Assessing the Legitimacy of Parental Lies: Children’s Judgements by Age and Type of Lie

• In Event: Parental Lies: Socialization, Legitimacy, and Consequences

Abstract

Introduction. Recent research has demonstrated that parents lie to their children frequently, and about a wide range of topics (Heyman et al., 2013). Recently, researchers have begun to examine the impact that these types of lies have on children’s development (Setoh et al., 2020). Yet, little is known about the ways in which children think about or judge parents’ lies, and even less is known about how or whether children differentiate among the various types of lies they are told.
Aim and method. This study addressed these gaps in our knowledge by examining children’s judgments about different types of parental lies. Seven-, 9-, and 12-year-olds (N = 106) assessed 8 vignettes in which parents lied to comparably aged children. Lies were of four types: Other-oriented white lies; Other-oriented prudential lies; Self-serving coercive lies; and Self-serving personal lies. In semi-structured clinical interviews, participants evaluated each lie in terms of its legitimacy and severity, and provided justifications for each evaluation.
Results. In general, children rejected parents’ lies judging them harshly, however, we found significant effects of both age and type of lie on these assessments. When combined, other-oriented lies were judged significantly more acceptable and less severe than self-serving lies across all ages. Participants’ judgements also varied significantly by type of lie, with Other-oriented prudential lies judged most acceptable (69%), followed by other-oriented white lies (52%), Self-serving personal lies (34%), and finally, self-serving coercive lies (0%). Judgments of severity followed the inverse pattern. These effects were qualified by a significant age×type of lie interaction. The oldest children were more accepting of self-serving personal lies than the youngest group. Likewise, the oldest group was significantly more accepting of other-oriented prudential lies than the youngest group.
Children’s justifications showed that they think of the four types of lies in different terms and bring different social concepts to bear on their evaluations of these lies. When rejecting parents’ lies, the vast majority of participants provided moral justifications related to trust, and the necessity of honesty. When approving of deception, lies were justified in significantly different ways. Other-oriented prudential lies were justified largely in prudential terms related to preventing children’s self-harm. Other-oriented white lies were justified for moral reasons, such as preventing embarrassment. Self-serving personal lies were judged legitimate for reasons of privacy and personal autonomy, whereas self-serving coercion lies were never accepted and never justified.
Conclusion. Rather than viewing parental lies in a single light or in a uniform way, our results demonstrate that children differentiate among types of lies when assessing their legitimacy. The findings also showed that children’s thinking about parents’ lies changes with age and that children increasingly coordinate honesty with competing priorities, a process that leads to greater acceptance of certain types of parental deception. This type of coordination between moral, prudential, and personal concepts indicates that children think about parental lying in increasingly sophisticated and nuanced ways and opens the door to future research on the impact of parenting by lying.

Author

• Matthew Gingo, Wheaton College
  Presenting Author