Practice makes perfect? The impact of coaching and moral stories on children’s lie-telling

Abstract

Children ( n = 202; 4 to 7 years old) witnessed a confederate break a toy and were asked to keep the transgression a secret. Children were randomly assigned to a Coaching condition (i.e., No Coaching, Light Coaching, or Heavy Coaching) and a Moral Story condition (i.e., Positive or Neutral). Overall, 89.7% of children lied about the broken toy when asked open-ended questions about the event. During direct questions, children in the Heavy Coaching condition lied more than children in the No Coaching and Light Coaching conditions. Older children were influenced by both Heavy Coaching and Light Coaching, whereas younger children were influenced only by Heavy Coaching. Children in the Positive Story condition were less likely to maintain their lies than those in the Neutral Story condition. An interaction between Coaching and Moral Story conditions influenced lie-maintenance.

Can rapport building strategies, age, and question type influence preschoolers’ disclosures of adult wrongdoing?

“…For instance, Talwar, Lee, Bala and Lindsay () did not find age to be a significant predictor of secret‐keeping to protect a parent among children aged 3 to 11 years. Similar results were reported by Talwar, Yachison, Leduc and Nagar () regarding children 4 to 7 years of age who witnessed a research assistant (RA) break a toy. The researchers did, however, see qualitative differences in the content of the children’s accounts, where older children were more likely to use a cover story than younger children.…”

“…The researchers did, however, see qualitative differences in the content of the children’s accounts, where older children were more likely to use a cover story than younger children. This indicates that children’s secret‐keeping strategies might differ between developmental stages during early childhood (Talwar et al ., ).…”

“…Lastly, we intended to replicate and extend past findings regarding children’s disclosure tendencies in relation to different question types during the substantial phase of their interviews (e.g., Gordon et al ., ; Rush et al ., ; Talwar et al ., ). Using a funnel approach, the children were asked a free recall invitation, followed by more specific questions containing suggestive details about the target event.…”

“…For example, Gordon, Lyon, and Lee () reported that 82.2% of their child participants (4–12 years old) kept a secret for their parent about the breakage of a toy when asked “Tell me everything you did with mum or dad?.” When asked a more direct question about what happened to the toy, the rate of secret‐keepers dropped to 62.5%. Similarly, Talwar et al ., () found that 89.7% of their child participants (4–7 years of age) kept a secret about a broken toy when asked to report everything that happened. However only 44.8% maintained the secret throughout the interview after being asked more direct questions.…”

“…Hence, secret‐keeping through errors of omission (i.e., denial or omission of truthful information) is more common in experimental settings when children are asked initial open‐ended questions compared to more specific directive questions. This pattern has been found in studies were children are bystanders to the transgression (watching another person break a toy, e.g., Gordon et al ., ; Talwar et al ., ) as well as in studies were children are jointly implicated in the transgression (e.g., the child breaks a toy, e.g., see Lyon et al ., ; Rush, Stolzenberg, Quas & Lyon, ).…”