| In five studies I investigated children's lie-telling behaviour in different social situations. Children's ability to successfully lie by regulating their verbal and non-verbal display rules was also examined as well as the relation between children's understanding of lies and their actual lie-telling behaviour. In the first study I report that children as young as 3 years of age tell lies to conceal a transgression but the combined results of children's semantic and non-verbal leakage control suggest that they are not skilled lie-tellers. In the second study I found that while most children demonstrate appropriate knowledge and moral evaluations of lying, the majority of children also lied to conceal their transgression. However, promising to tell the truth significantly reduced lying. In study three, I found that most children told the truth about their parent's transgression even when coached. Similar to the second study children's truth-telling about their parent's transgression increased when they promised to tell the truth and there was a limited relationship between children's moral understanding and their lie-telling behaviour. In study four, I found that children will also tell lies in a politeness situation about another person's appearance. Results showed that despite subtle non-verbal clues, children's lies could not be detected. In the final study, I demonstrated that children's white lie-telling behaviour generalizes to other politeness situations such as receiving an undesirable prize. Children told white lies for prosocial reasons as young as 3 years of age. However, they were poor at non-verbal leakage control and revealed their disappointment. Together this evidence suggests that (a) children as young as 3 tell lies for self and others; (b) children are not skilled lie-tellers as they reveal their lies in their verbal and non-verbal expressive behaviour; (c) there is little relationship between children's moral understanding and their actual lie-telling behaviour. |
