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Little Liars: Origins of Verbal Deception in Children

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Origins of the Social Mind

Abstract

Scientists and laypersons alike have been fascinated with lying in children since the dawn of developmental psychology (Darwin 1877). This fascination stems from the fact that the seemingly innocent and poorly crafted lies told by children are kaleidoscopes from which one can glean a multitude of information about children’s development including their level of moral development (Praget 1932), their ability to understand of others’ minds (Peskin 1992), personal character and integrity (Hartshorne and May 1928), delinquent tendencies (Stouthamer-Loeber 1986), and credibility as witnesses in legal cases (Bala et al. 2001; Bussey et al. 1993; Goodman et al. 2006, Lyon 2000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, 3740 McTavish, Montréal, Québec, Canada, H3A 1Y2

    Victoria Talwar

  2. Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, 45 Walmer Road, Toronto, Ontano, Canada, M5R 2X2

    Kang Lee

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  1. Victoria Talwar
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  2. Kang Lee
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  1. Department of Psychology Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan

    Shoji Itakura Ph.D. (Associate Professor) & Kazuo Fujita Ph.D. (Professor) (Associate Professor) &  (Professor)

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Talwar, V., Lee, K. (2008). Little Liars: Origins of Verbal Deception in Children. In: Itakura, S., Fujita, K. (eds) Origins of the Social Mind. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-75179-3_8

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