ERIC Number: EJ1065951
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-7240
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
To Lie or Not to Lie? The Influence of Parenting and Theory-of-Mind Understanding on Three-Year-Old Children's Honesty
Ma, Fengling; Evans, Angela D.; Liu, Ying; Luo, Xianming; Xu, Fen
Journal of Moral Education, v44 n2 p198-212 2015
Prior studies have demonstrated that social-cognitive factors such as children's false-belief understanding and parenting style are related to children's lie-telling behaviors. The present study aimed to investigate how earlier forms of theory-of-mind understanding contribute to children's lie-telling as well as how parenting practices are related to children's antisocial lie-telling behaviors (rather than prosocial lie-telling as examined in previous studies). Seventy-three three-year-olds from Hangzhou, P. R. China were asked not to peek at a toy in the experimenter's absence. The majority of children who peeked, lied about it. Children's lies were positively related to performance on the knowledge-ignorance theory-of-mind task. Additionally, Control parenting, characterized by high levels of monitoring and demanding, unquestioning obedience, was negatively related to three-year-olds' lying. The relation between Control parenting and lie-telling was partially mediated by children's theory-of-mind understanding. These findings suggest that children's early lie-telling behaviors are influenced by social and social-cognitive factors.
Descriptors: Theory of Mind, Parenting Styles, Deception, Antisocial Behavior, Toys, Child Behavior, Social Influences, Performance, Social Cognition, Foreign Countries, Toddlers, Parent Child Relationship, Task Analysis, Statistical Analysis, Preschool Children, Correlation, Questionnaires, Regression (Statistics)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A