Don't lie to your kids! Children are more likely to be dishonest if they discover their parents don't tell the truth
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Parents should be careful what they tell their children because lying to them can directly influence how honest they are, according to a study.
In fact, the more the children are lied to, the greater the chance of them also cheating and lying.
The results of the study suggest children are more inclined to lie if they discover adults have not been telling the truth - but the researchers aren't entirely sure why this is.
Parents shouldn't lie to their children (illustration shown) as this will encourage them to, in turn, lie more themselves, according to researchers. The study was carried out by the University of California in San Diego although an exact reason for the result isn't known
The study at the University of California tested 186 children aged three to seven in a temptation-resistance game.
CHILDREN CAN SPOT WHEN YOU'RE LYING AND HOLDING BACK DETAILS
Many adults will admit to telling white lies to children to make their lives a little easier.
But research has found children can spot this tactic, and can even tell when their parents or teachers are deliberately withholding information from them.
Once spotted, a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found children will then try to fill in the gaps in the information themselves.
Determining who to trust is an important skill to learn at an early age because so much of our knowledge about the world comes from other people, explained Hyowon Gweon, lead author of the paper which is published in the journal Cognition.
'When someone provides us information, we not only learn about what is being taught, we also learn something about that person. If the information is accurate and complete, then you might also trust that person in the future,' she said.
Approximately half of the children were lied to by a researcher, who said there was a huge bowl of sweets in the next room, but quickly confessed this was just a ruse to get the child to come and play a game.
The others were simply invited to play, with no mention of sweets.
The game asked children to identify character toys they couldn't see, by their sounds.
Sounds and toys were relatively easy to pair, although one sound was deliberately tricky: Beethoven's Fur Elise.
When the classical music was played, the researcher was called out of the room to supposedly take a phone call, leaving the children alone in the room for 90 seconds and tempting them to take a peek at the mysterious toy making that sound.
The children were explicitly asked not to peek.
On returning, the researcher also explicitly asked the children to tell the truth.
The five-, six- and seven-year-olds who had been lied to were both more likely to cheat, and then more likely to lie about having done so.
Leslie Carver, associate professor of psychology and human development in the University of California's San Diego Division of Social Sciences said: 'As far as we know, this is the first experiment confirming what we might have suspected - lying by an adult affects a child's honesty.'
About 60 per cent of the school-aged children who had not been lied to in the study peeked at the tricky temptation toy, and about 60 per cent of the peekers lied about it later.
Among those that had been lied to, those figures rose to nearly 80 per cent peeking and nearly 90 per cent of the peekers lying.
In the study, children were asked to identify well-known character toys (stock image pictured) they couldn't see, using their associated sounds. One of the toys was intentionally difficult to identify and the researchers found the children were more likely to cheat, and then say they hadn't cheated, if they'd been lied to earlier
However the study, published in the journal Developmental Science, doesn't know why.
'It could be the five- to seven-year-old children were simply imitating the behaviour modeled by the adult, or it could be they were making judgments about the importance of honesty to this adult,' said Professor Carver.
'Or, it could be more nuanced. Perhaps the children did not feel the need to uphold their commitment to tell the truth to someone who they perceived as a liar.'
But it didn't seem to make any difference to the pre-schoolers - they peeked and lied at about the same rates.
This may be because three- and four-year-olds don't have very sophisticated abilities yet, said the research team.
Professor Carver added: 'Even if it's expedient for an adult to lie, to get cooperation through deception, for example, or to get children to control their emotions, it's probably a bad idea in the long run.
'The actions of parents suggest that they do not believe that the lies they tell their children will impact the child's own honesty. 'The current study casts doubt on that belief. Even a little white lie might have consequences.'
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