Parental Control and Warmth Moderates the Relationship between Children’s Lying and Early Mental Understanding

• In Event: Deception as theory of mind in action: Developmental and methodological considerations

Abstract

Past research has consistently established an association between false-belief understanding and young children’s lying behaviour. However, research on the role of more rudimentary aspects of theory of mind (ToM) and social-environmental factors on children’s lying behaviour remains scant. Previous studies show that children engage in lying before attaining false-belief understanding, thus suggesting that less complex aspects of ToM, such as diverse beliefs and knowledge access, may aid children in telling lies (Leduc et al., 2017; Ma et al., 2015). Beyond cognitive factors, social-environmental factors such as parenting are also likely to influence children’s lie-telling (Talwar & Crossman, 2011). Specifically, while ToM allows children to tell lies, their decision to do so may depend on the level of parental warmth or control they experience. To expand the existing literature, the present study proposed two aims: (1) establish the relation between early ToM and children’s lying behaviour, and (2) examine the influence of parenting on the relation between ToM and children’s lying behaviour.
Children’s initial lie-telling and semantic leakage control were assessed using the temptation resistance paradigm, in which children were told not to peek a toy while they were left alone. Children’s ToM was assessed using Wellman and Liu (2004) ToM scale and change-of-location false belief task. Parental control and parental warmth were assessed using a direct observation of parent-child interactions during a ten-minute period where they were asked to play a puzzle-solving game. The final sample consisted of 116 Singaporean children (51% males, M = 59 months, SD = 12.5 months, range = 37 to 83 months). The ethnicities of the participants were: 81.0% Chinese, 6.0% Malay, 2.6% Indian, and 10.3% Others.
Results revealed that early ToM was related to children’s initial lie-telling and semantic leakage control. Crucially, parental control was found to moderate the relationship between ToM and initial lie-telling (see Figure 1). Children who had parents with high levels of parental control were more likely to lie if they passed the early ToM tasks (χ2(8) = 16.82, Nagelkerke R2 = .27, p = .032). In addition, parental warmth moderated the relationship between ToM and semantic leakage control (see Figure 2). Children whose parents were high in parental warmth were less likely to further maintain their initial lie despite having advanced ToM (F(8, 67) = 2.90, p = .008, R2 = .17). In contrast, children whose parents were low in parental warmth were more likely to further maintain their lie as their ToM understanding increased. These findings provided preliminary support for the role of early ToM in children’s lying behaviour. Additionally, the results also suggest that the role of cognitive factors in children’s lie-telling should not be considered in isolation from social factors. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Authors

• Shu Juan Goh, National University of Singapore
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cleo Tay, National University of Singapore
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ryan Y. Hong, National University of Singapore
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xiao Pan Ding, National University of Singapore
  Presenting Author