Parents’ Perceptions of Lie Telling in the Context of Sibling Relationships

• In Event: Parenting, family and moral development

Abstract

Research on children’s lie telling (LT) is extensive. Nonetheless, surprisingly little research exists on the social factors that may influence children's LT. A potentially important social influence on children’s LT is that of a sibling. Indeed, most children grow up with at least one sibling. While the presence of a sibling has been shown to be advantageous, there is also evidence to suggest that siblings can serve as models of antisocial behaviour. Lying is one of the earliest antisocial behaviors to emerge, but only two studies to date have examined the influence of siblings on children’s LT. However, these two studies investigated the mere existence of a sibling rather than aspects of the sibling relationship or family functioning that may influence LT in the sibling context.

The current study examines children’s LT in the context of sibling relationships. We are investigating how common LT is and the types of lies that children tell in the sibling context; whether sibling relationship quality is associated with sibling LT; and how parents socialize LT in the sibling context. Our online survey involves Canadian parents of multiple 5- to 12-year-olds completing modified versions of Malloy et al.’s (2019) Attitudes about Honesty and Dishonesty Scale (AHDS) and Furman and Buhrmester’s (1985) Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (SRQ). The AHDS was modified to focus on children’s LT in the context of sibling relationships and includes items about both prosocial and antisocial lies. The AHDS also includes questions about parents’ socialization of LT in the sibling context (e.g., how often do you ask your children to tell a lie to spare their sibling’s feelings?) The SRQ asks parents about the quality of their children’s sibling relationship.

Preliminary analyses revealed that prosocial lies in the sibling context (M = 20.44, SD = 6.32) occurred more frequently than antisocial lies in the sibling context (M = 13.44, SD = 4.66); although the frequency of prosocial lies was still moderate. Interestingly, sibling warmth (t = .71, p = .49) and agonism (t = 1.24, p = .24) scores were not associated with prosocial lies among siblings, or antisocial lies among siblings (t = -1.2, p = .23 and t = .33, p = .75, respectively). However, parents’ socialization of LT in the sibling context was associated with sibling prosocial LT, t = 4.65, p < .001, with parent socialization of LT explaining 57% of the variance in the frequency of children’s prosocial lies in the sibling context. Parent socialization of LT was not significantly associated with sibling antisocial LT, t = 1.92, p = .073. Further analyses on the full sample of approximately 150 parents will focus on antisocial and prosocial lies in the sibling context and whether the frequency with which siblings engage in both is related to sibling relationship quality and parents’ socialization of LT.

This study will advance understanding of an important but underexamined social influence on children’s dishonesty. It will also help researchers design paradigms that can be used to experimentally investigate sibling influences on children’s LT.

Authors

• Daniella Filoso, University of Ontario Institute of Technology
  Presenting Author

• Lindsay C Malloy, University of Ontario Institute of Technology
  Non-Presenting Author

• Angela D Evans, Brock University
  Non-Presenting Author