Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel; Department of Education, Al-Qasemi Academic College, Baqa-El-Gharbia, Israel.
Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel; School of Brain Sciences and Cognition, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2023 Sep;233:105697. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105697. Epub 2023 May 22.
The current study examined the relations between children's cognitive and emotion abilities with their likelihood to tell a lie for personal gain in a tempting situation. These relations were examined using behavioral tasks and questionnaires. A total of 202 Israel Arab Muslim kindergarten children participated in this study. Our results showed that behavioral self-regulation was positively associated with children's likelihood to tell a lie for personal gain. Children with higher behavioral self-regulation actually tended to lie more for their own gain, suggesting that the likelihood to tell a lie might be related to children's ability to mobilize and integrate their cognitive abilities to self-regulate their behavior. In addition, through exploratory analysis, we found a positive relation between theory of mind and children's likelihood to tell a lie, which was moderated by inhibition. Specifically, only among children with low inhibition was there a positive correlation between their theory of mind and the likelihood to lie. Moreover, age and gender were related to children's lie-telling; older children tended more to lie for their own gain, and this likelihood was higher for boys than for girls.
本研究考察了儿童在诱人情境下为个人利益说谎的可能性与其认知和情绪能力之间的关系。这些关系通过行为任务和问卷进行了检验。共有 202 名以色列阿拉伯穆斯林幼儿园儿童参与了这项研究。我们的结果表明，行为自我调节与儿童为个人利益说谎的可能性呈正相关。行为自我调节能力较高的儿童实际上更倾向于为自己的利益撒谎，这表明说谎的可能性可能与儿童调动和整合认知能力来自我调节行为的能力有关。此外，通过探索性分析，我们发现心理理论与儿童说谎的可能性之间存在正相关，这种关系受到抑制的调节。具体来说，只有在抑制能力较低的儿童中，心理理论与说谎的可能性之间才存在正相关。此外，年龄和性别与儿童的说谎行为有关；年龄较大的儿童更倾向于为自己的利益撒谎，而且男孩比女孩的这种可能性更高。
