Poster #143 - Parental Honesty Attitudes and Children’s Prosocial and Antisocial Lie-telling

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Parenting by lying is a common practice used by parents to control child behavior. Previous studies have found that adults whose parents encouraged honesty and did not ‘parent by lying’ during childhood tend to lie less often (Santos et al., 2017). Thus, the home honesty environment and attitudes appear to be important in fostering (dis)honest behaviors. To date, the literature has largely focused on antisocial lying and lacks research on how parents’ attitudes towards honesty impact both prosocial and antisocial lying during adolescence, an important developmental period for developing healthy relationships. The aim of the present study was to examine the frequency of antisocial and prosocial lying from late childhood to early adolescence, and how these types of lies relate to parents’ honesty attitudes and perceptions of their child’s lying.

Method. Children (N = 352, grade 3 to 8, Mage = 10.73) were asked how often they lied to their parents about something important (antisocial lie) and to make someone else feel good (prosocial lie). Parents (N = 352, 27-58 years, Mage = 41.68) reported on their perceived frequency of their child’s prosocial and antisocial lie-telling as well as their honesty attitudes including: how often they lied to their child about something important, how often they discuss the consequences of dishonesty (and honesty), whether they think they can detect their child’s lies, and if it is sometimes okay to lie.

Prosocial Lies. Sixty-four percent of children reported telling prosocial lies, whereas 72% of parents reported that their own child told prosocial lies. Prosocial lie-telling was found to significantly increase with grade, b = .24, t = 6.31, p < .001, and was predicted by parent reports of their child’s antisocial lie-telling, b = .32 t = 3.01, p = .003, and parents’ self-reported lie-detection accuracy, b = -.21, t = 2.61, p = .009. When examining home honesty attitudes, parents’ discussion of the consequences of lie-telling, b = -1.07, t = .213, p = .034, and an interaction between grade and parents’ opinion that it is sometimes okay to lie (Figure 1), b = .09, t =2.18, p = .020, significantly predicted children’s prosocial lie-telling.

Antisocial Lies. Forty percent of children reported telling antisocial lies, whereas 60% of parents reported that their own child told antisocial lies. Antisocial lie-telling was found to significantly increase with grade, b = .15, t = 4.17, p < .001. When examining home honesty attitudes, grade interacted with talking about the results of being honest (Figure 2), b = .73, t = 2.10, p = .009.

Taken together, these findings indicate that prosocial and antisocial lie-telling increases from late childhood to early adolescence. However, home honesty attitudes were significantly related to children’s reported rates of lie-telling, suggesting that how parents discuss (dis)honesty in the home can influence lie-telling rates, particularly for older children. Overall, these results provide evidence of the influence of moral discussions of honesty on older children and adolescent lie-telling behaviors.

Authors

• Victoria W Dykstra, Brock University
  Presenting Author

• Teena Willoughby, Brock University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Angela D Evans, Brock University
  Non-Presenting Author