Ruse and representations: On children's ability to conceal information.

Abstract

This study reports a marked development between the ages of 3 and 5 years in children's ability to conceal information. In a situation of high-affect involvement, 3-year-olds did not know to misinform or withhold information from a competitor who always chose the object for which they themselves had previously stated a preference. Although only 29% of 3-year-olds knew to influence the competitor's mental state, 87% knew to physically exclude the competitor. There was no difference between children's performance when trying to obtain the object for themselves or predicting what a story character would do. The success of the older children in concealing information indicated their new representational understanding that to influence another's behavior, one must influence that person's mental state.Jeremy (aged 3): Mommy, go out of the kitchen. Mother: Why, Jeremy? Jeremy: Because I want to take a cookie. This research was supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.I would like to express special appreciation to David Olson and Robbie Case for their helpful suggestions and critical comments.

Children's Antisocial and Prosocial Lies to Familiar and Unfamiliar Adults

“…The earliest studies reporting on children"s lie-telling behaviour examined deceptive abilities as part of a larger investigation of children"s emerging theory-of-mind capabilities (e.g., Chandler, Fritz, & Hala, 1989;Peskin, 1992). These studies analyzed children"s ability to understand false belief and usually reported incidences of lying together with other forms of deception (i.e., deceptive pointing) so it was unclear when verbal deception first emerged.…”

Are Eyes Windows to a Deceiver's Soul? Children's Use of Another's Eye Gaze Cues in a Deceptive Situation.

“…Although it is still controversial whether 3-year-olds do so with an explicit intent to deceive (Chandler, Fritz, & Hala, 1989) or just as a result of associative learning (Peskin, 1992;Sodian, 1991) or punishment avoidance (Kaplan, 1990), there is little doubt that young preschoolers have firsthand experience with deception. It should be noted, however, that research has consistently shown that relative to 4-and 5-year-olds, 3-year-olds are significantly less inclined to perform deceptive acts spontaneously (Lewis et al, 1989;, and, if they do deceive, their deception in some cases tends to be less successful than that of older children (e.g., Polak & Harris, 1999;Peskin, 1992;.A relatively understudied issue is whether young children are able to detect and foil another's deceptive acts. Several investigators have examined how children use nonverbal behaviors of a deceiver to determine the true state of affairs (DePaulo & Jordan, 1982;Feldman, Jenkins, & Popoola, 1979;Feldman & White, 1980;Morency & Krauss, 1982;Rotenberg, Simourd, & Moore, 1989).…”

The rise of the metamind

“…Lalonde and Chandler (1995), for example, found that teachers rated children who pass false-belief tasks to be higher in social-emotional maturity than those who fail. The new level of social understanding also shows in particular areas such as deception (Peskin 1992;Ruffinan et al 1993). With metamind children begin to appreciate the subtler and more sophisticated aspects of the social world.…”