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... examine children's prosocial lietelling behavior in relation to cognitive abilities, a series of hierarchical logistic regressions were performed to measure whether executive functions were together or individually predictive of children's lie-telling. To test the linear relationship between the cognitive measures, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were calculated (Table 1). There was a significant positive relationship between theory of mind and Digit Span (r = .235), ...Context 2
... hierarchical logistic regression was conducted on children's lie-telling behavior with child age (continuous variable) on the first step and executive functions and theory of mind (second-order false belief understanding, Digit Span, and Color-Word Stroop) scores entered on the second step. Coefficients for the logistic regression are displayed in Table 1. Children's prosocial lietelling did not increase with age (Hypothesis 1), and greater second-order false belief understanding did not predict lie-telling behavior (Hypothesis 2). ...Similar publications
This study’s main objective was to determine whether the five-step theory of mind scale is associated with responses to behavioural inhibition tasks. The data collected for this were the responses to the scale given by Chilean children aged three to five from medium-low socioeconomic levels, and were derived from the changing locations, happy-sad S...
The present study examined the application of three cognitive theories—the Theory of Mind (ToM) deficit, the Theory of Executive Functions (EF) and Weak Central Coherence Theory (WCC)—in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). 9 children with ASD and 18 children of Typical Development (TD) participated in the study. According to the results,...
This study tested whether and how methods called ‘Play Time/Social Time’ and ‘I Can Problem Solve’ contribute to the improvement of social skills and the development of theory of mind (ToM) in children. The participants in the experiment were nearly 200 (N = 196) preschool children with low social functioning, with and without disabilities. The stu...
Substitute object pretense is one of the earliest-developing forms of pretense, and yet it changes considerably across the preschool years. By 3.5 years of age, children can pretend with substitutes that are highly dissimilar from their intended referents (Elder & Pederson, 1978), but even older children have difficulty understanding such pretense...
Flaws in the Theory of Mind are commonly associated to the Autism Spectrum Disorder, since autistic individuals are characterized by social deficits and pragmatic disabilities. However, pragmatic inadequacies may also appear in pathologies in which intellectual disability co-occurs. Objective To observe the performance of children and adolescents w...
Citations
... Because interventional deceptions are undertaken to protect another from being hurt, they might be considered prosocial ones. It is suggested that prosocial deceptions confront children with difficult moral dilemmas Williams et al. 2016). In other words, children must solve a conflict between contradictory social norms that oblige individuals to different behaviors. ...
... Such a hypothesis would be consistent with some study results on the links between prosocial deception and interpretative ToM (Cheung et al., 2016;Hsu & Cheung, 2013) and second-order ToM (Broomfield et al., 2002;Vendetti et al., 2019). Finally, false informing can also demand better executive functioning (e.g., inhibitory control), which again has been claimed to be related to understanding different types of lies Williams et al., 2016). Including some measures of more advanced ToM and executive function components in future studies, could shed more light on the issue. ...
Who lies to protect another? Motivational, behavioral, and socio-cognitive predictors of children's interventional deception The objective of the current study was to examine how the expected rewards, theory of mind, and false praise-telling relate to interventional deception that prevents moral transgression. A sample of 114 children aged 4-7 years participated in the study. The expected rewards ratio was a statistically significant predictor of interventional deception, with the children being most likely to deceive to prevent moral transgressions when the deception involved high personal gain. Overall, children who gave false praise and who passed the hidden emotion task were more likely to deceive than those who told another individual an unpleasant truth and failed the emotion understanding task. The results are discussed with respect to diverse developmental conceptions and studies on prosocial behaviors and sociocognitive and cultural factors involved in deception.
... At the same time, they become increasingly better at understanding emotions, and begin to realize that external and internal emotions may be different (Harris et al. 1986;Sidera et al. 2013). From the age of 6 years, children start to understand secondorder false beliefs (Miller 2009), which are connected to the ability to deceive and the growing capacity to understand non literal expressions such as lies (Talwar and Lee 2008), white lies (Williams et al. 2016) or ironies (Happé 1994). Between the age of 7 and adolescence, the capacity to understand and detect faux-pas will appear (Banerjee et al. 2011), as well as the capacity to recognize other complex mental states through the eyes ( Baron-Cohen et al. 2001). ...
... A relevant issue regarding EF and ToM is that most tasks used to evaluate EF are not pure, in the sense that they require other components aside from the one being evaluated (Brocki and Bohlin 2004;Miyake et al. 2000). For this reason, it might be reasonable to argue that the combination of working memory and inhibitory control produces a higher effect on ToM, as both components are relevant for ToM (Carlson et al. 2004;Hala, et al. 2003;Williams et al, 2016). ...
ToM is a complex cognitive process consisting of a variety of sequenced achievements that develops gradually from infancy to adulthood. In this field, part of the debate focuses on identifying how individual differences influence the development of ToM. Several recent studies have found a relationship between ToM development and executive functioning, emphasizing working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility or planning. In line with these results, the aim of this research was to explore the role of different aspects of executive functions in ToM. To achieve this, 90 children aged between 4 and 8 years were assessed in ToM and executive function tasks. We found that executive functions were related to ToM in different ways depending on the level of ToM. This supports the view that as ToM skills evolve there is a change in the executive skills that support them.
... At the same time, they become increasingly better at understanding emotions, and begin to realize that external and internal emotions may be different (Harris et al. 1986;Sidera et al. 2013). From the age of 6 years, children start to understand secondorder false beliefs (Miller 2009), which are connected to the ability to deceive and the growing capacity to understand non literal expressions such as lies (Talwar and Lee 2008), white lies (Williams et al. 2016) or ironies (Happé 1994). Between the age of 7 and adolescence, the capacity to understand and detect faux-pas will appear (Banerjee et al. 2011), as well as the capacity to recognize other complex mental states through the eyes ( Baron-Cohen et al. 2001). ...
... A relevant issue regarding EF and ToM is that most tasks used to evaluate EF are not pure, in the sense that they require other components aside from the one being evaluated (Brocki and Bohlin 2004;Miyake et al. 2000). For this reason, it might be reasonable to argue that the combination of working memory and inhibitory control produces a higher effect on ToM, as both components are relevant for ToM (Carlson et al. 2004;Hala, et al. 2003;Williams et al, 2016). ...
ToM is a complex cognitive process consisting of a variety of sequenced achievements that develops gradually from infancy to adulthood. In this field, part of the debate focuses on identifying how individual differences influence the development of ToM. Several recent studies have found a relationship between ToM development and executive functioning, emphasizing working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility or planning. In line with these results, the aim of this research was to explore the role of different aspects of executive functions in ToM. To achieve this, 90 children aged between 4 and 8 years were assessed in ToM and executive function tasks. We found that executive functions were related to ToM in different ways depending on the level of ToM. This supports the view that as ToM skills evolve there is a change in the executive skills that support them.
... More specifically, researchers have found an association between children's flexible use of prosocial lies and higher working memory and inhibitory control as well as more advanced theory of mind understanding (Leduc et al., 2017;Talwar et al., 2017;Williams et al., 2016). ...
This study investigated how adults over the lifespan flexibly adapt their use of prosocial speech acts when conveying bad news to communicative partners. Experiment 1a (N = 100 Scottish adults aged 18–72 years) assessed whether participants’ use of prosocial speech acts varied according to audience design considerations (i.e., whether or not the recipient of the news was directly affected). Experiment 1b (N = 100 Scottish adults aged 19–70 years) assessed whether participants adjusted for whether the bad news was more or less severe (an index of general knowledge). Younger adults displayed more flexible adaptation to the recipient manipulation, while no age differences were found for severity. These findings are consistent with prior work showing age-related decline in audience design but not in the use of general knowledge during language production. Experiment 2 further probed younger adults (N = 40, Scottish, aged 18–37 years) and older adults’ (N = 40, Scottish, aged 70–89 years) prosocial linguistic behavior by investigating whether health (vs. nonhealth-related) matters would affect responses. While older adults used prosocial speech acts to a greater extent than younger adults, they did not distinguish between conditions. Our results suggest that prosocial linguistic behavior is likely influenced by a combination of differences in audience design and communicative styles at different ages. Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of situating prosocial speech acts within the pragmatics and aging literature, allowing us to uncover the factors modulating prosocial linguistic behavior at different developmental stages.
... For children to be able to deceive others, they must understand that their mental state is not known to others. Indeed, the cognitive ability to lie is related to the development of theory of mind and executive functions such as inhibitory control and working memory (Williams et al., 2016). During early childhood (ages 2-7 years), when children's theory of mind becomes more developed (Osterhaus & Koerber, 2021;Wellman et al., 2001), the propensity of lying increases with age (Talwar & Lee, 2002;Wilson et al., 2003). ...
... We hypothesized that the development of empathy can account, at least in part, for variations in deceptive behavior throughout late childhood and adolescence. Importantly, whereas the cognitive processes underlying children's and adolescents' lying have been systematically explored (Lavoie et al., 2017;Nagar et al., 2020;Williams et al., 2016), much less is known about when and why children choose to refrain from deceiving others. ...
... Our results, however, point in another direction. Whereas some level of understanding of others' thoughts is clearly necessary for dishonesty (Nagar et al., 2020;Williams et al., 2016), when the other person is not identified, the ability to understand that person's feelings leads children to refrain from deception. ...
Children and young adolescents often tend to behave dishonestly in order to serve their self-interests. This study focused on how empathic abilities affect children's tendency to deceive others. Deception is the act of causing others to form a false belief to get them to act in a way that serves the deceiver's interests. As such, it requires the ability to predict how others might use the provided information. In two experiments, 274 participants (aged 10-16 years) played a game in which they could send a deceptive message to another participant to boost their own payoff at the other player's expense. We measured participants' cognitive and emotional empathy using different measures. We found that a measure of cognitive empathy, namely the fantasy scale, was associated with less deception of another player when that other player was not identified and was presented only as ''Player B." However, when Player B was identified by name, empathy did not predict deception. In such cases, the only factors affecting deception rates were the gain for the participant (higher possible gains lead to more deception) and loss to the other player (higher possible losses lead to less deception). Overall, the findings suggest that even by 11 years of age, children can understand the impact of their unethical behavior on another child and adjust their actions accordingly. However, when the other child is not identified, children need to possess high levels of cognitive empathy toward imagined individuals to resist the temptation to deceive the other child.
... Inhibitory control pertains to the capacity to override a dominant or automatic response (Williams et al., 1999). It involves restraining the instinctive tendency to tell the truth and instead exerting deliberate control over one's verbal and behavioral responses in order to intentionally convey false information (Evans & Lee, 2013;Williams et al., 2016). ...
... In addition, research has shown that children with higher levels of inhibitory control tell more instrumental lies (Evans & Lee, 2013). Children's levels of self-control have an important impact on their lying behaviors, controlling their verbal and nonverbal expressions and suppressing thoughts that may confuse them Talwar et al., 2017;Talwar & Lee, 2008;Williams et al., 2016). ...
... After controlling for age, gender, family income, and sibling status, we found that children with higher EC were significantly more likely to tell instrumental lies. These findings are consistent with previous studies that examined the relationship between children's control skills and their lying behavior (Evans & Lee, 2013;Talwar & Lee, 2008;Williams et al., 2016). One possible explanation for these results may be that EC plays an important role in lie-telling behavior because in order to tell a lie, children must actively inhibit their desire to tell the truth and focus their attention on the lie they are telling (Carlson et al., 1998). ...
... Testing children's empathy in story-book tasks while assessing their prosocial reactions in a distinct live interaction allowed us to dissect the targets of children's empathy and prosociality to tap the assumed causal links regardless of interindividual relationships (i.e., being prosocial to individuals one empathizes with). To control for potential links between children's executive functioning and their polite lie-telling behaviors (Talwar et al., 2017;Williams et al., 2016), we included a daynight Stroop task (Gerstadt et al., 1994) in the study procedure. ...
... Additionally, a subset of caregivers (n = 75) rated their children's empathy using a German version of the Griffith Empathy Measure (GEM; adapted from the Bryant's Index of Empathy (Dadds et al., 2008; German version by Greimel et al., 2011; see also Demedardi et al., 2021;Nagar et al., 2020). We further assessed children's executive functioning (EF) utilizing a day-night Stroop task (Gerstadt et al., 1994) to control for the effects of inhibitory control on polite lie-telling (Talwar et al., 2017;Williams et al., 2016). Lastly, we observed children's behavior in an art-rating task ( Jakubowska et al., 2021;Warneken & Orlins, 2015). ...
Empathy is commonly considered a driver of prosociality in child ontogeny, but causal assumptions regarding this effect mostly rely on correlational research designs. Here, 96 urban German children (5–8 years; 48 girls; predominantly White; from mid-to-high socioeconomic backgrounds) participated in an empathy intervention or a control condition before prosocial behaviors (polite lie-telling: rating the drawing as good; prosocial encouragement: utterances interpreted as cheering up the artist) were assessed in an art-rating task. Contrasting children’s empathy at baseline with their empathy after the intervention indicated promoted empathy compared to the control group. Despite the intervention’s effect on children’s empathy, there were no simultaneous changes in prosocial behaviors. At the same time, children’s empathy at baseline was associated with their prosocial encouragement. These results indicate conceptual associations between children’s empathy and prosociality. However, they do not support strict causal claims regarding this association in middle childhood. Further applications of the novel short-time intervention to address causal effects of empathy on prosociality and other developmental outcomes are discussed.
... They develop prosocial abilities such as empathy and the ability to consider the feelings of others to maintain positive relationships with others (Papalia & Martorell, 2021). One of the prosocial abilities related to this is prosocial lying, where children may engage in preserving the feelings of others to keep harmonious social relationships (Williams et al., 2016). In order to engage in prosocial lying, children also need moral reasoning skills. ...
... To determine the necessity of engaging in prosocial lying, children need to possess ToM abilities (especially understanding of intentions, false beliefs, and feelings of others) and MoToM, which involve assessing whether a behavior is right or wrong based on its underlying intentions. On the other hand, current research on prosocial lying remains primarily associated with ToM, for example, differentiating between good and bad intentions and examining the impact of behavior on others' feelings (Grazzani et al., 2018;Williams et al., 2016). However, studies exploring the relationship between MoToM (judging right or wrong based on intentions) and prosocial lying behavior are still scarce. ...
... Therefore, children who can grasp what others are feeling are more likely to engage in prosocial lying to assist those individuals. PEE helps children regulate emotions, as they also need to apply inhibitory control to incline in prosocial lying (Williams et al., 2016). In short, in prosocial lying, children need to restrain themselves from revealing the truth they wish to hide and express false information they want to convey (Carlson et al., 2016). ...
Prosocial lying refers to deceptive behavior performed for the benefit of others, which children may sometimes engage in to maintain positive relationships with peers and others. This research aims to identify the role of morally relevant theory of mind (MoToM) and parental emotional expression on prosocial lying behavior among children aged 7-9 years. The participants consisted of 66 parent-child pairs selected through the convenience sampling technique. The assessment of prosocial lying and MoToM was conducted through behavioral testing. Child participants (M=101.91 months; SD=8.36) were tested individually using the disappointing gift paradigm protocol and the MoToM. Meanwhile, parents were requested to respond to the SEFQ inventory. The results of the hierarchical logistic regression analysis revealed a significant relationship between MoToM and prosocial lying behavior, even after children's age was statistically controlled (χ 2 (2)=5.872, p<0.01). In contrast, no significant influence was observed concerning parental emotional expression and children's prosocial lying behavior. This study highlighted insights on the relationship between MoToM and prosocial lying behavior, revealing that understanding MoToM is an influential factor in prosocial lying. Children should understand moral judgment and the impact of their behavior on others before engaging in prosocial lying. Abstrak Perilaku bohong prososial adalah perilaku bohong untuk kepentingan orang lain yang terkadang dilakukan anak untuk menjaga hubungan anak dengan orang lain (terutama teman sebaya). Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengidentifikasi peran morally relevant theory of mind (MoToM) dan ekspresi emosi orang tua terhadap perilaku bohong prososial pada anak usia 7-9 tahun. Partisipan penelitian adalah 66 pasangan orang tua-anak, dipilih melalui metode convenience sampling. Asesmen perilaku bohong prososial dan MoToM dilakukan melalui pengujian perilaku. Partisipan anak (M=101,91 bulan; SD=8,36) mengikuti tes menggunakan protokol disappointing gift paradigm dan menyelesaikan tugas MoToM. Sementara itu, ekspresi orang tua diukur melalui inventori SEFQ. Hasil analisis regresi logistik hierarkis menunjukkan hubungan signifikan antara MoToM dan perilaku bohong prososial anak bahkan setelah usia anak dikontrol secara statistik (χ 2 (2) = 5,872, p<0,01). Sebaliknya, tidak ada pengaruh signifikan dari ekspresi emosi orang tua terhadap perilaku bohong prososial anak. Penelitian ini memberikan informasi baru mengenai hubungan MoToM dengan perilaku bohong prososial. Partisipan perlu memahami penilaian moral dan dampak perilaku mereka pada orang lain sebelum terlibat dalam perilaku bohong prososial. Kata kunci: anak usia sekolah, bohong prososial, ekspresi emosi, kognisi sosial, penilaian moral
... In children aged 6 and younger, some find positive associations (Aguilar-Pardo et al., 2013;Nilsen & Valcke, 2018;Xie et al., 2019), but others do not (Liu et al., 2016). Similarly, in children between 6 and 12, multiple studies suggest positive associations (Blake et al., 2015;Hao, 2017;Hubert et al., 2017;Williams et al., 2016), but others do not (Nilsen & Valcke, 2018). Cross-sectional examinations are, however, unable to provide information regarding timing and temporal direction (Baltes et al., 1977). ...
... In comparison, most studies find positive associations between prosociality and inhibition in children Note: Higher Inhibition score represents poorer inhibition, SD = standard deviation. 1 = measurement at age 9, 2 = measurement at age 12. Williams et al., 2016;Xie et al., 2019). While many of these studies use a Stroop-like task to measure inhibition, many of them focused on specific forms of prosociality, particularly sharing behavior. ...
This study examined longitudinal development of prosocial behavior, assessed by the parent-reported Strength and Difficulty Questionnaire, and inhibitory control, measured by the Opposite Worlds Task, in a sample aged 9 and 12 years (n = 9468, 49.9% girls, 85.8% White) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. The goal was to assess whether the level of prosocial behavior at age 9 relates to change in inhibitory control, and vice versa. Sex differences were also explored. Latent change score models showed that low inhibitory control in boys at age 9 was associated with more decreases in prosocial behavior from 9 to 12 years of age. This may suggest that interventions targeting inhibitory control in boys may also foster their social competence.
... In the paradigm, children receive a gift they do not like after completing a game with the experimenter, and then the experimenter asks the children if they like the gift. Results consistently show that children as young as 3-4 years old are able to tell polite lies to the experimenter by stating they like the gift (while telling their parents that they do not like the gift) [4,[9][10][11][12][13][14]. As age increases, children tend to tell more polite lies (but also see [10]) and their lying behavior becomes more sophisticated. ...
... Several studies have supported this view. For example, Lavoie et al. [14] found that children who told polite lies in the undesirable gift paradigm had higher ToM scores, and Williams et al. [13] found that children who are able to tell a convincing polite lie (i.e., semantic leakage control) showed more advanced ToM understanding. However, other studies using similar paradigms did not find a significant relation between children's polite lying behavior and their ToM performances. ...
... Thirdly, several previous studies have shown that children's prosocial lying behavior is related to their executive function abilities. For example, Williams [13] found that 6-12-years-old children's prosocial lying is significantly correlated to their inhibitory control and working memory abilities. Future studies should also examine the relation between executive function abilities and children's other-benefiting lying. ...
The present study examined children's lies to help others obtain benefits (other-benefiting lying) and its relation to theory of mind (ToM) and empathy among 3-5-year-old preschool children. One hundred nine children were recruited from preschools in China. A modified hide-and-seek paradigm was used to measure children's other-benefiting lying behavior, a ToM scale was used to measure children's ToM abilities, and an empathy scale was used to measure children's empathy abilities. Results showed that children tended to tell more lies to help other to get benefits as age increased, and further analyses showed that this other-benefiting lying was related to children's ToM component of false belief understanding and their cognitive empathy performance. These findings provide evidence that cognitive factors play important roles in children's lying to help others.
