Deception in 3-year-olds.

Abstract

Children's ability to deceive was examined in order to determine whether they are able to hide their emotional expression intentionally. Three-year-oids were instructed not to peek at a toy while the experimenter left the room. When asked, the great majority either denied that they peeked or would not answer the question. Facial and bodily activity did not differentiate the deceivers from the truth tellers. Boys were more likely than girls to admit their transgression. These results indicate that very young children have begun to learn how to mask their emotional expressions and support the role of socialization in this process.

Emotion regulation and understanding: implications for child psychopathology and therapy

“…Children as young as 3 exhibit some use of display rules (e.g., Cole, 1986), with girls doing so more frequently than boys (e.g., Davis, 1995). Relatedly, children can ''hide'' their emotion by changing their facial expression as early as age 3 (e.g., Lewis, Stanger, & Sullivan, 1989). Additionally, temperament and emotion understanding appear to moderate the use of the display rules.…”

Liar, liar, working memory on fire: Investigating the role of working memory in childhood verbal deception

“…It is well-established that verbal deception is evident in children as young as three years old (Chandler, Fritz, & Hala, 1989;Fu, Evans, & Lee, 2012;Lewis, Stanger, & Sullivan, 1989; also Lee & Evans, in press, for a review). Lying abilities improve with age , with several researchers pointing to the development of false belief-understanding another's perspective, as one explanation for this improvement (Chandler et al, 1989;Polak & Harris, 1999;Talwar, Gordon, Lee, 2007;Talwar & Lee, 2008).…”

“…A commonly used paradigm to investigate verbal deception is the temptation resistance paradigm (Lewis et al, 1989;Polak & Harris, 1999). The researcher instructs the child not to look at a specific, and often desirable, object, such as a toy, placed behind the child's chair.…”

Tell-tale eyes: Children's attribution of gaze aversion as a lying cue.

“…Third, it is possible that children learn to associate avoidant gaze with lying from their direct experience of deception "in the playground." Although young children and adults do not appear to avoid mutual gaze when they lie (Kleinke, 1986;Lewis, Stranger, & Sullivan, 1989;Talwar & Lee, 2002), a recent study has found that 7-to 9-year-olds do display this behavior (McCarthy, Muir, & Lee, 2007). Accordingly, at 9 years old, children will have had greater opportunity to observe the co-occurrence of gaze aversion and lying in their peers than at 6 years old.…”