When our oldest daughter was little, Roger convinced her that if she told a lie, her nose would turn purple. He had no idea that she had actually believed him until she approached him one day with her hand carefully covering her nose. To this day, Kristin is a very honest person, which served her especially well during her years at West Point, where cadets swear that they will not “lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do.”
Most adults assume that telling an effective lie is very difficult for children to do. Not so, say Leif Stromwell and his colleagues [1]. Children between the ages of 11 and 13 were supposed to tell about an event that actually happened to them and one that had not happened. Half were given 2 minutes to think about their story, while the others were immediately interviewed. All interviewers were blind to the children’s condition.
Undergrads viewing the filmed interviews were remarkably bad at detecting the lies. When the children had 2 minutes to prepare, the undergrads were only able to tell which children were truthful or lying 51.5% of the time, or just about at chance. Even when the children were given no time to prepare, the undergrads were right only 55.6% of the time.
Not only were the undergrads fooled, but the children were remarkably sophisticated in their understanding of lying cues. They were careful to make their accounts detailed and tried to remain calm.
The bottom line is that adults should not assume that children of this age are incapable of telling sophisticated lies. Perhaps this would be a good time to check out Paul Ekman’s research on how to detect when people are deliberately lying to you.
[1] Stromwall, L.A., Granhag, P.A. & Landstrom, S. (2007). Children’s prepared and unprepared lies: Can adults see through their strategies? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21, 457-471.
