London - If your child tells fibs it may be your fault. Youngsters who have been lied to are more likely to cheat and lie themselves, a study has found.
Researchers warned that children were particularly likely to copy their parents – and said even white lies told with the best of intentions could backfire.
Almost 200 boys and girls aged between three and seven were asked to name character toys they could not see, purely from audio clips of sounds or catch phrases associated with them.
Half the children had simply been asked to take part while the others were tricked into entering the room for the test by being told they would be given sweets – only for the researcher to admit when they got there that this was a ruse.
The children stood with their back to a researcher who was holding the toys – for example, the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street for which the clue “I love cookies” was played. After a number of similarly easy clues, a piece of Beethoven with no link to a toy was played, at which point the researcher left the room, leaving the toy and telling the children not to turn round and peek. Hidden cameras recorded their actions and when the researcher returned they were asked if they had looked.
The older children who had been tricked into taking part were more likely to have given in to temptation and to lie about it.
About 60 percent of the five- to seven-year-olds who had not been lied to had looked at the toy – and about 60 percent of these denied doing so. However, almost 80 percent of those who had been tricked by the researcher peeked – and nearly 90 percent of those lied about it.
The researchers from the University of California, San Diego, said the youngsters could have simply being mimicking the adult. But it was also possible they felt less need to be honest, given that the researcher had been dishonest with them, said the journal Developmental Science.
The younger children weren’t influenced by the lie, perhaps because they were too young to realise they had been lied to and thought the researcher had just made a mistake about the sweets. – Daily Mail