Child Development - 2010 - Xu - Lying and Truth Telling in Children From Concept To Action

14678624, 2010, 2, Downloaded from https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01417.x by Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Wiley Online Library on [23/01/2023].
See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Child Development, March/April 2010, Volume 81, Number 2, Pages 581–596
Lying and Truth-Telling in Children: From Concept to Action

Fen Xu Xuehua Bao
BNU State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Zhejiang University
Learning
Genyue Fu Victoria Talwar

Zhejiang Normal University McGill University
Kang Lee
University of Toronto and University of California, San Diego
Although there has been extensive research on children’s moral knowledge about lying and truth-telling and
their actual lie- or truth-telling behaviors, research to examine the relation between these two is extremely
rare. This study examined one hundred and twenty 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds’ moral understanding of lies and
their actual lying behaviors in a politeness situation. Results revealed that as age increased, children increas-
ingly evaluated others’ lying in politeness situations less negatively and were more inclined to tell lies in such
situations themselves. Contrary to previous findings, children’s sociomoral knowledge about lying was signif-
icantly related to their actual behaviors, particularly when children’s rationales underlying their moral judg-
ments were consistent with their motives for actual lie- or truth-telling in the politeness situation.
Lying is a common social phenomenon. It occurs some situations prosocial lies are not only socially
regularly in various social contexts for a multitude acceptable but also are not lies at all.
of purposes. For children, there are two types of There has been extensive research on the devel-
lies that are of great importance during their social- opment of lying that dates back to the beginning of
ization. One type is the lies that violate moral rules developmental psychology (e.g., Binet, 1896; Dar-
as they are typically told to benefit oneself at the win, 1877; Piaget, 1932). This long-standing interest
expense of others. As a result of the antisocial nat- in this topic is a result of the fact that lying can
ure of this type of lie, it is universally discouraged serve as a window into many aspects of children’s
by children’s caregivers and teachers from a very developing minds, for example, intelligence (Binet,
early age. The other type of lies are those that are 1896; Lewis, 1993), theory of mind (Chandler, Fritz,
told with an intention to help, not harm, another & Hala, 1989; Leekam, 1993; Peskin, 1992; Peterson,
individual (e.g., faking liking an undesirable gift in 1995; Peterson, Peterson, & Seeto, 1983; Polak &
front of a gift-giver) and are thus prosocial in nat- Harris, 1999; Sodian, 1991; Talwar, Gordon, & Lee,
ure. Although philosophers and theologians have 2007), moral understanding (Piaget, 1932), personal-
long debated about whether prosocial lies should ity and character formation (Hartshorne & May,
be morally sanctioned (Bok, 1978), in everyday 1928), and children’s competence as witnesses in
practice, such lies are told frequently (DePaulo & the courts of law (Goodman et al., 2006; Lyon, 2000;
Bell, 1996; DePaulo & Kashy, 1998) and often entail Strichartz & Burton, 1990; Talwar, Lee, Bala, &
positive values (Nyberg, 1993). Some theorists such Lindsay, 2002, 2004; for a review, see Lee, 2000).
as Sweetser (1987) have even suggested that in
Research on Antisocial Lying
This study was supported by grants from NIH (R01
HD048962), the University of California Pacific Rim Program, To date, most studies have focused on the devel-
and the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada to K. opment of antisocial lies and can be divided into
Lee.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Kang Lee, Institute of Child Study, 45 Walmer Road, Toronto, 2010, Copyright the Author(s)
Ontario, Canada M5R 2X2. Electronic mail may be sent to Journal Compilation 2010, Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
[email protected]. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2010/8102-0014
14678624, 2010, 2, Downloaded from https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01417.x by Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Wiley Online Library on [23/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
582 Xu, Bao, Fu, Talwar, and Lee
two major streams. One stream investigates chil- rules are concerned with uniformities that define
dren’s conceptions and moral judgments of antiso- social expectations regarding appropriate behaviors
cial lies. Extensive research has revealed that within a specific society and serve functions of
children from very early on are taught explicitly or social coordination. Typically, these rules deal with
implicitly about the negative moral implications individuals’ social thoughts and actions in their
associated with antisocial lies. They are also respective domains. For example, moral rules pro-
strongly discouraged from telling this type of lie hibit killing of another human being, whereas social
(Cameron, Chen, & Lee, 2001; Wilson, Smith, & conventional rules may require one to dress prop-
Ross, 2003). Perhaps for this reason, the conceptual erly at a formal social gathering.
understanding of antisocial type of lies emerges as Politeness, however, cuts across both domains.
early as 3 years of age (Siegal & Peterson, 1998; Tal- In the politeness situation, one must assess, and
war et al., 2002). With regard to children’s moral reason about, the applicability of various moral and
judgments of lying, evidence shows that even pre- social conventional rules to take a morally and
schoolers understand that antisocial lies entail neg- socially appropriate action. More significantly, the
ative moral implications (Bussey, 1992, 1999; politeness situation brings to the fore the inherent
Talwar et al., 2002). contradictions in the rule system in either the moral
The other stream of research, pioneered by Binet or social conventional domains, respectively. In the
(1896), Darwin (1877), and Hartshorne and May moral domain, the concern for others’ well-being
(1928), examines children’s lying behavior for trick- and the need to avoid harm should motivate one to
ery, personal protection, or benefit (Chandler et al., tell a prosocial lie (e.g., ‘‘I really like your gift’’ or
1989; Lewis, Stanger, & Sullivan, 1989; Peskin, 1992; ‘‘You look great in that dress’’) rather than telling
Polak & Harris, 1999; Talwar & Lee, 2002a). It has the blunt truth (e.g., ‘‘I do not like your gift’’ or
been found that even preschoolers tell lies with ‘‘You look fat in that dress’’). However, lying, or
intent to deceive (Chandler et al., 1989; Peskin, making a false statement with an intent to deceive,
1992). Young child lie-tellers are generally skilled in has long been considered to be a serious moral
masking their nonverbal behaviors (e.g., making transgression by philosophers and theologians,
eye contact while lying; Lewis et al., 1989; Talwar such as St. Augustine (1952), Kant (1949), and Bok
& Lee, 2002a) but poor at concealing their decep- (1978), because lying impinges on the lie recipient’s
tion in their verbal statements (e.g., blurting out the right to information and freedom of choice (Grice,
name of a toy that they claimed not to have peeked 1980; Krupfer, 1982). Children have also been
at: Polak & Harris, 1999; Talwar & Lee, 2002a, 2008; socialized to take this view of lying from very early
Talwar, Gordon, et al., 2007). on in life (Cameron et al., 2001; Wilson et al., 2003).
In the social-conventional domain, there are also
contradictory rules concerning interpersonal com-
Research on Prosocial Lying
munication, particularly in the case of politeness
In contrast to the extensive literature on antiso- are clearly demonstrated. On one hand, Grice
cial lying, there is very limited research on the (1980) suggested that one of the most fundamental
development of lie-telling for politeness purposes. conventions governing interpersonal communica-
Research on this issue should offer a unique per- tion is the Maxim of Quality. This maxim requires
spective for understanding social development in speakers to inform, not misinform, their communi-
children owing to the multifaceted nature of pro- cative partners, which is commonly assumed to be
social lie-telling. More specifically, to take an appro- the case when individuals enter into a conversation.
priate action in a politeness situation, one must Prosocial lies clearly flout this maxim. On the other
assess, and reason about, both moral and social hand, Lakoff (1973) proposed that interpersonal
conventional rules regarding interpersonal interac- communications must also adhere to the Rule of
tion. Turiel and his colleagues (Helwig & Turiel, Politeness that requires speakers to be amicable to
2002; Nucci & Turiel, 2000; Smetana & Turiel, 2003; their communicative partners. In the politeness sit-
Turiel, 2002) have found that moral and social con- uation, this rule calls for individuals to not tell the
ventional rules are distinctive domains in the realm blunt truth to establish or maintain an amicable
of social life and social thought. Moral rules are relationship with another.
concerned with what is right and what is wrong as The existing evidence suggests that many adults
well as regulating how individuals ought to behave have little difficulty in resolving the conflicts
toward each other based on the principles of wel- evoked by the politeness situation. Typically,
fare and justice. In contrast, social conventional they allow that the need to be polite and to avoid
Lying 583
hurting others overrides the need to be truthful. In the third study, Talwar, Murphy, and Lee
For this reason, adults not only endorse prosocial (2007) used a disappointing gift paradigm to exam-
lies (Lee & Ross, 1997) but tell them regularly ine children’s prosocial lie-telling. Children played
(DePaulo & Bell, 1996; DePaulo & Kashy, 1998). In a game where they were promised a gift from a gift
contrast, for children, the politeness situation poses basket that contained a range of different toys and
a challenge to children who are still in the process gifts. After the task, children received an undesir-
of acquiring moral and social-conventional rules of able gift of soap instead of a toy and were ques-
their society. Resolving conflicts between these tioned by the gift-giver about whether they liked
rules places additional demands on them. Although the gift. In this situation, children had to reconcile
the politeness situation may be a challenge for their desire for a better gift with the competing
developing children, it offers a naturalistic opportu- social and moral requirement to be polite. When
nity for developmental researchers to understand asked if they liked the gift, the majority of children
whether children are capable of making strategic told the gift-giver untruthfully that they liked the
trade-offs when facing social situations where rules disappointing gift, despite having told their parents
are in conflict as well as how they select and apply that they did not like the gift. School-aged children
rules adaptively in different social situations. were more likely to lie than were preschool chil-
To date, there are only three studies that have dren. However, this study also did not systemati-
examined children’s actual behavior in a politeness cally probe children’s justifications for their lies.
situation. Talwar and Lee (2002b) used a Reverse Thus, it is again not clear whether some children
Rouge task in which the experimenter had a con- were more motivated to lie for self-protection (e.g.,
spicuous mark of lipstick on the nose. The child avoiding negative responses from the gift-giver if
was asked to take a picture of the experimenter, the truth was told) or to be polite and protect the
but before the picture was taken, the experimenter gift-giver’s feelings.
asked, ‘‘Do I look okay for the picture?’’ Results In contrast to the paucity of research on chil-
showed that 89% of children between 3 and 7 years dren’s actual prosocial lie-telling behaviors, there is
of age stated that the experimenter looked okay. some, albeit limited, research on children’s concep-
However, when the experimenter left, children told tual understanding of prosocial lies. With regard to
another adult that the experimenter actually did children’s concept of prosocial lies, Lee and Ross
not look okay. Thus, the researchers concluded that (1997) found that adolescents aged between 12 and
young children can tell prosocial lies in a politeness 14 years and college students were less inclined to
situation. However, because children were not classify untruthful statements as lies when told
probed about why they told such a lie, it is unclear with the intent to help another individual than
whether the children in the study considered the when told to harm. Their results confirmed Sweet-
contradictory rules evoked by the situation when ser’s (1987) theoretical contention that untruthful
deciding to lie. Furthermore, among the children statements deliberately told to help another indi-
who lied, it was unclear as to whether they told lies vidual and to be polite may not be considered lies.
to spare the feelings of the experimenter (a proso- In contrast, Bussey (1999) reported that most chil-
cial lie) or to avoid potential negative consequences dren aged between 4 and 11 years classify all types
if the truth was told (a self-protective lie). of untruthful statements as lies regardless of their
In another study (Fu & Lee, 2007), Chinese chil- anti- or prosocial nature. This finding suggests a
dren aged between 3 and 6 years were asked to rate possible developmental change in terms of the con-
pictures that were poorly drawn by confederates. cept of prosocial lies during adolescence.
Most children, except for the youngest ones, gave With regard to moral judgments, Bussey (1999)
the drawings more positive ratings in front of the found that children during preschool and elemen-
confederates than when the confederates were tary school years tended to give negative ratings to
absent. Thus, like Western children, Chinese pre- prosocial lies. Nevertheless, beginning from 4 years
schoolers appeared also to refrain from telling the of age, their ratings of prosocial lies were not as
blunt truth to others (i.e., the pictures were poorly negative as those given to trickery or antisocial lies.
drawn). However, because the children were not Broomfield, Robinson, and Robinson (2002) further
probed about their motivation for inflating their rat- found that children aged between 4 and 9 years
ings, it is not clear whether they did so for the ben- would suggest that a story character should tell a
efit of the confederate (e.g., sparing the feelings of lie about liking an unwanted gift to make the giver
the confederate) or for themselves (e.g., avoiding believe the gift was liked. The children also judged
negative consequences if the truth was told). that the gift-giver would be happy when hearing
the lie. The results of Broomfield et al. (2002) were truthful and thus tell the truth. Alternatively, indi-
replicated in China (Zeng, 2004). However, Walper viduals could interpret the hypothetical situation to
and Valtin (1992) found that children only began to be concerned with the need to the truthful but the
give prosocial lies positive evaluations at the end of real-life situation to be concerned with the need to
the elementary school years. These findings taken be polite and to avoid hurting another. In both
together suggest that children’s conceptual under- cases, a disconnection between conceptual knowl-
standing of prosocial lies begins in preschool years edge and action results.
and develops throughout the childhood. They Thus, to examine empirically the relation
appear to be able to consider the contradictory between children’s conceptual knowledge about pro-
rules evoked by the politeness situation when eval- social lie-telling and their actual lying behavior, two
uating prosocial lies, but only in late childhood do methodological measures must be taken. First, one
children appear to allow the need to be polite and must examine children’s interpretations of hypo-
avoid hurting another’s feelings override the need thetical politeness stories that are used to assess
to be truthful. It should be noted that this conclu- their understanding of prosocial lie-telling. Second,
sion is tentative because these studies did not probe one must also obtain children’s interpretations of
children about the underlying rationales for their their own actions in the politeness situation. Such
evaluations. methodological measures were not taken in the pre-
No studies have examined the relation between vious studies, which leaves gaps in our knowledge
children’s conceptions of prosocial lie-telling and about: (a) the age at which children begin to under-
their actual lying behavior. Research on the general stand the politeness situation to be a situation
relation between children’s social and moral con- where one needs to consider the need to be truthful
ceptions and their actual behaviors is of significant and the need to be polite and avoid hurting
importance because the ultimate purpose of sociali- another, (b) the age at which they begin to tell lies
zation is to ensure that children not only know for prosocial reasons, and most importantly, (c)
morally what is right or wrong and conventionally whether children’s conceptual understanding of
what is appropriate or inappropriate, but that they prosocial lie-telling is related to their actual behav-
also act accordingly. Existing studies with children iors in the politeness situation. This study was con-
and adults concerning Kolhbergian moral dilem- ducted to bridge the gap in the literature and to
mas as well as antisocial lying have shown either address these three important questions.
weak or no linkages between individuals’ moral In the present study, we assessed 7-, 9-, and 11-
knowledge and moral action (Arnold, 1989; Blasi, year-old Chinese children’s conceptual understand-
1980; Talwar et al., 2002, 2004; Thoma & Rest, ing of prosocial lie-telling and blunt truth-telling in
1986). Multiple theories have provided a variety of a politeness situation. The three age groups were
explanations as to why individuals fail to act chosen because existing studies have shown that
according to their conceptual knowledge about children’s conceptual knowledge about prosocial
moral or social rules (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004; lie-telling appears to undergo systematic changes
Crick & Dodge, 1994; Huesmann, 1998; Rest, 1986; during this period (e.g., Broomfield et al., 2002;
Walker, 2002), including situations involving Bussey, 1999; Walper & Valtin, 1992; Zeng, 2004).
aggression (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Huesmann, 1998) Also, this developmental trend appears to be simi-
or prosocial behaviors (e.g., Rest, 1986). A major lar between Western and Chinese children (see
factor contributing to this disconnection is the dif- Broomfield et al., 2002; Zeng, 2004). The Chinese
ference in the interpretation of hypothetical situa- children were read stories in which story characters
tions used to assess moral and social knowledge and encounter politeness situations (e.g., receiving an
interpretations of actual situations that call for mor- undesirable gift). The story characters either made
ally and socially appropriate behavior. This is partic- truthful or untruthful statements. Children were
ularly true for situations where contradictory moral asked to classify the statements as lies or truths.
and social rules may apply. For example, in a Also, they were asked to evaluate the statements
politeness situation, individuals may interpret the either positively or negatively and to justify their
need to be polite and to avoid hurting another to be ratings. Children were also asked to respond to
the primary concern and thus advocate hypotheti- control stories in which a story character receives a
cally that one should tell a prosocial lie in such a desirable gift and likes it and tells the truth or lie
situation. However, when encountering the same about it. The use of these control stories was to
situation in reality, they may interpret the situation ensure that children’s categorizations and moral
to require only for the fulfillment of the need to be judgments of lie- or truth-telling about undesirable
Lying 585
gifts would not be simply responses to truthful and the concerns for politeness and avoidance of hurt-
untruthful statements in general. ing others motivated both their evaluations and
Furthermore, we placed the children in a real-life their actions.
situation where they themselves must decide
whether to tell the truth or lie. In this situation,
children were given an undesirable gift and then Method
asked by the gift-giver whether they liked the gift.
Participants
This method was a modified version of the undesir-
able gift paradigm pioneered by Saarni (1984) and A total of 120 Chinese children participated:
Cole (1986) to examine children’s expressive dis- forty 7-year-olds (M = 7.30 years, SD = 0.19; 20
play rule use, and adapted for examining children’s boys), forty 9-year-olds (M = 9.18 years, SD = 0.14;
lie-telling by Talwar, Murphy, et al. (2007). The 20 boys), and forty 11-year-olds (M = 11.21 years,
undesirable gift situation was chosen because this SD = 0.13; 20 boys). The children were recruited
is a situation that occurs commonly in children’s from a large elementary school of close to 1,000 stu-
lives (e.g., receiving a poorly fitting knitted sweater dents in a southeastern city in P.R. China (popula-
from grandparents as a birthday gift), and children tion: 10 million). The school was chosen because it
are socialized from early on to dissemble their true was highly representative of an elementary school
feeling of disliking in such situations. Indeed, from in the city in terms of its ethnic composition as well
4 years of age, children are already able to dissem- as parental income, occupation, and educational
ble their nonverbal (Cole, 1986; Saarni, 1984) or ver- levels according to the school records. Student
bal behaviors (Talwar, Murphy, et al., 2007) to admission to the school was determined by the
appear pleased about receiving an undesirable gift. location of the neighborhood where the children
Given the previous findings, we expected chil- and their family lived rather than other criteria
dren in our study would also dissemble verbally (e.g., parental professional standing, job affiliation,
and tell the gift-giver a prosocial lie that they liked or the child’s scores of entrance examination). The
the undesirable gift. This tendency to lie would neighborhood from which the children came was
increase with age. With regard to children’s concept highly diverse in terms of parental income, occupa-
of prosocial lie-telling, based on the results of Bus- tion, and educational levels. The children were Han
sey (1999) and Lee and Ross (1997), we predicted Chinese, which represents 98% of the population in
that children in general would classify untruthful the city and 90% of the P.R. China population. We
statements told for prosocial purposes as lies and did not measure the socioeconomic status of the
this tendency would decrease with age. With participants’ family because no reliable and accu-
regard to children’s evaluations of prosocial lie-tell- rate measures were available. The children were
ing, based on the results of Bussey (1999) and Wal- selected from their classes based on the following
per and Valtin (1992), as age increased, children factors: guardian consent, home classroom teacher’s
would be more inclined to rate prosocial lies less consent, the children’s own verbal assent, and the
negatively than lies told for nonprosocial reasons. requirement to balance the numbers for boys and
Also, with increased age, children would increas- girls per age group.
ingly weigh the relative importance of being truth-
ful versus being polite and avoiding hurting
Materials and Procedures
another when making evaluations and use the lat-
ter rather than the former to justify their ratings. Children were seen individually in a quiet room
Finally and most importantly, a significant relation in their school. They participated in two sessions:
between children’s conceptions of prosocial lies One session examined whether children would tell
and their actual behavior was expected. We a prosocial lie (undesirable gift procedure), and the
hypothesized that this possible relation can be other assessed children’s conceptual understanding
established when children’s motives for their of lies and truths in politeness situations (moral
actions are consistent with the rationales underly- story procedure). The two sessions were separated
ing their moral judgments. For this reason, after by 10 days and counterbalanced between subjects.
children in this study told either the truth or a lie, Half of the children participated in the undesirable
they were asked about the reasons for their actions. gift procedure first followed by the moral story pro-
We expected that the relation between children’s cedure, and the other half did the opposite.
conceptual understanding of prosocial lie-telling Moral story procedure.. Experimenter 1 introduced
and their actual behavior would be stronger when herself as a student teacher from a local university
and read children four stories accompanied by pic- Xiao Qiang received the book, she found she
tures. Before beginning the stories, children were already had this book at home. She already
first trained about how to use a 7-point Likert scale. knew the book very well and wanted to read
The positive, neutral, and negative ratings were a new book. So Xiao Qiang didn’t like the gift
symbolized by red stars, a circle, and black crosses that the teacher gave to her. The teacher asked
as follows: very very good (three stars), very good Xiao Qiang, ‘‘Do you like the book?’’ Xiao
(two stars), good (one star), neither good nor bad (a Qiang answered, ‘‘No, I don’t like it.’’
circle), bad (one cross), very bad (two crosses), and 3. Control lie-telling story: The teacher knew that
very very bad (three crosses). Children’s verbal many students in the class would celebrate
responses were then converted into a 7-point their birthdays. Today is Xiao Hao’s birthday.
numeric scale from )3 to 3 with 3 representing very So she gave Xiao Hao an eraser as a birthday
very good, 0 representing neither good nor bad, and gift. Xiao Hao received the eraser and thought
)3 representing very very bad. it looked cute. He liked the eraser. The teacher
In the stories, a child protagonist interacted with asked Xiao Hao, ‘‘Do you like the gift?’’ Xiao
a teacher from the school. The stories were modi- Hao said to the teacher, ‘‘No, I don’t like the
fied from those used in the previous studies on pro- eraser.’’
social lie-telling (Bussey, 1992; Lee & Ross, 1997; 4. Control truth-telling story: The teacher brought
Walper & Valtin, 1992). In one story, a child some landscape color pictures from home as a
receives a gift that he dislikes but tells his teacher, gift to give to the students in the class. Li Li
the gift-giver, that he likes the gift (the prosocial thought these pictures were beautiful. Li Li
lie-telling story). In the second story, a child was a representative of the class and went to
receives an undesirable gift and tells the teacher the the office to turn in the students’ homework
truth (the blunt truth-telling story). In the third after class. The teacher wanted to know if the
story, a child receives a desirable gift but states students liked the pictures. She had asked
falsely that she does not like the gift (the control many of her students, but hadn’t asked Li Li.
lie-telling story). In the fourth story, a child receives So the teacher stopped Li Li and asked, ‘‘Do
a desirable gift and states truthfully that she likes you like the picture I give you?’’ Li Li said,
the gift (the control truth-telling story). Existing ‘‘Yes, I like it.’’
studies (e.g., Bussey, 1992; Talwar et al., 2002) have
consistently shown that children from preschool After being told each of the stories, the partici-
years tend to rate lying depicted in the control pants were asked the following questions: (a)
lie-telling story very negatively and truth-telling in Question 1 (categorization question): ‘‘Is what XXX
the control truth-telling story very positively. (the name of the protagonist) said a lie or not a
Children’s ratings for these two stories thus could lie?’’ (If the participant replied ‘‘not a lie,’’ they
be used to be compared to their ratings for the pro- were asked ‘‘Is what XXX said the truth or not
social lie-telling and blunt truth-telling stories, truth?’’); (b) Question 2 (moral evaluation ques-
respectively. The presentation of the stories was tion): ‘‘Is what XXX said very very good, very
counterbalanced across subjects. The moral story good, good, neither good nor not bad, bad, very
procedure lasted about 10 min. bad, or very very bad?’’ Children were asked to
The actual stories are described in the following. indicate their responses on the Likert scale they
had been trained on. Finally, children were asked
1. Prosocial lie-telling story: This is Ming Ming. to justify their ratings (rating justification
He did very well in a math competition. His question): ‘‘Why do you think it is XXX (the
teacher gave him a pencil box as a gift. But child’s rating)?’’
Ming Ming already had many pencil boxes at The coding system of children’s justifications
home. He did not want any more of this kind was developed in the following manner. First, the
of pencil box. So Ming Ming didn’t like the potential types of responses were obtained based
gift his teacher gave him. The teacher asked on the reports and discussions of the several exist-
him: ‘‘Do you like the pencil box?’’ Ming ing studies (Bussey, 1999; Peterson et al., 1983; Wal-
Ming said: ‘‘Yes, I like it very much.’’ per & Valtin, 1992). Second, all types of responses
2. Blunt truth-telling story: The final exam was provided by participants were reviewed by the
finished and Xiao Qiang did very well. The research team members to obtain additional types
teacher gave a book to Xiao Qiang as a gift of responses if any existed. Third, because partici-
when she distributed the grade report. When pants did not provide a diverse array of justifications,
Lying 587
the final coding system only contained the follow- the second test and give them the gift if they also
ing types of response categories. The first type passed the second test.
referred the need to be polite and protect another After the participants’ own teacher entered the
person’s feelings as justification (politeness justifica- room, the experimenter left. The teacher adminis-
tion; e.g., ‘‘It is not polite if I say I don’t like it’’ or tered a digit span test similar to the subscale in
‘‘It would not be nice’’ or ‘‘It would be embarrass- Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth
ing’’). The second type made reference to the need Edition (WISC). Based on the norms of the WISC,
to be truthful (honesty justification; e.g., ‘‘He didn’t only those test items that were known to be easy
like it’’ or ‘‘You should tell the truth’’). The third for the participants’ age were chosen. After all the
type made reference to both politeness and honesty participants passed the second test, the teacher said
justifications (both justifications; e.g., ‘‘Saying liking to the children: ‘‘You did very well on both tests, so
it will make the teacher feel better, but it is lying’’). I am going to give you a gift.’’ She pointed to the
We also created an ‘‘other’’ category for responses gift items in the gift box and said: ‘‘The student tea-
(e.g., ‘‘I don’t know’’) that did not fall into one of cher bought some of the gifts (pointing to the
the three categories. Two graduate students who attractive ones). I bought these gifts (pointing to the
were naı̈ve to the hypotheses of the study were unattractive ones). Let me give you the one I
trained to code children’s responses according to bought as a gift.’’ Then, she handed over an unat-
these categories. tractive gift to the child. After the child had the
Undesirable gift procedure.. In the procedure, chil- opportunity to inspect the gift, the teacher asked:
dren were seen individually by Experimenter 2 in a ‘‘Do you like the gift I have given to you?’’ (Liking
quiet room in their school. The child’s teacher intro- Question 1).
duced the experimenter as a student teacher from a After the children received the gift and
local university. The experimenter brought children responded to the Liking Question 1, the experi-
to a quiet room in their school. She told the partici- menter returned. The teacher told the experimenter
pants that they were going to take two memory that the children did very well on the second test
tests. If they did well on both tests, they would and therefore received a gift (pointing to the gift).
receive a gift selected from a gift box. Children She also informed the experimenter whether the
were shown each item from the box. They were children said that they liked the gift or they did
ball-point pens, stickers, coloring books, flash cards, not like the gift. The teacher then made an excuse
and pencils. Pilot testing showed that school-aged and left the room. At this point, if children said
children liked the attractive and colorful pens, that they liked the gift, the experimenter asked the
stickers, and coloring books, but disliked the plain- children: ‘‘I just heard that your teacher said that
looking flash cards and pencils. Children were you told her you liked this gift but you told me
asked which item they would like to receive as a earlier that you didn’t like the gift. So, do you
gift and which they would not like to receive (the really like the gift or not?’’ (Liking Question 2). If
Gift Preference Assessment). Consistent with the the children responded that they did not like the
findings of the pilot study, no child liked the flash gift, the experimenter asked: ‘‘Why did you tell
cards and pencils. Upon identifying the liked and your teacher you liked the gift?’’ (action justifica-
disliked gift items, children were told that they tion question). If the children responded directly
would receive the gift item they liked the most if to their teacher that they did not like the gift, the
they passed the tests. Then, the experimenter teacher also informed the experimenter of the chil-
administered a short-term memory test (a subtizing dren’s response. After the teacher left, the experi-
task) in which a number of pencils were shown menter also asked the children to justify their
briefly and children were asked to report how response: ‘‘Why did you tell your teacher you
many pencils they saw. To ensure all children suc- didn’t like the gift?’’ After this question, the chil-
ceed in the test, the number of pencils shown was dren were told that they could exchange their gift
smaller than what would be expected to be remem- if they wished to do so. All children opted to do
bered by children at the same age as the partici- so. They were thanked for their participation in
pants, which was determined by pilot testing. After the study. The undesirable gift procedure lasted
all participants passed the test, they were praised. about 10 min. All experimenters and teachers were
The experimenter told the children that she just women. They were trained about how to carry out
remembered that she had to finish unspecified the procedures prior to interviewing children. The
business and had to leave the room for a few min- experimenters were randomly assigned to be
utes. Their own teacher would have to administer Experimenter 1 or 2.
The children’s responses to the ‘‘why’’ question prosocial lies as lies, and 100% categorized the
were coded according to a coding system devel- untruthful statements in the control lie-telling story
oped ad hoc based on the responses because no as lies. Also, 98% categorized the blunt truths as
previous studies had coded such responses. Once the truth, and 100% categorized the truthful state-
the research team members reviewed the responses, ment in the control truth-telling story as the truth.
it became clear that although children who told the Figure 1 shows the means and standard errors of
truth consistently made reference to the need to be 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds’ moral evaluations of the
truthful or made a statement of the fact (e.g., ‘‘You truthful or untruthful statements made by the story
should tell the truth’’ or ‘‘I don’t like it’’), among characters (i.e., their responses to the moral evalua-
children who told a lie to conceal their disliking of tion question). An omnibus 2 (truthfulness: truth
the undesirable gift, some were not motivated to lie vs. lie) · 2 (setting: prosocial vs. control) · 3 (age:
out of prosocial concerns. Thus, the following cate- 7, 9, and 11 years) analysis of variance (ANOVA)
gories emerged for the children who lied: (a) the was performed on the moral evaluation data for the
prosocial lie-tellers who justified their lying by truth- and lie-telling stories.
referring to the need to be polite or to avoid hurting Age, truthfulness, and setting main effects were
the feelings of their teacher, and (b) nonprosocial significant, F(2, 117) = 3.12, p < .05, g2 = .05; F(1,
lie-tellers who gave a variety of responses unrelated 117) = 264.82, p < .0001, g2 = .69; and F(2, 117) =
to prosocial concerns such as referring to the need 14.25, p < .0001, g2 = .11, respectively. Children
to avoid negative consequences to themselves (e.g., overall gave positive ratings to truth-telling and
the teacher being angry at them if truth be told) or negative ratings to lie-telling. Also, children’s
deserving the gift even though they did not like it, ratings changed with age and setting. The mean
or other miscellaneous responses unrelated to effects were qualified by significant Age · Truthful-
politeness (e.g., ‘‘I don’t know’’ or ‘‘I can find ness and Truthfulness · Setting interactions, F(2,
another use for it’’). The same two graduate stu- 117) = 3.57, p < .05, g2 = .06, and F(1, 117) = 106.95,
dents were trained to categorize children into three p < .0001, g2 = .49, respectively. These effects were
categories: blunt truth-tellers, prosocial lie-tellers, qualified by a significant Age · Truthfulness · Set-
and nonprosocial lie-tellers based on whether the ting interaction, F(2, 117) = 5.15, p < .001, g2 = .08.
children told the truth or lie and their responses to Simple effect tests with Sidak adjustments for mul-
the ‘‘why’’ question. tiple comparisons were performed to examine the
significant three-way interaction. This effect was
because of the fact that 7-year-olds were signifi-
cantly different from 9- and 11-year-olds, whereas
Results
the two older groups’ ratings of blunt truth-telling
In the following, we will first report results about did not differ from each other. Seven-year-olds
children’s knowledge of lie- and truth-telling as
assessed by the moral story procedure, followed by
results about children’s actual lie- or truth-telling Very Very 3
Good
behavior in the undesirable gift procedure, and
finally results about the relations between chil- 2
Mean Moral Evaluation Scores
dren’s knowledge and behavior. Preliminary analy- 7 Years

ses revealed that the order of the moral story 9 Years
1
procedure and undesirable gift procedure and the 11 Years
sex of participants did not significantly affect the

0
results of this study. Thus, the data for these two
factors were combined for the subsequent analyses.
–1
Moral Story Procedure

–2
Children’s classifications of the statements made
by the story characters as lies or truth or neither Very Very –3
(i.e., their responses to the categorization question) Bad Prosocial Lie- Control Lie- Blunt Truth- Control Truth-
Telling Story Telling Story Telling Story Telling Story
were analyzed using multiple chi-square analyses.
Neither the age group nor the story type effect was Figure 1. Means and standard errors of children’s positive and
significant. Overall, 98% of the children categorized negative evaluations of the story characters’ statements by age.
Lying 589
gave significantly more positive ratings to blunt 13.02, p < .001, odds ratio = 9.80, respectively.
truth-telling than older children. In contrast, no age Thus, 9-year-olds were 6.18 times, and 11-year-olds
differences were found for control truth- and lie- were 9.8 times, more likely to use the both justifica-
telling and prosocial lie-telling. Overall, they gave tion than 7-year-olds. No significant age differences
very positive ratings to control truth-telling and were found for the politeness justification.
very negative ratings to control lie-telling. They Another multinomial logistic regression analysis
gave significantly less negative ratings to prosocial was performed with the age as the predictor and
lie-telling than control lie-telling. the type of justifications (politeness, honesty, and
With regard to children’s justifications of their both) for the blunt truth-telling story as the pre-
evaluations, overall, participants did not provide a dicted. The model (i.e., the age effect) was signifi-
diverse array of justifications. For the control lie- cant, v2(4, N = 120) = 24.68, p < .001, Nagelkerk
and truth-telling stories in which the protagonist R2 = .21. A priori comparisons with the honesty
receives a desirable gift, all children justified their response type as the reference for the predicted
ratings to the former by referring to the negativity variable category and 7-year-olds as the reference
of dishonesty and the latter by referring to the posi- for the predictor variable category were performed.
tivity of honesty (the interrater reliability was As shown in Table 1, 11-year-olds, but not 9-year-
100%). Owing to the ceiling effect, the explanation olds, used significantly more of both justifications
data were not analyzed further. For the prosocial for their moral evaluations than did the 7-year-olds,
lie-telling and blunt truth-telling stories, the inter- b = 2.53, Wald = 15.02, p < .001, odds ratio = 12.55.
rater reliability was also high, js = .93 and .85, In contrast, no significant age differences were
respectively. The children’s justifications fell into found for the politeness justification.
three types of responses: politeness justification, Two hierarchical linear regression analyses were
honesty justification, and both justification (see performed with children’s moral evaluation scores
Table 1). No children gave ‘‘I don’t know’’ of prosocial lies and blunt truths as the predicted
responses. variable and age entered first as a predictor fol-
A multinomial logistic regression analysis was lowed by the type of justifications, which was
performed with the age as the predictor and the dummy coded as Predictor 1 (both vs. the other
type of justifications (politeness, honest, and both) two responses) and Predictor 2 (honesty vs. the
for the prosocial lie-telling story as the predicted. other two responses). After partialing out the effect
The model (i.e., the age effect) was significant, v2(4, of age, the type of justifications was significantly
N = 120) = 19.41, p < .01, Nagelkerk R2 = .17. A pri- related to children’s moral evaluation scores for
ori comparisons with the honesty justification type prosocial lies and blunt truths, Fchange(2,
as the reference for the predicted variable category 116) = 30.67, R2change = .34, p < .001, and Fchange(2,
and 7-year-olds as the reference for the predictor 116) = 15.69, R2change = .20, p < .001, respectively.
variable category were performed. As shown in Regardless of age, those children who used the
Table 1, 9- and 11-year-olds used significantly more both response to justify their ratings tended to give
the ‘‘both’’ justification for their moral evaluations positive ratings to prosocial lies (M = 0.45, SD =
than did the 7-year-olds, b = 1.82, Wald = 6.18, 1.54) and negative ratings to blunt truths (M = –
p < .01, odds ratio = 9.90, and b = 2.28, Wald = 0.49, SD = 1.27). Those children who used the
politeness response to justify their ratings gave
moderately negative ratings to both prosocial lies
Table 1 (M = –0.30, SD = 1.81) and blunt truths (M = –0.10,
Percent (Frequency) of Types of Justifications Made by Children at SD = 1.38). In contrast, those children who used the
Each Age Group About Their Moral Judgments honesty response to justify their ratings gave highly
Politeness Honesty Both
negative ratings to prosocial lies (M = )1.53, SD =
0.81) but highly positive ratings to blunt truths
Prosocial lie-telling (M = 1.31, SD = 1.50).
7 years 20 (8) 70 (28) 10 (4)
9 years 20 (8) 43 (17) 38 (15)
11 years 10 (4) 38 (15) 53 (21) Children’s Truth- or Lie-Telling Behaviors in the
Blunt truth-telling Undesirable Gift Procedure
7 years 30 (12) 60 (24) 10 (4)
Children were coded as lie-tellers if they
9 years 33 (23) 48 (19) 20 (8)
responded to their own teacher that they liked the
11 years 15 (6) 28 (11) 58 (23)
gift she gave them (i.e., the Liking Question 1) but
told the experimenter that they really did not like 100
the gift (i.e., the Liking Question 2). If they 90
responded that they did not like the gift to both
questions, they were coded as blunt truth-tellers. 80
7 Years
Forty percent of 7-year-olds, 50% of 9-year-olds, 70 9 Years
and 60% of 11-year-olds were categorized as lie-tell- 11 Years
% of Children
60
ers. A binary logistic regression analysis was per-
formed with the age as the predictor and the child 50
behavior (lie-telling vs. blunt truth-telling) as the
40
predicted. The model (i.e., the age effect) was sig-
nificant, v2(2, N = 120) = 10.72, p < .001, Nagelkerk 30
R2 = .12. A priori comparisons with the 7-year-olds 20
as the reference showed that 11-year-olds, but not
9-year-olds, differed significantly from 7-year-olds 10
in terms of their tendency to tell a lie in the polite- 0

ness situation, b = 1.62, Wald = 9.02, p < .05, odds Blunt Truth-Telling Prosocial Lying Nonprosocial Lying
ratio = 5.17 (11-year-olds were statistically 5.17
times more likely to lie than 7-year-olds). Figure 2. Percentage of prosocial lie-tellers, nonprosocial lie-
tellers, and blunt truth-tellers by age.
With regard to children’s responses to the ques-
tion as to why they told the truth or lied, among
the truth-tellers, their responses were highly simi- the children who told a nonprosocial lie did not
lar. All of them either cited that they must tell the change with age. However, as age increased, more
truth or simply said that they just did not like the children told prosocial lies. Among the prosocial
gift. They were all coded as blunt truth-tellers by lie-tellers, 11- but not 9-year-olds differed signifi-
the two independent coders. Among the lie-tellers, cantly from 7-year-olds in terms of their tendency
one group of children were coded as prosocial lie- to tell a lie for prosocial purposes, b = 1.67, Wald =
tellers because they justified their lying by referring 4.13, p < .05, odds ratio = 4.75. That is, 11-year-
to the need to be polite or the potential negative olds were statistically 4.75 times more likely than 7-
impact of their statement on the lie recipient if year-olds to tell a prosocial lie.
truth was told. Another group of lie-tellers (12 chil-
dren in total) justified their lies by referring to the
Relations Between Children’s Behavior and Moral
need to avoid negative consequences to themselves
Judgments
(e.g., the teacher being angry at them if truth be
told). Yet another group of lie-tellers stated that A 3 (age: 7, 9, and 11 years) · 3 (child behavior:
they deserved the gift even though they did not prosocial lie-telling, nonprosocial lie-telling, and
like it (5 children in total). Another group (5 blunt truth-telling) ANOVA was performed on
children in total) simply said: ‘‘I don’t know.’’ The children’s moral evaluation scores of the prosocial
rest gave miscellaneous responses unrelated to lie-telling story (see Table 2). Only the child behav-
politeness (e.g., ‘‘I can find another use for it’’). ior effect was significant, F(2, 111) = 3.76, p < .05,
These children who gave these nonprosocial justifi- g2 = .06. A priori contrast with prosocial lie-telling
cations were coded as nonprosocial lie-tellers. The as the reference showed that both blunt truth-tell-
intercoder reliability was high, j = .88. Figure 2 ing and nonprosocial lie-telling children’s moral
shows the percentages of the three groups of chil- evaluation scores were significantly more negative
dren per age group. than those of the prosocial lie-telling children (ps =
A multinomial logistic regression analysis was .025 and .013, respectively).
performed with age as the predictor and the child Another 3 (age: 7, 9, and 11 years) · 3 (child
behavior (blunt truth-telling, prosocial lie-telling, behavior: prosocial lie-telling, nonprosocial lie-tell-
and nonprosocial lie-telling) as the predicted. The ing, and blunt truth-telling) ANOVA was per-
model (i.e., the age effect) was significant, v2(4, formed on children’s moral evaluation scores of the
N = 120) = 11.27, p < .05, Nagelkerk R2 = .10. A pri- blunt truth-telling story. The effects of both age and
ori comparisons were performed with 7-year-olds child behavior were significant, F(2, 111) = 4.78,
as the reference for the predictor variable and the p < .05, g2 = .08, and F(2, 111) = 8.06, p < .01,
blunt truth-tellers as the reference for the predicted g2 = .13, respectively. For the significant age effect,
variable. As shown in Figure 2, the proportion of a priori contrast with 7-year-olds as the reference
Lying 591
Table 2 the honesty and politeness issues when judging the

Means (Standard Deviations) of Children’s Positive or Negative Evalu- prosocial lie story were more inclined to tell a pro-
ations of the Story Characters’ Statements by Age and Behavioral Type social lie than those who focused solely on either
(Minimum Score = )3, Maximum Score = 3)
honesty or politeness. Consistent with this result,
Prosocial Control Blunt Control those children who gave the politeness justifications
Behavior lie-telling lie-telling truth-telling truth-telling for their moral judgment scores of the prosocial
type story story story story lie-telling story were equally likely to tell prosocial
lies, nonprosocial lies, or the blunt truth.
Blunt truth-tellers Another multinomial logistic regression analysis
7 years )1.29 (1.12) )1.58 (0.72) 1.25 (1.29) 2.13 (0.80) was performed with the child behavior as the pre-
9 years )0.25 (1.77) )1.45 (1.50) 0.40 (1.50) 2.20 (0.77)
dictor and the type of justifications for the blunt
11 years )0.87 (1.09) )1.75 (1.07) 0.19 (1.56) 2.37 (0.96)
truth-telling story as the predicted. The model was
Prosocial lie-tellers
7 years 0.33 (1.51) )1.00 (0.63) 0.83 (1.47) 2.17 (0.75) also significant, v2(4, N = 120) = 31.72, p < .001,
9 years 0.00 (2.16) )1.00 (2.00) )1.10 (1.29) 1.70 (1.16) Nagelkerk R2 = .26. A priori comparisons with pro-
11 years )0.37 (1.50) )1.68 (1.29) )0.63 (1.01) 1.68 (1.00) social lie-telling as the reference for the predictor
Nonprosocial lie-tellers and the politeness justifications as the reference for
7 years )1.20 (0.63) )1.50 (0.97) 1.10 (1.29) 2.30 (0.68) the predicted were performed. Those children who
9 years )0.50 (1.90) )2.20 (0.79) 0.60 (2.22) 2.10 (0.74) gave the both justification to their moral judgment
11 years )1.60 (2.19) )2.80 (0.45) 2.20 (1.30) 2.60 (0.55) scores of the blunt truth-telling story were signifi-
cantly (11.07 times) more likely to tell prosocial lies
than nonprosocial lies, b = 2.41, Wald = 10.24,
showed that 11-year-olds’, but not 9-year-olds’, p < .01, odds ratio = 11.07, and (9.09 times) more
moral evaluation scores of the blunt truth-telling likely to tell prosocial lies than the blunt truth,
story were significantly less positive than those of b = 2.21, Wald = 16.40, p < .001, odds ratio = 9.09.
the 7-year-olds (p < .05). For the significant child In other words, children who considered both the
behavior effect, a priori contrast with prosocial lie- honesty and politeness issues when judging the
telling as the reference showed that both blunt blunt truth-telling story were more inclined to tell
truth-telling and nonprosocial lie-telling children’s a prosocial lie than those who only focus on
moral evaluation scores were significantly more either honesty or politeness. Consistent with this
positive than those of the prosocial lie-telling chil- result, those children who gave the politeness jus-
dren (ps < .001 and .01, respectively). In other tifications to their moral judgment scores of the
words, those children who told a prosocial lie also blunt truth-telling story were equally likely to tell
tended to view blunt truth-telling in less a positive prosocial lies or nonprosocial lies or the blunt
light than the other two groups of children. truth.
To examine the relation between children’s
moral evaluation justifications (both, honesty, and
politeness) for the prosocial lie-telling story and the
Discussion
child behavior (blunt truth-telling, prosocial lie-tell-
ing, and nonprosocial lie-telling), a multinomial This study examined children’s prosocial lie-telling
logistic regression analysis was performed with the behavior in a politeness situation and its relation to
child behavior as the predictor and the type of justi- their moral understanding of lie- and truth-telling.
fications as the predicted. The model (i.e., the child Overall, almost all children were able to identify
behavior effect) was significant, v2(4, N = 120) = lies and the truth correctly in the story procedure.
15.36, p < .01, Nagelkerk R2 = .14. A priori Contrary to our hypothesis, no age differences were
comparisons with prosocial lie-telling as the refer- found. Unlike Lee and Ross (1997) who tested par-
ence for the predictor and the honesty justifications ticipants 12 years and above, but similar to Bussey
as the reference for the predicted were performed. (1999) who tested younger children, all the children
Those children who gave the both justification were in our study identified untruthful statements told
significantly (8.84 times) more likely to tell proso- with the intent to help another individual as lies.
cial lies than nonprosocial lies, b = 2.18, Wald = Our findings taken together with those of Bussey
9.02, p < .01, odds ratio = 8.84, and (3.13 times) (1999) suggest that young children do not adhere to
more likely to tell prosocial lies than the blunt the suggestion that prosocial untruthful statements
truth, b = 1.14, Wald = 5.85, p < .05, odds ratio = may not be lies at all (Sweetser, 1987). However, it
3.13. In other words, children who considered both may be that as children develop into adolescence
and adulthood their conceptions of prosocial lies (2007), who also found a significant increase in lie-
change (Lee & Ross, 1997). Future studies are telling between 3 and 11 years of age in a similar
needed to examine this possible developmental undesirable gift situation. However, because Tal-
shift in the conception of prosocial lies. war, Murphy, et al. did not probe children’s
The moral evaluation results are consistent with motives for lying, the extent to which their children
and complement previous findings (Bussey, 1999; truly told prosocial lies for prosocial purposes was
Walper & Valtin, 1992) that children’s evaluations not clear.
of prosocial lies become less negative between pre- Unlike Talwar, Murphy, et al. (2007), this study
school and elementary school age. Children in this questioned children’s motives for lying. When chil-
study, who were all elementary school age, gave dren were asked about why they had lied to the
less negative moral evaluations for prosocial lie-tell- teacher, a developmental difference emerged
ing than for control lie-telling. They also gave less between younger and older children. Although
positive ratings to blunt truth-telling than control most younger lie-tellers were motivated to lie for
truth-telling. In addition, whereas children between nonprosocial reasons such as to avoid negative con-
7 and 11 years of age similarly gave negative yet sequences for themselves (e.g., the gift-giver being
near-neutral ratings to prosocial lies, 7-year-olds mad at them), the majority of older lie-tellers were
were more likely to give positive ratings to blunt motivated to lie for prosocial reasons such as avoid-
truth-telling than 9- and 11-year-olds whose ratings ing hurting the feelings of the gift-giver. These find-
were at the neutral level. ings suggest that although the tendency for
This tendency to rate prosocial lie- and blunt children to tell a lie increases with age in the polite-
truth-telling around the zero point (neither good ness situation, their motives for telling such lies
nor bad) may reflect children’s increasing aware- also change with age, from more self-serving at the
ness of the fact that politeness situations involve younger age to more prosocial at the older age.
two contradictory sets of rules that must be Thus, the significant age effect seen in this study
weighed against each other. This is demonstrated and perhaps that in Talwar, Murphy, et al. reflects
by children’s justifications of their ratings. Older a developmental change in children’s tendency to
children were significantly more inclined than tell a truly prosocially motivated lie.
younger children to raise the issues of honesty and It should be noted that the rate of lying in this
politeness simultaneously when justifying their rat- study (50%) was substantially lower than the rate
ings of prosocial lies and blunt truths. Furthermore, of lying (about 80%) in situations where children
children who recognized both issues to be applica- tell lies to conceal their own transgression (e.g., Tal-
ble to the politeness situation were more inclined to war & Lee, 2002a). The exact nature of this discrep-
let the concern for politeness override the need to ancy is unclear. One possibility is that children’s
be truthful. As shown by the results of the multiple tendency to lie may be more significantly influ-
regression analyses, regardless of age, those chil- enced by their self-interests than by the need to
dren who used the both responses to justify their help others as suggested by Talwar et al. (2004).
ratings tended to rate prosocial lies positively and Consistent with this suggestion, they found that
blunt truth negatively. In contrast, those who used although most children aged between 3 and
the politeness justifications rated both prosocial lies 11 years refused to lie to conceal their parents’
and blunt truths moderately negatively, suggesting transgression, when their own responsibility for the
that they might be ambivalent about whether the transgression was absolved, approximately half of
concern for politeness should determine the appro- the children would lie for their parents. This possi-
priate course of action for the situation. Not sur- bility is also in line with the present finding that
prisingly, children who used the honesty more than half of the 11-year-olds and the majority
justifications gave prosocial lies highly negative rat- of the younger children told the truth so that they
ings whereas blunt truths were given highly posi- would not miss the opportunity to obtain a desir-
tive ratings. able gift. Furthermore, even among the children
In terms of children’s actual behavior in the who lied, more than a half of the 7- and 9-year-olds
politeness situation, 40% of 7-year-olds, 50% of 9- and 20% of the 11-year-olds lied for nonprosocial
year-olds, and 60% of 11-year-olds told a lie. They reasons.
told the gift-giver that they liked the undesirable Another major finding of our study is that
gift but later told the experimenter that they did children’s actual lying or truth-telling behaviors in
not really like the gift. The age pattern is generally the politeness situation were consistently related to
in line with the findings of Talwar, Murphy, et al. their moral evaluations and justifications of the
Lying 593
prosocial lie-telling or blunt truth-telling stories. and blunt truths. Blunt truth-tellers were also con-
Prosocial lie-tellers were more likely to rate sistent between their moral knowledge and behav-
others’ prosocial lie-telling more positively and ior as they evaluated prosocial lie-tellers highly
blunt truth-telling more negatively than did non- negatively and blunt truth-tellers highly positively,
prosocial lie-tellers and blunt truth-tellers. The and acted accordingly themselves. Blunt truth-tell-
same children also tended to mention both the ers appeared to identify both the undesirable gift
politeness and honesty rules when justifying their situation they themselves encountered and the
evaluations of a story character’s prosocial lie- same situation depicted in the stories as a situation
telling or blunt truth-telling in a politeness calling for honesty and thus displayed consistency
situation. These results suggest that the prosocial between moral knowledge and action.
lie-tellers were aware of both the need to be polite The present assessment of children’s justifica-
and to avoid hurting others as well as the need to tions to their moral judgments and the reports of
be truthful. Nevertheless, they decided to be polite their motives for their own actions not only high-
and therefore tell a prosocial lie themselves in light the importance of seeking out such informa-
the situation. These findings are inconsistent with tion for methodological purposes but also raise a
the existing studies with children that involved the theoretical question about children’s interpretative
Kolhbergian moral dilemmas or antisocial lying. theories of mind and action. Chandler and his col-
These studies tended to show either weak or no leagues (Chandler, Sokol, & Hallett, 2001; Chandler,
linkages between individuals’ moral knowledge Sokol, & Wainryb, 2000) have argued that chil-
and moral action (Arnold, 1989; Blasi, 1980; Talwar dren’s beliefs about rightness (i.e., morality) should
et al., 2002, 2004; Thoma & Rest, 1986). be studied together with their beliefs about mental
As mentioned earlier, the disconnection was life; the separation of the existing developmental
likely because of the mismatch between children’s research on the two issues is both incomplete and
interpretations of the two situations. One places arbitrary because beliefs about rightness are inti-
them in an everyday situation in which they must mately related to beliefs about mental states such as
choose an action. The other uses stories to depict a beliefs and intentions. This approach has received
situation about which they must make a moral eval- some empirical support. For example, Wainryb,
uation. Thus, to avoid this kind of mismatch and to Brehl, and Matwin (2005) examined children’s nar-
reveal a relation between children’s moral knowl- rative accounts and moral evaluations of their own
edge and action, we must directly assess children’s interpersonal conflicts with others. They found that
interpretations of both the situations. By implement- children gave qualitatively different interpretations
ing such a strategy in this study, we were able to when events were viewed from the victim’s or per-
identify two different types of lie-tellers: prosocial petrator’s perspectives, and hence different moral
and nonprosocial lie-tellers. Both types of children judgments. Although Wainryb et al. did not
lied in the undesirable gift situation but for different directly study children’s actual moral behavior,
reasons. Nonprosocial lie-tellers told a lie either out they suggested that ‘‘by integrating, within the
of fear or could not justify their lies and showed the study of moral development, children’s interpreta-
classic dissociation between moral knowledge and tions of the social interactions that are at the basis
action. They evaluated prosocial lies negatively and of moral thinking, this approach brings us a step
blunt truths positively but failed to act according to closer to conceptualizing the study of children’s
their moral knowledge. In contrast, prosocial lie- moral behavior’’ (p. 80).
tellers told a lie for politeness purposes and were The findings of this study suggest that this inter-
consistent in their knowledge and action because pretative approach may indeed be fruitful for
they not only told prosocial lies in the undesirable research on moral development in general and the
gift situation themselves but also evaluated such lies relation between children’s moral judgment and
positively and blunt truths negatively. actual action specifically (see also Arsenio & Leme-
It should be noted that these children were rise, 2004). Although this study revealed a signifi-
apparently aware that the concern for both polite- cant relation between children’s evaluations of
ness and honesty were applicable to the situation. prosocial lies and blunt truths and their actual
However, the concern for politeness seemed to play behavior, the relation was strengthened and clari-
a more significant role in prosocial lie-tellers’ deci- fied when both children’s justifications about their
sions to lie than the concern for honesty. Also, the evaluations and their own behavior were taken into
former seemed to override the latter when prosocial consideration. In particular, the relation was
lie-tellers made moral evaluations of prosocial lies strengthened when children showed an apprecia-
tion of two different perspectives based on the con- Bussey, K. (1999). Children’s categorization and evalua-
cerns for honesty and politeness. It should be tion of different types of lies and truths. Child Develop-
noted, however, that this study did not explicitly ment, 70, 1338–1347.
ask about children’s interpretations of the story Cameron, C. A., Chen, S., & Lee, K. (2001, October).
Actions speak louder than words: Chinese adults’ socializa-
characters’ beliefs and intentions in the moral judg-
tion of truth telling. Poster presented at Moving Toward
ment task nor their interpretations of the politeness
Moral Excellence Conference of the Association of
situation they themselves encountered (e.g., their Moral Education, Vancouver, Canada.
own beliefs as a lie- or truth-teller and the experi- Chandler, M., Fritz, A. S., & Hala, S. (1989). Small-scale
menter as a lie- or truth-recipient). Future studies deceit: Deception as a marker of two-, three-, and four-
need to take a genuine interpretative approach to year-olds’ early theories of mind. Child Development, 60,
ask these specific questions, which may reveal an 1263–1277.
even closer relation between children’s moral Chandler, M. J., Sokol, B. W., & Hallett, D. (2001). Moral
knowledge and behavior than what has been found responsibility and the interpretive turn: Children’s
in this study. changing conceptions of truth and rightness. In B. F.
In summary, this study examined school-aged Malle, L. J. Moses, & D. A. Baldwin (Eds.), Intentions
and intentionality: Foundations of social cognition (pp.
Chinese children’s moral understanding of lie- and
345–365). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
truth-telling and their actual lying behaviors in a
Chandler, M. J., Sokol, B. W., & Wainryb, C. (2000).
politeness situation. It revealed that children at all Beliefs about truth and beliefs about rightness. Child
ages categorized untruthful statements as lies and Development, 71, 91–97.
truthful statements as the truth regardless of Cole, P. (1986). Children’s spontaneous control of facial
whether they were told for prosocial or nonproso- expression. Child Development, 57, 1309–1321.
cial purposes. However, as age increased, children Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and refor-
became increasingly less negative and more posi- mulation of social information-processing mechanisms
tive about others’ lying in politeness situations, and in children’s social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin,
they were more inclined to tell lies in such situa- 115, 74–101.
tions themselves. Contrary to previous findings Darwin, C. (1877). A biographical sketch of an infant.
Mind, 2, 285–294.
(e.g., Talwar et al., 2002), children’s moral knowl-
DePaulo, B. M., & Bell, K. L. (1996). Truth and invest-
edge about lying was significantly related to their
ment: Lies are told to those who care. Journal of Person-
actual behaviors. ality & Social Psychology, 71, 703–716.
DePaulo, B. M., & Kashy, D. A. (1998). Everyday lies in
close and casual relationships. Journal of Personality &
Social Psychology, 74, 63–79.
References
Fu, G., & Lee, K. (2007). Social grooming in the kinder-
Arnold, M. (1989, April). Moral cognition and conduct: A garten: The emergence of flattery behavior. Developmen-
quantitative review of the literature. Paper presented at tal Science, 10, 255–265.
the Society for Research in Child Development, Kansas Goodman, G. S., Myers, J. E. B., Qin, J., Quas, J. A., Cas-
City, MO. telli, P., Redlich, A. D., et al. (2006). Hearsay versus
Arsenio, W. F., & Lemerise, E. A. (2004). Aggression and children’s testimony: Effects of truthful and deceptive
moral development: Integrating social information pro- statements on jurors’ decisions. Law and Human Behav-
cessing and moral domain models. Child Development, ior, 30, 363–401.
75, 987–1002. Grice, H. P. (1980). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge,
Binet, A. (1896). Psychology of prestidigitation. Annual MA: Harvard University Press.
Report of the Board of Regents of Smithsonian Institution, Hartshorne, H., & May, M. S. (1928). Studies in the nature
1894, 555–571. of character: Vol. 1. Studies in deceit. New York: Macmil-
Blasi, A. (1980). Bridging moral cognition and moral lan.
action: A critical review of the literature. Psychological Helwig, C. C., & Turiel, E. (2002). Children’s social and
Bulletin, 88, 1–45. moral reasoning. In P. K. Smith & C. H. Hart (Eds.),
Bok, S. (1978). Lying: Moral choice in public and private life. Blackwell handbook of childhood social development (pp.
New York: Random House. 476–490). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Broomfield, K. A., Robinson, E. J., & Robinson, W. P. Huesmann, L. R. (1998). The role of social information
(2002). Children’s understanding about white lies. Brit- processing and cognitive schema in the acquisition and
ish Journal of Developmental Psychology, 20, 47–65. maintenance of habitual aggressive behavior. In R. G.
Bussey, K. (1992). Lying and truthfulness: Children’s defi- Geen & E. Donnerstein (Eds.), Human aggression: Theo-
nitions, standards, and evaluative reactions. Child ries, research, and implications for social policy (pp. 73–
Development, 63, 129–137. 109). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Lying 595
Kant, I. (1949). On a supposed right to lie from altruistic Smetana, J. G., & Turiel, E. (2003). Moral development
motives. In L. W. Beck (Ed.), Critical of practical reason during adolescence. In G. R. Adams & M. D. Berzonsky
and other writings (pp. 346–350). Chicago: University of (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of adolescence (pp. 247–268).
Chicago Press. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Krupfer, J. (1982). The moral presumption against lying. Sodian, B. (1991). The development of deception in young
Review of Metaphysics, 36, 103–126. children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9,
Lakoff, R. (1973). The logic of politeness, or minding your 173–188.
P’s and Q’s. In Papers presented at the Ninth Regional St. Augustine. (1952). Treaties on various issues. Washing-
Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 292–305). ton, DC: Catholic University of America Press.
Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society. Strichartz, A. F., & Burton, R. V. (1990). Lies and truth: A
Lee, K. (2000). The development of lying: How children study of the development of the concept. Child Develop-
do deceptive things with words. In J. W. Astington ment, 61, 211–220.
(Ed.), Minds in the making (pp. 177–196). Oxford, UK: Sweetser, E. E. (1987). The definition of lie: An examina-
Blackwell. tion of the folk models underlying a semantic proto-
Lee, K., & Ross, H. (1997). The concept of lying in adoles- type. In D. Holland (Ed.), Cultural models in language
cents and young adults: Testing Sweetser’s folkloristic and thought (pp. 43–66). New York: Cambridge Univer-
model. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 43, 255–270. sity Press.
Leekam, S. (1993). Children’s understanding of mind. Talwar, V., Gordon, H., & Lee, K. (2007). Lying in the ele-
In M. Bennett (Ed.), The development of social cogni- mentary school years: Verbal deception and its relation
tion: The child as psychologist (pp. 26–61). New York: to second-order belief understanding. Developmental
Guilford. Psychology, 43, 804–810.
Lewis, M. (1993). The development of deception. In M. Talwar, V., & Lee, K. (2002a). The development of lying
Lewis & C. Saarni (Eds.), Lying and deception in everyday to conceal a transgression: Children’s control of expres-
life (pp. 90–105). New York: Guilford. sive behavior during verbal deception. International
Lewis, M., Stanger, C., & Sullivan, M. W. (1989). Deception Journal of Behavioral Development, 26, 436–444.
in 3-year-olds. Developmental Psychology, 25, 439–443. Talwar, V., & Lee, K. (2002b). Emergence of white-lie tell-
Lyon, T. D. (2000). Child witnesses and the oath: Empiri- ing in children between 3 and 7 years of age. Merrill-
cal evidence. Southern California Law Review, 73, 1017– Palmer Quarterly, 48, 160–181.
1074. Talwar, V., & Lee, K. (2008). Social and cognitive corre-
Nucci, L. P., & Turiel, E. (2000). The moral and the per- lates of children’s lying behavior. Child Development, 79,
sonal: Sources of social conflicts. In L. P. Nucci, G. G. 866–881.
Saxe, & E. Turiel (Eds.), Culture, thought, and develop- Talwar, V., Lee, K., Bala, N., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (2002).
ment (pp. 115–137). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Children’s conceptual knowledge of lie-telling and its
Nyberg, D. (1993). The varnishing truth: Truth-telling and relation to their actual behaviors: Implications for court
deceiving in ordinary life. Chicago: University of Chicago competence examination. Law and Human Behavior, 26,
Press. 395–415.
Peskin, J. (1992). Ruse and representations: On children’s Talwar, V., Lee, K., Bala, N., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (2004).
ability to conceal information. Developmental Psychology, Children’s lie-telling to conceal a parent’s transgres-
28, 84–89. sion: Legal implications. Law and Human Behavior, 28,
Peterson, C. C. (1995). The role of perceived intention to 411–435.
deceive in children’s and adults’ concepts of lying. Brit- Talwar, V., Murphy, S., & Lee, K. (2007). White lie-telling
ish Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13, 237–260. in children for politeness purposes. International Journal
Peterson, C. A., Peterson, J. L., & Seeto, D. (1983). Devel- of Behavioral Development, 31, 1–11.
opmental changes in ideas about lying. Child Develop- Thoma, S. J., & Rest, J. R. (1986). Moral judgment, behav-
ment, 54, 1529–1535. ior, decision making, and attitudes. In J. R. Rest (Ed.),
Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child (M. Gab- Moral development: Advances in research and theory (pp.
ain, Trans.). New York: Free Press. 133–175). New York: Praeger.
Polak, A., & Harris, P. L. (1999). Deception by young chil- Turiel, E. (2002). The culture of morality: Social development,
dren following noncompliance. Developmental Psychol- context, and conflict. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Uni-
ogy, 35, 561–568. versity Press.
Rest, J. R. (1986). Moral development: Advances in research Wainryb, C., Brehl, B. A., & Matwin, S. (2005). Being hurt
and theory. New York: Praeger. and hurting others: Children’s narrative accounts and
Saarni, C. (1984). An observational study of children’s moral judgments of their own interpersonal conflicts.
attempts to monitor their expressive behavior. Child Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Develop-
Development, 55, 1504–1513. ment, 70 (Serial No. 281).
Siegal, M., & Peterson, C. C. (1998). Pre-schoolers’ under- Walker, L. J. (2002). The model and the measure: An
standing of lies and innocent and negligent mistakes. appraisal of the Minnesota approach to moral develop-
Developmental Psychology, 34, 332–341. ment. Journal of Moral Education, 31, 353–367.
Walper, S., & Valtin, R. (1992). Children’s understand- Wilson, A. E., Smith, M. D., & Ross, H. S. (2003). The nat-
ing of white lies. In W. Winter (Series Ed.), R. J. ure and effects of young children’s lies. Social Develop-
Watts, S. Ide, & K. Ehlich (Volume Eds.), Politeness in ment, 12, 21–45.
language: Studies in history, theory and practice (pp. Zeng, H. Y. (2004). Effects of story context on children’s
231–251). Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs, white lie understanding. Master of Arts dissertation,
59. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. South China Normal University, P.R. China.

Child Development - 2010 - Xu - Lying and Truth Telling in Children From Concept To Action

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Child Development - 2010 - Xu - Lying and Truth Telling in Children From Concept To Action

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Child Development - 2010 - Xu - Lying and Truth Telling in Children From Concept To Action

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

14678624, 2010, 2, Downloaded from https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01417.x by Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Wiley Online Library on [23/01/2023].

Lying and Truth-Telling in Children: From Concept to Action

Genyue Fu Victoria Talwar

dren’s knowledge and behavior. Preliminary analy- 7 Years

sex of participants did not significantly affect the

Moral Story Procedure

in terms of their tendency to tell a lie in the polite- 0

Table 2 the honesty and politeness issues when judging the

You might also like