Development of tactical deception from 4 to 8 years of age

Abstract

One hundred eighteen children, divided into three age groups (4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds) participated in a competitive game designed to explore advances in children's deceptive abilities. Success in the game required children to inhibit useful information or provide misinformation in their communication with an adult opponent. Age trends were evident for all dependent variables, including success at the task, strategic behaviours, and interview data. Four-year-olds were non-strategic and rarely successful, 6-year-olds were increasingly strategic and successful, and 8-year-olds were significantly more subtle in their strategies, more successful at the task, and more likely to verbalize an understanding of their opponent's expectations than younger age groups.

Playing by the rules: Self-interest information influences children’s trust and trustworthiness in the absence of feedback

“…These results of inference-driven choices complement research documenting children's selectivity when information about epistemic (e.g., Birch, Vauthier, & Bloom, 2008;Koenig, 2010;Krogh-Jespersen & Echols, 2012) and social (e.g., Corriveau, Fusaro, & Harris, 2009;Kinzler, Corriveau, & Harris, 2011;Reyes-Jaquez & Echols, 2013) characteristics of the informants is available. Additionally, these findings extend prior work on children's strategic trustworthiness (e.g., Peskin, 1992;Smith & LaFreniere, 2013) by showing that children will be deceitful when it benefits them, even without feedback. However, our results also suggest that even 9-year-olds have yet to fully master the art of collaborating with others.…”

“…However, the ability to deceive is most advantageous if coupled with a recognition of circumstances in which deceiving is actually ''useful,'' like when having conflicting interests. When conveying information to others, even preschool children often choose to be truthful or deceitful depending on a game's reward incentives (e.g., Peskin, 1992;Shultz & Cloghesy, 1981;Smith & LaFreniere, 2013;Sodian, 1991). Notably, these studies also provide children with feedback, such as whether the partner believes them.…”

Truthful but Misleading: Advanced Linguistic Strategies for Lying Among Children

“…As a result, creativity in children's verbal strategies was exposed rather than hidden. Similarly, a previous study applying an open question design demonstrated the development of non-verbal tactical deception among children (Smith and LaFreniere, 2013). Six participants who had confessed transgression lied about the degree of their transgression (i.e., the number of times they had peeked) with immediate follow-up explanations.…”

“…However, few studies have investigated children's linguistic strategies for lying. Most studies on lying focused on simple forms of lies, e.g., pointing at an empty box/wrong card to mislead adults who tried to get chocolates/right cards (e.g., Russell et al, 1994;Smith and LaFreniere, 2013;Zhao et al, 2017;Sai et al, 2018a,b), concealing the truth (e.g., Talwar and Lee, 2008;Evans and Lee, 2011), or reporting fake dice points (e.g., Gächter and Schulz, 2016).…”

The Evolution of Morality

“…Likewise, although our ability to place ourselves in others' shoes-a necessary precondition for the implanting of false beliefs in othersdevelops at around 4 years of age, our ability to spot deceivers develops much earlier (as would be expected if we accept that early-developing deceiver-detection abilities were necessary in an ancestral environment that was rife with liars and manipulators; see Flynn, 2006 ;Mascaro & Sperber, 2009 ). Beginning in preschool, we become progressively better at telling self-serving lies-i.e., lies that serve our evolved interests, be they avoiding punishment (Talwar & Lee, 2002 or acquiring a resource (e.g., procuring cards in a card game; Smith & LaFreniere, 2013 ). That these juvenile lies can develop into the prevarication and sophistry of politicians or the corporate doublespeak of business executives suggests that the misuse of scientifi c theories and fi ndings is a real possibility (and, lest we forget, the use of science for nefarious ends such as systematic killing is attested to by history).…”