Children lie by nature, a study proves

Children are liars by nature.

A study of 1,200 children demonstrates this, showing their high propensity to lie.

Scientific research shows that the older they get, the more likely children are to become liars.

A study has given, what everyone already knew, a scientific aura: children lie and are liars by nature.

At 8-9 months, the child uses crying to attract its mother’s attention or smiles because it senses that it will get more smiles in return.
He seeks consent, he wants to seduce, to attract the affection and sympathy of those around him. Even if he is not yet a year old, he can be deaf to his parents’ calls while playing or, before he learns to speak, simulate the most innocent of expressions to avoid a reprimand.

These behaviours are not outright lies but serve a purpose and show the child’s ability to cope with situations.
The first lies appear later, around the age of two, when they are mainly expressed through acts.

This is why researchers from the Institute of Child Study at Toronto University kept 1,200 children between the ages of 2 and 17 under observation with a camera.
They hid a puppet behind their station and ordered them never to turn around.
In 9 out of 10 cases, the children ignored the instructions and when asked if they had kept their promise, most lied and said yes.
The older the children were, the more they were able to resist the researchers’ successive pitfalls and pressing questions to make them tell the truth.

“In children, lies are a way of learning to reason and argue and have a completely different value than the lies of adults. Learning to bluff corresponds to an evolution in thinking and has no correlation with the propensity of adults to cheat, which stems from a failure to recognise honesty as a moral value,” explains Kang Lee, the director of the Canadian institute that led the study.

“Lies are obviously not to be justified or encouraged, but they can represent an important step in a child’s emotional and cognitive evolution, and therefore it is important to carefully assess when it is best to let it go,” says Diego Ingrassia, CEO of I&G Management, a company that delivers credibility assessment certification courses in Italy.

A child who is able to lie possesses high cognitive qualities, but this does not mean that he or she will be a hardened liar when they grow up.
According to research, the propensity to lie is directly proportional to growth: around 20 per cent of two-year-olds lie, 50 per cent at the age of three and even 80 per cent of four-year-olds lie, peaking at the age of 12. At 17, the percentage drops to 70%.

It is important to bear in mind that children learn more by watching other people’s behaviour than through any form of direct guidance or discipline. Unfortunately, this means that if you are led to be economical with the truth, you are inadvertently teaching your child that lying is acceptable.

Source:
http://kangleelab.com/Publications.html
http://ics.utoronto.ca/Laidlaw_Research_Centre/Faculty_Profiles/Kang_Lee/index.html
http://www.emaxhealth.com/6705/when-children-lie-they-are-simply-reaching-developmental-milestone