Give and take: A microgenetic study of preschoolers' deceptive and prosocial behavior in relation to their socio-cognitive development

Seucan, Daniela Teodora; Szekely-Copîndean, Raluca D.; Ding, Xiao Pan; Visu‐Petra, Laura

doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103714

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 80 publications

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“…For example, previous research showed that different facets of ToM development predicted their respective usage in preschool years. More specifically, rudimentary forms of ToM predicted cheating behavior (e.g., knowledge access) [ 20 , 21 ], while lie-telling and semantic leakage control were predicted by more advanced forms of ToM, such as first-order false belief understanding for lie-telling and second-order false belief understanding for semantic leakage control [ 7 ]. Additionally, O’Connor and Evans [ 22 ] showed that preschoolers who scored higher on ToM tasks were less likely to cheat during a guessing game.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interpretive Diversity Understanding, Parental Practices, and Contextual Factors Involved in Primary School-age Children’s Cheating and Lying Behavior

Prodan

Moldovan

Cacuci

et al. 2022

EJIHPE

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Dishonesty is an interpersonal process that relies on sophisticated socio-cognitive mechanisms embedded in a complex network of individual and contextual factors. The present study examined parental rearing practices, bilingualism, socioeconomic status, and children’s interpretive diversity understanding (i.e., the ability to understand the constructive nature of the human mind) in relation to their cheating and lie-telling behavior. 196 school-age children (9-11 years old) participated in a novel trivia game-like temptation resistance paradigm to elicit dishonesty and to verify their interpretive diversity understanding. Results revealed that children’s decision to cheat and lie was positively associated with their understanding of the constructive nature of the human mind and with parental rejection. Children with rejective parents were more likely to lie compared to their counterparts. This may suggest that understanding social interactions and the relationship with caregivers can impact children’s cheating behavior and the extent to which they are willing to deceive about it. Understanding the constructive nature of the mind was also a positive predictor of children’s ability to maintain their lies. Finally, being bilingual and having a higher socioeconomic status positively predicted children’s deception, these intriguing results warranting further research into the complex network of deception influences.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interpretive Diversity Understanding, Parental Practices, and Contextual Factors Involved in Primary School-age Children’s Cheating and Lying Behavior

Prodan

Moldovan

Cacuci

et al. 2022

EJIHPE

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Truthful yet misleading: Elementary second-order deception in school-age children and its sociocognitive correlates

Prodan,

Ding,

Visu-Petra

2024

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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Preschoolers’ moral judgment and punishment attribution: Longitudinal links to theory of mind and emotion understanding

Seucan,

Szekely‐Copîndean,

Visu‐Petra

2024

Social Development

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Understanding what others think and feel, an essential ingredient of social functioning, develops early on, allowing children to understand and evaluate other people's actions. To assess whether those actions break or uphold moral rules (moral judgments), children must consider the agent's intentions and whether the action harms or helps others. The present study investigated longitudinally the changes and interrelations between cognitive and affective perspective‐taking and moral evaluations in 3‐ to 5‐year‐old preschoolers (N = 92, 43 girls). We assessed children's first‐order theory of mind and their ability to understand other people's emotions. Next, we presented them with two moral stories which measured how children evaluated the “good” or “bad” nature of the character's intention, and whether the character deserved to be punished. Controlling for inhibitory control—which is thought to help individuals integrate information about intention—and for time across development, our main findings showed that moral judgment was positively associated with theory of mind and that both moral judgment and punishment were positively associated with the ability to understand other people's emotions. There were developmental effects for each of the measured variables, improvements being visible 15 months later, especially in the case of the theory of mind and punishment attributions. We discuss our findings in light of recent models of moral judgment regarding the processes involved in children's moral judgments and put forward future methodological directions.

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Give and take: A microgenetic study of preschoolers' deceptive and prosocial behavior in relation to their socio-cognitive development

Cited by 3 publications

References 80 publications

Interpretive Diversity Understanding, Parental Practices, and Contextual Factors Involved in Primary School-age Children’s Cheating and Lying Behavior

Interpretive Diversity Understanding, Parental Practices, and Contextual Factors Involved in Primary School-age Children’s Cheating and Lying Behavior

Truthful yet misleading: Elementary second-order deception in school-age children and its sociocognitive correlates

Preschoolers’ moral judgment and punishment attribution: Longitudinal links to theory of mind and emotion understanding

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