Using Theory of Mind for Deception

Question 1

what is Lying dependent on?

Answer 1

The development of Lying in children is dependent on their ability to understand the theory of mind. A child first needs to understand that other people have different mental states than themselves, understand that they can manipulate someone else’s perception of them by choosing what info they share.

Question 2

What is deception?

Answer 2

Deception are the behaviours which are aimed to mislead others and manipulate what they mean to be true.

Question 3

what is lying?

Answer 3

intentionally providing false information to manipulate others perception of what is true

Question 4

When does lying and deception tend to develop?

Answer 4

Between the ages of 4 and 7 there is evidence to suggest children use lying to cover up their transgressions/mistakes, during this stage ability and frequency of lies increases during this period of development.

Question 5

deception and ….. develop in parallel

Answer 5

theory of mind

Question 6

What paradigm do we use to test if children can and will lie?

Answer 6

Talwar & lee 2002
Temptation resistance paradigm
for 3 to 7 years olds.

Children were told they would play a guessing game sitting on a chair not facing the table with an iconic toy on it.

First few rounds are easy so the children understand the game. Then they place a toy on the table and play an unassociated jingle with it so it is almost impossible to guess what the toy is. The experimenter then pretends he gets a phone call and needs to leave the room for a moment, they remind the child not to cheat and look before leaving.

will they peek, lie and leak their fraudulent info and Theory Of Mind related to this.

1. all children between 3 and 7 
   peeked.
2.  3 year olds have low rates of lying because they have no theory of mind.
100% of four year olds lie 5, 6, 7 
lie as well.

Question 7

verbal leakage- the tendency to to just straight guess “barney” or “malteasers” and end up incriminating themselves because they do not yet have the ability to self-regulate their emotions and keep up with a believable lie i.e “elmo” a similar character to cover their misdeed.

Answer 7

the child sits in front of a turned over bucket, she is told that if she can guess what is under it she can keep it. The experimenter leaves the room and comes back for the child’s answer. Child peeks and finds a whole pile of malteasers, she is torn between lying and telling the truth but settles on guessing malteasers. Because the experimenter provided misleading info about the secret object i.e. it was coulourful and bought from . toy store Thus, in order to guess correctly the child would’ve had to have peeked.

Question 8

what years can control their verbal leakage and give a non-barney answer

Answer 8

6 and 7 year olds can lie best.

Question 9

First order theory of mind

Answer 9

the ability to only think about one mental state at a time

false-belief tasks use a first order theory of mind 3-4 years old

Question 10

Second order theory of mind

Answer 10

the ability to compare two chains of theory of mind, how someone’s change of mind has repercussions emerges 6-7

Question 11

First order theory of mind

Answer 11

simple false belief task, toy moved when sally left… where will she look for the toy?

results against lying experiment (liers, truthtellers, confessors)
liers had a significantly higher proportion of children with first order theory of mind. This indicates a positive relationship between lying and the first order thinking.

Question 12

second theory of mind

Answer 12

toy moved when sally left… but she was peeking the entire time…where will she look for the toy?

Results against verbal leakage and plausible lie:
Plausible lie’s required the second order theory of mind t create a plausible lie for the experimenter to believe

Question 13

Promoting Honesty in children

Answer 13

uses the same temptation resistance paradigm with two manipulations, a promise condition and a self-awareness condition.
In the promise condition the experimenter asked the child to promise not to lie before receiving their guess. In the self-awareness condition where kids were sat in front of a mirror and identify features of themselves to increase their sense of self & in turn their morals not to lie.

Only the self awareness condition produced significant decrease in lying behaviours.