Children's Understanding of Lies in Elementary School Years

Hayashi, Hajimu

doi:10.1080/00221325.2017.1342592

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Second, there was a strong asymmetry between the two possible responses (i.e., joking vs. lying), with children choosing "the speaker is lying" responses much more frequently, even when the counterfactuality was shared (65%). This second observation is consistent with the literature, which indicates that children of this age readily interpret counterfactuality as lying, regardless of the speaker's intention (Demorest et al, 1984;Hayashi, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…The production and recognition of prosocial (white) lies comes later than that of antisocial (selfish) lies (Bussey, 1999). As pointed out by Piaget, the intention to lie gradually becomes the most prominent factor for concluding that a statement is a lie during school years (Cheung et al., 2015; Hayashi, 2017). Irony , again a multifaceted construct, is only partially acquired by 10 years (Aguert et al., 2016; Pexman & Glenwright, 2007; Pexman et al., 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How children tell a (prosocial) lie from an (ironic) joke: The role of shared knowledge

Aguert

2022

Social Development

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Understanding counterfactual utterances is a major challenge for children, because of the many ways in which they can be interpreted (pretence, errors, figures of speech, lies). In the present study, 7‐year‐olds and adults determined whether counterfactual utterances were prosocial lies or irony, depending on whether the counterfactuality was known only to the speaker (unshared knowledge) or to both interlocutors (shared knowledge). When the counterfactuality was shared by the interlocutors, both the 7‐year‐olds and the adults were less likely to interpret the speaker's counterfactual utterance as an attempted lie, and more likely to conclude that the speaker was being ironic. Adults were better than children at distinguishing irony from lies, but both age groups exhibited the same response pattern, namely a bias toward lying. This bias did not prevent the adults from deciding that the speaker was being ironic when the counterfactuality was shared, whereas children responded at chance level. In children, the association between task performance and theory‐of‐mind skills was nonsignificant, with a very small effect size. We discuss the possibility that, contrary to widespread belief, distinguishing irony from lies does not necessarily involve theory of mind (ToM).

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 91%