Young children's lying and early mental state understanding

Abstract

The relation between children' lying behaviour and their mental state understanding was investigated among a group of 3-and 4-year-olds (total N = 97). Two types of lying were examined: concealing-transgression lying, which was assessed using a temptation resistance paradigm, and competitive game lying, which was assessed using a hide and seek paradigm. Mental state understanding was examined using a theory of mind scale that assessed children's understanding of diverse desire, diverse belief, knowledge access, false belief, and belief-emotion. After controlling for age and verbal ability, children's concealing-transgression lying was not related to any type of mental state understanding, whereas children's competitive game lying was significantly related to their understanding of diverse belief and beliefemotion. These findings provide evidence that the cognitive correlates of young children's lying can differ as a function of the specific type of lie.

Theory of mind, executive function, and lying in children: a meta‐analysis

“…First, most of the studies adopted the first‐order false belief task as a measurement of ToM ability. Only three studies examined the role of the other components of ToM (i.e., diverse desires, knowledge ignorance, and diverse beliefs; Lavoie et al, 2017; Ma et al, 2015; Sai et al, 2020). These three basic components of ToM may also play an important role in children to learning how to lie and lie successfully.…”

“…In order to tell follow‐up lies and maintain consistency with their initial lie, children must infer what false belief they themselves ought to have after their initial lie has instilled a particular false belief in the mind of the lie‐recipient (Talwar & Lee, 2008). In addition to these two hypotheses, some researchers have recently proposed that early ToM components, such as knowledge access or diverse beliefs, may help children to reason about the knowledge gaps between themselves and listeners, and thus should be related to initial lie‐telling (Leduc et al, 2017; Sai et al, 2018, 2020).…”

Other-Benefiting Lying Behavior in Preschool Children and Its Relation to Theory of Mind and Empathy

“…A Chinese version of the ToM Scale [ 27 ] was used to assess the children’s ToM understanding. The Chinese edition closely resembles the North American version, with the only difference being the substitution of character and object names with ones that resonate with Chinese children [ 32 ]. The scale includes six subtasks: Diverse Desires [ 33 , 34 ], Diverse Beliefs [ 35 ], Knowledge Access [ 36 ], False Belief [ 37 ], Belief–Emotion [ 38 ], and Hidden Emotion [ 39 ].…”

A Longitudinal Study of the Relations Between Theory of Mind, Executive Function, and Lying in Children

“…In line with this extended hypothesis, Ma et al (2015) and Leduc et al (2017) found evidence for the importance of knowledge access in children's lying in 2.5-to 3-year-old. In addition, Sai et al (2020) found evidence that both diverse belief and belief-emotion were positively correlated with children's lying in 3-year-old.…”

“…We hypothesized that children's ToM and EF would predict development of children's lying. Specifically, based on the two hypotheses, we expected that, children's ToM such as diverse belief, knowledge access, and false belief understanding would predict children's lying (e.g., Leduc et al, 2017;Fu et al, 2018;Sai et al, 2020), and we also expected that children's inhibitory control and working memory would predict children's lying (Hala and Russell, 2001;Talwar et al, 2017b).…”