Punishing Children For Lying May Not Bring The Truth

Children have been known to tell a fib or two. How parents go about handling this could make a big difference in how they behave, according to recent findings published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

For the recent study, researchers at McGill's Department of Education and Counseling Psychology studied 372 children between the ages of 4 and 8. Study results revealed that threatening with punishment would not get children to tell the truth.

In the study, some children were left alone in a room for one minute with a toy behind a table. Though the children were not allowed to peek at the toy, some did. However, this was filmed on a hidden video camera in the room.

Researchers later asked the children if they had peeked in at the toy. Findings revealed that older children were less likely than younger children to take a look. Furthermore, results also showed that 66.5 percent of children who peeked lied about doing so.

Children were also more likely to lie if they were afraid of being punished. Yet they were more likely to tell the truth if they believed it would make the elder happy.

"The bottom line is that punishment does not promote truth-telling," concluded Prof. Victoria Talwar of McGill's Dept. of Educational and Counseling Psychology, in a news release. "In fact, the threat of punishment can have the reverse effect by reducing the likelihood that children will tell the truth when encouraged to do so. This is useful information for all parents of young children and for the professionals like teachers who work with them and want to encourage young children to be honest."