Department of Psychology, Hangzhou Normal University, China.
Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Dev Sci. 2018 May;21(3):e12566. doi: 10.1111/desc.12566. Epub 2017 Jun 16.
We investigated how the ability to deceive emerges in early childhood among a sample of young preschoolers (Mean age = 34.7 months). We did this via a 10-session microgenetic method that took place over a 10-day period. In each session, children played a zero-sum game against an adult to win treats. In the game, children hid the treats and had opportunities (10 trials) to win them by providing deceptive information about their whereabouts to the adult. Although children initially showed little or no ability to deceive, most spontaneously discovered deception and systematically used it to win the game by the tenth day. Both theory of mind and executive function skills were predictive of relatively faster patterns of discovery. These results are the first to provide evidence for the importance of cognitive skills and social experience in the discovery of deception over time in early childhood.
我们通过为期 10 天的 10 次微发生方法研究了在一个年轻学龄前儿童样本中，欺骗能力是如何在幼儿早期出现的（平均年龄为 34.7 个月）。在每次会议中，孩子们与成年人进行零和游戏以赢得奖品。在游戏中，孩子们藏起奖品，并通过向成年人提供有关奖品下落的欺骗性信息，有 10 次机会赢得奖品。尽管孩子们最初表现出很少或根本没有欺骗能力，但大多数孩子在第十天自发地发现了欺骗行为，并系统地利用它赢得了游戏。心理理论和执行功能技能都可以预测相对较快的发现模式。这些结果首次提供了证据，证明认知技能和社会经验在幼儿时期随着时间的推移发现欺骗行为的重要性。
