if a statement is a lie? What theory can be used to refute it?

Answer 2

Factuality. If a statement is not true, it is a lie. They do not consider a speaker’s intention

You use Speech Act Theory to refute this. Claims that as long as a person’s intention is to deceive, he or she is lying even though the statement made by him or she is true. So factuality of a statement does not determine whether something is a lie or not.

Question 3

Which one of Piaget’s findings of what constituted a lie did not receive support from recent findings?

a) Swearing/Naughty words
b) Exaggeration
c) Mistakes/Intention

Answer 3

b) exaggeration

even some adults consider exaggeration as lies, so it boils down to how one interprets a lie.

Question 4

What evidence supported Piaget’s findings that children below 8 were unable to consider the intentions of a person when deciding what a lie is?

Answer 4

Children between 9-11 years old were able to consider intentions of a person. Found in a later research.

Question 5

What is used to find out if children are able to lie? what is the theory that drives this task?

Answer 5

False-belief task: Are children able to instil false beliefs in others?

Theory of Mind: the ability to understand that people can have different mental states, beliefs, and desires from you.

Question 6

What were the main findings from the child-hiding trial conducted by Chandler et al?

Answer 6

Even 2.5 year olds were able to make use of deceptive strategies to lie to the experimenter, and can prove to be quite skilful at it.

No age differences when it comes to the deceptive strategies used by the children (Age range: 2.5-4)

Question 7

What were the deceptive strategies used by children in his experiment?

Answer 7

1) Withholding evidence: When asked about the location of the treasure, they replied with idk
2) Destroying evidence: Removing the trail produced by the puppet
3) Lying: Lied about the actual location of the treasure
4) Producing fake trails but does not destroy old one: Did not remove original trail but created fake ones to confuse the experimenter
5) Producing fake trails and destroying original evidence: Removed original and created fake one, most misleading (and also the most advanced strategy)

Question 8

What is one criticism attributed to Chandler’s experiment?

Answer 8

Children were prompted to deceive the experimenter. Might possibly mask their true ability to employ deceptive strategies.

Question 9

How did Sodian et al attempt to rectify this issue found in Chandler’s experiment?

Answer 9

Examined the amount of prompting offered by the examiner -> this becomes an independent variable

Question 10

What were the findings from Sodian’s experiment?

Answer 10

2 y/o and 3 y/o were able to make use of deceptive strategies, and 2.5 y/o children can become very skilled with prompting.

4 y/o required less prompting and were able to employ deceptive strategies more spontaneously, and hence used them more often.

2 y/o required more prompting than 4 y/o

Question 11

To lie, children must take into consideration ______ and ______.

Elaborate on the 2 aspects stated above.

Answer 11

Intentionality
To form a mature concept of what lying is, children must realize that when a speaker intends to deceive the listener and make a statement they believe is false

Conventionality
Children must consider what social norms and rules may have been violated when making such a statement

Question 12

What are antisocial lies?

Answer 12

Lies to conceal a transgression

Question 13

What are prosocial lies and what are the types of prosocial lies?

Answer 13

Lies to protect other people

White lies
Yellow lies
Blue lies
Red lies

Question 14

What is used to study antisocial lying behaviour?

Answer 14

Temptation resistance paradigm, peeking paradigm

Question 15

What are the trends related to antisocial lies?

Answer 15

Majority of children peeked at the toy.

Comparison within age group:
2 y/o and 3 y/o: Minority of children lied
4 y/o and above: Majority lied
increasing trend in no of children lying from 2-6 y.o, and decreasing trend in no of children lying from 6 to 16 y/o

Question 16

What can be inferred from an experiment that studies cultural differences in antisocial-lie-telling?

Answer 16

No cultural differences.

Cultures tested agreed that:

• Denial of trangression = lie
• Admission of transgression = truth

Question 17

What can be inferred from an experiment that studies the relation between evaluation of antisocial lies and actual behaviour?

Answer 17

No relation between evaluation and actual behaviour.
- Majority of children lied about peeking in the end -> they took part in temptation peeking paradigm

All children rated lie-telling negatively. As the children’s age increased they rated lying more negatively

Question 18

What actions were done to investigate evaluation of antisocial lies and actual behaviour?

Answer 18

1. administering truth-lie tasks to ensure children have a conceptual understanding of what a truth is and what a lie is
2. temptation resistance paradigm

Question 19

Describe prosocial lies

Answer 19

Untruthful statements made without malicious intent
Exhibits positive moral values
Done with the intention of maintaining social relationships

Question 20

What are white lies?

Answer 20

lies told in a politeness situation to spare the feelings of others

Question 21

How do you investigate white lies?

Answer 21

Undesirable Gift paradigm

• ask children to complete a cognitive task
• rewarded them with smth they are likely to dislike
• look at their body language + speech -> congruent or not?
• experimenter then asks if child likes it

As age increased, children were more likely to tell a white lie

Question 22

Are there any cultural differences in the telling of white lies?

Answer 22

Canada:
White lies rated more positively than antisocial lies
Older children and adults
Gave more positive ratings to white lies
More negative feelings to blunt truths
Canadians get more social practice of white lies (than Chinese children).
Birthday parties: Have to open gifts in front of guests. Even if they do not like the gifts, they still have to pretend that they like it out of politeness and tact.

China:
Chinese children told white lies, but at a much lower rate.
Overall, white lies are rated more negatively
Blunt truth-telling was rated more positively
As age increases, white lies are rated less negatively (but still negative), and blunt truths are rated less positively (but still positive).
Chinese children get less social practice of white lies.
Typically do not open gifts in front of guests, doing so in private instead.
Can express disappointment freely, and are hence not trained as much to tell white lies

Question 23

What does this say about the importance of social context in the telling of white lies?

Answer 23

Social context matters:
Public (in front of group)
Blunt truth more negative, white lie more positive
Private (no one else around)
Blunt truth more positive, white lie more negative
ent freely

Question 24

What is the relation between evaluation of white-lie telling and actual behaviour?

Answer 24

Positively correlated

the more positive children rated white lies, the more likely they were to make a white like themselves.

Question 25

What are yellow/modesty lies?

Answer 25

Lies said to appear humble. Often used by people in Asian societies, which emphasise modesty

Question 26

Why do Asians encourage modesty lies?

Answer 26

Telling modesty lies will prevent disruption of social harmony and cohesion, which are important in collectivist Asian societies So children should actually lie and not admit they have done something good so that they don't stand out

Question 27

How do people from Western individualistic societies differ from people from Asian collectivist societies when it comes to evaluation of modesty lies?

Answer 27

Westerners are more likely to find it strange that a child lied even though she had performed the good deed. - Both parent and child felt that the child had lied, and this was bad behaviour. - Parents said that child shouldn't have lied as it is important to gain the recognition she deserves - Both said they would have admitted they did the good deed Chinese, on the other hand, praised the child for being modest and stated that the child was expressing modesty, a value greatly emphasised in Chinese culture. - What the child did is neither a lie nor a truth.

Question 28

What are the similarities and differences in evaluation of yellow lies between Canadian and Chinese children?

Answer 28

Similarities - All rated truth-telling positively. Differences: Canadian children: rated modesty lies negatively Chinese children: likely to rate them more positively - 7 y/o: still rated such lies negatively, but less so than Canadian children - 9 and 11 y/o: rated such lies positively Difference between culture increases with age.

Question 29

Is there any relation between evaluation of yellow lies and actual behaviour?

Answer 29

Positively correlated The more positive one rated yellow lies, the more likely they are to do it

Question 30

What are blue lies?

Answer 30

Lies told to protect a group

Question 31

How was the telling of blue lies studied?

Answer 31

Class was invited to play in a Chinese Chess competition Must have 2 Experts and 2 Novices on their team Children were then asked whether their class followed the rules in selecting a Chinese Chess team to represent their school Truth: When they say they did not follow the rule Lie: When they say they did follow the rule to protect their class

Question 32

What were the findings?

Answer 32

minority of children told blue lies, but percentage of children who told blue lies increased with age.

Question 33

Are there any cross cultural differences in telling blue lies?

Answer 33

Similarities: - All rated truth telling positively - All rated lie telling negatively Differences - Canadian children found it less negative to lie to help an individual than to lie to help a collective. - Canadian children found it more positive to tell the truth to help an individual than to tell the truth to help a collective - Chinese children found it less negative to lie to help a collective than to lie to help an individual - Chinese children found it more positive to speak the truth to help a collective than to speak the truth and help an individual

Question 34

Is there any relation between evaluation of blue lies and actual behavior?

Answer 34

Positive correlation Those who rated lying to help a collective as more positive were more likely to tell blue lies themselves.

Question 35

Why do children lie?

Answer 35

Self-protection

Question 36

What can be used to study why children lie?

Answer 36

Broken Toy Paradigm - mom and child sit in a room with an experimenter, who gives an excuse to leave the room later on. mom is a participant - before the expt started, the mom was already given instructions. she was to touch a toy that had a sign beside it that said "do not touch". With that being said it means she was supposed to ignore the sign too. - when experimenter left the room, she played with the toy as child watched. - the toy then falls apart. mom pretends to be shocked and tells child not to tell on her . - experimenter returns and asks mum to leave room to sign some papers - when mum leaves, experimenter is left alone with the child, and asks him what he and his mum did. - child would then tell experimenter that his mum broke the toy - experimenter will then ask the child "did your mum ask you not to tell me?"

Question 37

What are the implications of the findings from the Broken Toy Paradigm?

Answer 37

Children told on their mums because they were afraid that if they did not say anything, the experimenter will think they broke the toy instead.

Question 38

What is one concern that arose from administering the Broken Toy Paradigm?

Answer 38

Is it possible for the children to model after their parents' lie-telling behaviour? With this risk, some parents might not want to sign their kids up for this study.

Question 39

What are some ways to promote honesty in children?

Answer 39

1) Tell them moral stories that emphasise the positive outcomes of honesty 2) Don't raise children up in a harsh and punitive environment 3) Tell more specific praises that relate to their performance, instead of telling them a generic praise that relates to their ability

Question 40

Is there any evidence to support the claim that emphasising the positive outcomes of honesty leads to significant increases in honesty/decrease in lying behaviour?

Answer 40

Lee et al, 2014: 1) GW story: children who were told this story were more than 3 times less likely to lie as compared to those who heard P, BW and TTH. contrasts for these stories with the control were not significant - also found that there are no signficant effects for gender - also found that as children's age increased the percentage of them peeking decreases 2) Modifying GW story to emphasise on negative outcomes of lying - contrast between negative GW and TTH no longer significant - negative story became ineffective

Question 41

What kind of parenting method is associated with the messages conveyed by the GW story?

Answer 41

Empathic inductive parenting: Positively correlated with - Children's compliance - Frequency of prosocial behaviour negatively correlated with - rule violations - antisocial behaviour

Question 42

Why is storytelling a good way to teach children about honesty?

Answer 42

They have engaging narratives which help to capture the children's attention

Question 43

Why is it important to teach children to not lie/be honest?

Answer 43

Honesty is a prosocial value Children are capable of lying by the time they reach 2-3 y/o Their deceptions become increasingly sophisticated as they grow older, to the point that it becomes increasingly difficult for adults to detect a child's transgression by late childhood. Correlations have been found between a child's antisocial lying behaviour and problem behaviours like conduct problems and delinquency

Question 44

Is there any evidence to suggest that one should not impose a harsh and punitive environment for a child?

Answer 44

Talwar et al, 2011: studies whether children peeked, whether they lied about peeking, and whether they are able to maintain lie-telling All had no significant age differences 80% of children peeked 94% of children from punitive school lied about peeking, but only 56% of children from non-punitive schoo lied about peeking 69% of children from punitive school were able to maintain their lie-telling behaviour by giving incorrect but plausible answers about the identity of the toy, but only 30% of children from non-punitive school did so.

Question 45

What can be inferred from these results?

Answer 45

Studies with children from non-punitive environments have shown that the ability to lie convincingly is significantly related to children’s improvements in both executive functioning and theory of mind abilities. However, studies also found that children from punitive environments tend to suffer general delays in cognitive development as well as specific deficits in executive functioning and theory of mind understanding. -> but PPVT scores obtained from both groups are quite similar -> not yet shown signs of detrimental effects of a harsh environment

Question 46

Are there any cultural differences in terms of one's tendency and ability to lie convincingly? - refers to non-punitive school

Answer 46

West African children from the non-punitive school are similar to their western counterparts in terms of both their tendency and ability to lie convincingly

Question 47

What theory can be used to explain why children in the punitive school were more likely to lie?

Answer 47

Turiel's moral theory of subversion: In situations where there are inequalities and injustice in an oppressive and hierarchical system, children are more likely to employ deceptive techniques to resist and to protect themselves. children from punitive schools might have found the school's practices to be unjust, and hence they found it justifiable to lie and avoid punishment

Question 48

How do children learn to lie

Answer 48

- trial and error - social learning - witness and experience for yourself that one can be severely punished for a minor transgression, and that it is better to lie and they have nothing to lose. if they can lie convincingly, they might able to avoid punishment

Question 49

Is there any evidence to support the notion that a child should be praised on his performance instead of his ability?

Answer 49

Children who were praised for their ability had significantly higher cheating rates than in performance condition Boys cheated more than girls

Question 50

Why are children in the ability condition more likely to peek?

Answer 50

praising for ability is a generic form of language -> implies stable presence of ability - children are more likely to lie in this case to maintain their smart reputation