| Lying is a complex behavior developed in children’s interpersonal communication,which can reflect the process of children’s moral development and cognitive development.The research on the development of young children’s lying is of great significance for children’s cognitive ability.There is little research on children’s self-benefiting lying,and it’s unknown about whether there are similar development paths for both types of lies and influenced by which cognitive factors,even though both types of lies appear in the early stage of lying in children.In this study,a longitudinal study was conducted to explore the development difference between children’s lying for covering their transgression and lying for gaining more benefits.This research includes two parts,one is using cross-sectional study ways to further verify the relationship between 3-4 years old children’s lying and theory of mind,executive function,and to investigate whether self-benefiting lying and self-protective lying involved in different theory of mind and executive function components,the second,on the basis of studying 1,by using longitudinal study to examine the causal effect between children’s lying and theory of mind,executive function.Methods: data from 97 children were collected for this research.The first study measured lying in 97 3-and 4-year-olds on the temptation resistance paradigm and hide-and-seek task,as well as on the children’s theory of mind,executive function and language skills.Based on the study 1,study 2 examined the development of children’s lying behavior and cognitive abilities after 4 months and 8 months.Results:(1)at the age of 3.5,the proportion of children who tell self-protective lying is significantly higher than the children who tell self-benefiting lying.With age,the percentage of both lying increased significantly,but the gap narrowed until children were 4.5 years old.The study also showed the key time points for the two lies were between 3.5 and 4.5 years old,and there are some differences of development path of both types of lies.(2)the study showed there is significant relation between children’s self-protection lying and cognitive flexibility,and significant relation between children’s semantic leakage control and different desires understanding.And children’s self-benefiting lying was significantly correlated with To M components(diverse desires,diverse beliefs,knowledge access)and inhibition control.(3)at different stages of the development of children,different To M components and executive function play an important role in predicting children’s lying.At the first test stage,children’s diverse desires understanding can significantly predict children’s lying for gaining more benefits 4 months later;after 4 months,children’s knowledge access understanding and inhibition control significantly predicted later lying.It showed that To M understanding and executive function are the premise for the development of children’s lying behavior.Conclusion:(1)this study shows that the developmental paths of children’s self-protective lying and self-benefiting lying are different to some extent,and the two kinds of lies are influenced by different To M components and executive function.(2)using longitudinal research,this study found that children’s theory of mind and executive function can predict later self-interest lies. |
