Children who tell blunt truths, such as “I don’t want this present – it’s ugly!” are viewed more negatively by adults than those who lie in order to be nice or protect others, according to new research published today.

The study, which was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Moral Education, shows how adults give children different messages about when to lie and when to tell the truth.

According to senior author Dr. Laure Brimbal of the School of Criminal Justice & Criminology at Texas State University, this research tends to suggest there exists a difficult relationship with the truth that kids must manage to learn what is socially acceptable.

“Most parents,” according to the author, “will have been embarrassed or upset by their children’s brutal honesty at some point. Learning to tell lies is a normal part of children’s social development.”

She continues, “Children are taught that lying is wrong, nevertheless they develop the ability to tell lies from an early age. To date, we know little about the mechanisms and processes that underlie the development and shaping of the critical social skill of prosocial lying, despite conflicting messages from adults about the acceptability of lying as opposed to truth-telling.

The findings of the study show “that children are learning about honesty in a quite complicated environment. It appears to be an important social skill to lie to fit in with other’s expectations,” the author adds, “but this is in despite of potential conflicting messages from their adult caregivers that it is wrong to lie… whilst in addition, it is sometimes is perceived as unkind to be honest.”

The findings come after 267 people from the Northeast United States were shown recordings of kids aged 6 to 15 telling the truth or lying in various social contexts.

In several situations, the 24 kids lied to protect others. For instance, a child lying about where their sibling was hiding when she was in trouble with the parents. Other times, kids lied out of politeness, such as when they told a “white lie” to spare someone’s feelings.

The kids acted out four different ‘blunt’ or ‘subtle’ lies or truths. For example, in the hiding sister scenario, the “blunt lie” was “She went to the library to do homework,” the “subtle truth” was “I think she might be outside,” the “subtle lie” was “I think she might have gone to bed or something,” and the “blunt truth” was “She’s under the porch.”

Following each video, the adults rated the child’s character, including trustworthiness, kindness, dependability, competency, likeability, intelligence, and honesty. Participants then rated how likely it would be for them to discipline or reward the kid for their lies or truths if they were the parent of the hypothetical child.

The results demonstrated that adults assessed forthright truth-tellers harsher than those who lied or gave hazy answers, but only when they lied to be nice. Telling outright lies or frank facts had less of an impact on how adults perceived children when they lied to protect others.

Overall, the study’s participants stated they would reward the kids the most for speaking “subtle truths” – like in the example of the sibling hiding – “I think she might be outside.”

The study’s findings present a nuanced picture of how adults view the lies that kids tell in an effort to blend in and have a good reputation. The results also provide insight into how these perceptions impact children’s learning to behave in a way that is acceptable to society—a process known as “socialization”—by examining which behaviors adults would praise or punish in children.

Dr. Brimbal continues, “Given the pervasive impact of socialization influences on children’s behavior, as well as the mixed messages children receive about lie-telling, it is little wonder that they engage in nuanced lie-telling from an early age.

“Our study illustrates the degree to which adults are inconsistent in their evaluations and self-reported behavioral responses to children of different ages who lie or tell the truth. Questions remain as to whether their in-person behavior would follow suit, but it is likely that these contradictory explicit and implicit messages about honesty and dishonesty act as socializing influences and shape children’s early behavior.”

This study had several limitations, including small sample size and individuals from a limited geographic area. However, there was a 50/50 female/male split and a wide range of races represented. The adults were also asked to judge how credible the youngsters were in order to determine whether their acting abilities were skewing the results.

The research’s subsequent steps will focus on determining how these early socialization processes impact children’s development of truth- and lie-telling as they mature

Image Credit: Getty

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