Permission to deceive reduces the frequency of the desire to lie among preschoolers. This is reported by Developmental Science.
The experiment involved children aged three to seven years from Singapore. They were asked to play a game: to hide a sticker under one of two cups and then point to one of them so that an adult could try to find it. To win, they needed to lie. Some participants were informed in advance that lying was allowed in the game, while others were not told this.
It turned out that although children generally lied often, in 60–80 percent of cases, those who were allowed to lie did so less frequently. This effect was confirmed in three independent experiments.
The authors believe that moral attitudes in children retain their influence even when the formal prohibition on lying is lifted. The point is that ethics and cognitive abilities are linked from an early age. According to one theory, permission to deceive might have been perceived as a test of honesty, which led children to choose the truth.
