Poster #9 - The Morality of Young Liars

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

Lying shows dramatic developments during preschool, with 2.5-year-olds beginning to understand moral transgressions are wrong, 3-year-olds actively engaging in lying, and 4-year-olds accurately identifying honest/dishonest statements (Bussey, 1992; Evan & Lee, 2013; Smetana & Braeges, 1990; Stanger & Sullivan, 1989). Lying is dependent on developing cognitive abilities such as Theory of Mind (i.e., ToM, knowing one can tell a false statement that another may believe; Debey, et al., 2012; Talwar & Crossman, 2011) and executive function or EF (i.e., inhibiting an automatic response to tell the truth, using working memory to hold the truth in mind while creating the lie, and cognitive flexibility to consider both truth and lies, Debey et al., 2012; Evan & Lee, 2013). However, the majority of EF research focuses on inhibition’s influence on lying behavior, Talwar & Lee, 2012). We investigated whether ToM, language, and 3 components of EF (inhibition, working memory, and flexibility) were related to lying behavior, in addition to a novel component of understanding the moraltiy of lying.
Forty-eight 3-year-olds (M=3.49 years, 25 girls), 45 4-year-olds (M=4.41 years, 26 girls), and 37 5-year-olds (M=5.54 years, 13 girls) were presented with two vignettes focused on honesty (the character told the truth) and dishonesty (the character lied, Bussey, 1992). Children were asked whether the character lied to assess identification of honesty and rated the lie/truth statement (1=really good, 6=really bad) to assess their understanding of the morality associated with honesty (i.e., the truth is good and lying is bad). Children also completed a battery of tasks including a delay of gratification (inhibition), Dimensional Change Card Sort (cognitive flexibility), Backward Digit Span (working memory), false belief task (ToM) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test. In the delay of gratification task children were presented with an opportunity to lie about their behavior (e.g., say they didn’t peek when they did).
Pearson’s correlations (Table 1) showed that older children better identified honesty, dishonesty, and their associated morality. Children who better identified dishonesty and its associated morality had higher EF, ToM, and language skills. Children who better identified honesty had higher EF and language skills, however children’s understanding of the associated morality of honesty was negatively related to EF, ToM, and language. A subsample including children who had the opportunity to lie (those who peeked on the delay of gratification task, n=65) was examined. Lying behavior was not related to the ability to identify honesty/dishonesty, the moral understanding of honesty/dishonesty, EF, ToM, or language, rs<.19, p>.05, likely because of children who peeked a large portion (86.2%) lied.
Our study did not replicate EF and ToM links to lying behavior, likely due to the large number of liars once peeking was considered. Our study did reveal novel associations between EF, ToM and language to identification of lying and the moral understanding of lying, suggesting children draw on this cognition to judge moral transgressions. Finally, moral understanding of the truth was negatively related to EF, ToM, and language skills, perhaps because children may consider the transgression in their judgement.

Authors

• Tonya Vandenbrink, University of Mississippi
  Presenting Author

• Stephanie E. Miller, University of Mississippi
  Non-Presenting Author