Poster #77 - Lying to familiar and unfamiliar peers, theory of mind, and executive functioning in middle childhood

• In Event: Poster Session 20

Abstract

Introduction: Despite generous attention given to children’s decision to lie to an adult for personal gain, there is little evidence on how this behavior is employed in relation to peers. Indirect evidence comes from asking children to evaluate some stories regarding lying to friends (Perkins & Turiel, 2007) or from self-reports on the frequency of their lie-telling to friends (Dykstra et al., 2020). To our knowledge, there is no experimental evidence regarding school-age children’s propensity to lie to peers for self-serving purposes.
Aims and Method: The current study examined children’s decision to lie to familiar and unfamiliar peers in relation to their ToM (first- and second-order false belief understanding) and executive functioning (spatial working memory, inhibitory control, and shifting ability).
Participants were 75 school-age children (6-9 years; Mage = 90.67 months, SD = 6.63; 40 girls).
Children went through a new computerized “hide-and-seek” game called The Animated Cards Game, which was played with two peer opponents (see Fig. 1). For each round, the players consisted of a familiar peer and an unfamiliar peer. Across 4 rounds with 10 trials each, participants had to hide different cards displaying cartoon characters that the child liked (e.g., Scooby Doo) and others with cartoon characters they didn’t not like (e.g., Cruella) in one of the two available boxes. Participants had to prevent the other players from finding the cards that they liked, while directing them to the cards they didn’t like to win points. Consequently, four types of actions were possible to gain points (see Table 1).
ToM was measured using vignettes assessing first- and second-order false belief understanding (Wimmer & Perner, 1983; Perner & Wimmer, 1985). EF was evaluated using the Inhibition and Shifting task from NEPSY II (Korkman et al., 2007) and the Corsi Block task (Corsi, 1972).
Results: Preliminary results showed that children’s ToM and EF differently predicted the four types of misleading actions from the hide-and-seek game. The regression model predicting truth-telling was nonsignificant, F(6) = 0.55, R2 = .046, p = .76,. Children’s lie-telling was positively predicted by 1st order false belief understanding (β = 0.271, p = .037). 2nd order lying (i.e., telling the truth to deceive when the player didn’t trust them) was positively predicted by 2nd order false belief understanding (β = 0.425, p = .000) and negatively by the participants’ RT in the shifting task (β = -0.291, p = .017). Children’s decision to lie when the opponent didn’t trust them was positively predicted by 2nd false belief understanding (β = 0.299, p = .009) and spatial WM (β = 0.285, p = .022). Finally, children took significantly more time to tell a lie (M = 27.11 sec, SD = 10.75) than telling the truth (M = 24.07 sec, SD = 9.64) to win points when the opponent trusted them, F(1,74) = 4.2, p = .006, partial ƞ2 = .154.
Conclusion: These results represent preliminary evidence of children’s lie-telling to familiar/unfamiliar peers, demonstrating the importance of ToM and EF in carrying out this behavior.

Authors

• Narcisa Prodan, Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai
  Presenting Author

• Xiao Pan Ding, National University of Singapore

• Laura A. Visu-Petra, Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai