Where we learn to lie

The five-year-old girl in the laboratory test was told not to turn round to see what soft toy was behind her.
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However, once her adult minder left on the excuse of taking a telephone call, she swivelled her head to look at Barney, a cuddly purple dinosaur.
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When asked minutes later she denied peeking but said she thought it was Barney behind her.
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How did she know?
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Well, God came into the room and whispered in my ear.
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Little children who tell such big fibs should not be a worry for parents.
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Scientists have discovered that a child who claims “the dog ate my homework” may have a future career in the City.
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Researchers who carried out a study of 1,200 children say the fact that a child has learnt to tell a lie shows they have reached an important step in their mental development.
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A majority of the human guinea pigs aged two to 16 told porkies but it is the children with better cognitive abilities who can tell the best lies.
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They have developed “executive functioning”, which means they are able to keep the truth at the back of their mind so their fib sounds more convincing.
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At the age of two, 20% of children will lie.
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This rises to 50% by three and almost 90% at four.
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Parents of troublesome youths may not be surprised that the curve peaks at the age of 12 when almost all of them will be deceitful.
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The tendency starts to fall away by the age of 16, when it is 70%.
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As adulthood approaches, young people learn instead to use the less harmful “white lies” that everyone tells to avoid hurting people’s feelings.
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Researchers say there is no link between telling fibs in childhood and any tendency to cheat in exams or to become a fraudster later in life.
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Nor does strict parenting or a religious upbringing have any impact.
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Healthy, intelligent children learn to lie quicker, but parents have to learn to distinguish between the harmless make believe — such as an imaginary friend — and the fibs told to protect or better the child.
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There is a “Pinocchio peak” about the age of seven after which it is hard to discern whether a boy or girl is lying without evidence.
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Kang Lee, director of the Institute of Child Study at Toronto University, which carried out the research, said: You have to catch this period and use the opportunity as a teachable moment.
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You shouldn’t smack or scream at your child but you should talk about the importance of honesty and the negativity of lying.
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After the age of eight the opportunities are going to be very rare.
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The research team invited younger children — one at a time — to sit in a room with hidden cameras.
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A soft toy was placed behind them.
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When the researcher briefly left the room, the children were told not to look. In nine out of 10 cases cameras caught them peeking.
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But when asked if they had looked, they almost always said no.
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They tripped themselves up when asked what they thought the toy might be.
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One little girl asked to place her hand underneath a blanket that was over the toy before she answered the question.
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After feeling the toy but not seeing it, she said: “It feels purple so it must be Barney.”
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Lee, who caught his son Nathan, 3, looking at the toy, said: We even had cameras trained on their knees because we thought their legs would fidget if they were telling a lie, but it isn’t true.
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Older children were set a test paper but were told they must not look at the answers printed on the back.
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Some of the questions were easy, such as who lives in the White House.
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But the children who looked at the back gave the printed answer “Presidius Akeman” to the bogus question “Who discovered Tunisia?”
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When asked how they knew this, some said they learnt it in a history class.
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Joan Freeman, professor of lifelong learning at Middlesex University in London and the author of How to Raise a Bright Child, said: Clever children are going to be better at lying.
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Most youngsters grow out of lying if it is not an acceptable part of their culture.
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But if you are running a business when you grow up you might want to get away with something — and not telling the whole truth is on the edge of morality.
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Margaret McAllister, a leading educational psychologist, said: Just because a child is bright I don’t think they are more likely to lie.
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But if they do, they will lie better and tell more complicated lies.
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Maurice Chittenden