International Journal of Behavioral Development
2006, 30 (6), 1–11
© 2006 The International Society for the
Study of Behavioural Development
http://www.sagepublications.com
DOI: 10.1177/0165025406073530
White lie-telling in children for politeness purposes
Victoria Talwar
Susan M. Murphy
Kang Lee
McGill University,
Canada
University of
New Brunswick, Canada
University of Toronto,
Canada
Prosocial lie-telling behavior in children between 3 and 11 years of age was examined using an undesirable gift paradigm. In the first condition, children received an undesirable gift and were questioned
by the gift-giver about whether they liked the gift. In the second condition, children were also given
an undesirable gift but received parental encouragement to tell a white lie prior to being questioned
by the gift-giver. In the third condition, the child’s parent received an undesirable gift and the child
was encouraged to lie on behalf of their parent. In all conditions, the majority of children told a
white lie and this tendency increased with age. Coding of children’s facial expressions using Ekman
and Friesen’s (1978) Facial Action Coding System revealed significant but small differences between
lie-tellers and control children in terms of both positive and negative facial expressions. Detailed
parental instruction facilitated children’s display of appropriate verbal and nonverbal expressive
behaviors when they received an undesirable gift.
Keywords: children; expressive display rules; honesty; lying; prosocial behavior; verbal deception
From very early on, children are socialized to be truthful in
most social contexts. However, they are also taught implicitly
or explicitly that they should not tell the blunt truth in other
situations. In these situations, termed politeness settings, the
truth may be trivial or even hurtful to its recipient (Sweetser,
1987). To spare the feelings of the recipient and foster
amicable social relations, prosocial lies are expected (DePaulo
& Bell, 1996; DePaulo & Kashy, 1998).
Research to date shows that white lies are a common form
of lie told by adults to maintain social relationships (DePaulo
& Jordan, 1982; DePaulo & Kashy, 1998). Despite extensive
research on children’s lying to conceal transgressions or to win
a competition (Chandler, Fritz, & Hala, 1989; Feldman,
Jenkins, & Popoola, 1979; Lewis, Stanger, & Sullivan, 1989;
Peskin, 1992; Polak & Harris, 1999; Talwar & Lee, 2002a),
little is known about children’s lie-telling behavior in politeness
situations. Thus, studying white lie-telling will not only allow
us to form a more comprehensive picture of the development
of verbal deception, but also the developmental origin of this
pervasive adult behavior. The development of white lie-telling
also has more general implications for understanding social
development. It provides a window for us to understand the
process by which children learn necessary social skills to
interact with others and form social relations. White lie-telling
is unique in the fact that it is an important social skill that cuts
across a number of developmental domains such as verbal–
nonverbal communication and deceptive display rule use, and
consequently offers deeper understanding of children’s
development in these domains.
First, white lie-telling in children provides an opportunity
for understanding how knowledge about rules governing verbal
and nonverbal communication develops. White lies are a form
of communication that both violates and upholds the basic
rules of interpersonal communication. Grice (1980) suggests
that the Maxim of Quality is fundamental in governing interpersonal communication and white lies clearly violate this
maxim, which requires speakers to be truthful to their
communicative partners. In contrast, Lakoff (1973) and
Sweetser (1987) suggest that fundamental rules also exist that
require speakers to be amicable, and to help, not harm, their
communicative partners. These two considerations usually
promote consistent behaviors to achieve a common communicative goal. In politeness situations they often collide with each
other and may require a strategic trade-off. Thus, whether and
how children tell white lies allows us to understand if children
are capable of reconciling seemingly contradictory rules of
communication and use them adaptively in different social
situations.
Second, white lie-telling is in essence a form of deception,
albeit a prosocial one. Successful deception requires inhibiting
genuine verbal and nonverbal reactions to a situation while
simultaneously displaying appropriate rules for the situation
and simulating the verbal and nonverbal expressions required.
It should be noted that the term display rule has been used
mainly to refer to rules that govern nonverbal emotional
expressions (Saarni, 1979). We believe that similar rules also
exist for the regulation of verbal behaviors. Both verbal and
nonverbal display rules can be defined as rules governing
communications between individuals for relaying information,
expressing emotion, and conveying attitude. Such rules can
guide individuals to modify their public expressions of private
information, feelings, and attitudes, and help them determine
what behaviors are appropriate. In politeness situations (e.g.,
when receiving an undesirable gift), one is required not only
to suppress the genuine reaction of disappointment, but also
use the appropriate display rules (e.g., expressing gratitude
and displaying of positive emotional expressions). Thus,
examination of children’s white lie-telling behavior allows for
Correspondence should be sent to Victoria Talwar, Department of
Educational and Counselling Psychology, McGill University, 3700
McTavish, Montreal, QC, H3A 1Y2, Canada; e-mail: victoria.talwar@
mcgill.ca
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TALWAR ET AL. / WHITE LIE-TELLING IN CHILDREN
understanding their ability at regulating and coordinating
multi-channel communications.
Research suggests that the understanding and use of nonverbal display rules in politeness situations develops early in
children (Cole, 1986; Saarni, 1984). For instance, using an
undesirable gift paradigm in which children received an undesirable toy instead of an expected desirable gift, Saarni
(1984) found that school-aged children were able to both mask
their natural disappointment reactions and use the appropriate nonverbal display rules for the situation. However, it was
not clear whether children would also use the appropriate
verbal display rules for the situation (i.e., telling a white lie that
they liked the undesirable gift) because in both studies the
children were not asked whether they liked the gifts. Nevertheless, their studies suggest that use of nonverbal display rules in
politeness situations emerges early in childhood.
To date, only one published study (Talwar & Lee, 2002b)
has examined children’s white lie-telling behaviors and use of
verbal display rules. Talwar and Lee (2002b) used a Reverse
Rouge Task in which the experimenter had a conspicuous mark
of lipstick on their nose. The child was asked to take a picture
of the experimenter, but before the picture was taken the
experimenter asked, “Do I look okay for the picture?” Results
showed that the majority of children aged 3 to 7 years stated
that the experimenter looked okay but later told another adult
that the experimenter had not looked okay. Overall, lie-tellers
showed less smiling than non-liars.
While the results of Talwar and Lee (2002b) provide the first
glimpse of the emergence of white lie-telling in children, they
are also equivocal. Their results can be accounted for by two
contrasting interpretations. One suggests that children’s
apparent “prosocial” lie-telling in the Reverse Rouge Task may
actually be motivated by self-interest. If children told the truth,
they might face negative reactions from the adult; lying not
only avoided unpleasant repercussions but also might please
the adult. An alternative interpretation suggests that children’s
white lie-telling may be truly prosocial in nature because
children are socialized early on to tell such lies to serve prosocial purposes. The present study aimed at testing these two
contrasting interpretations by placing children in a situation
where if they choose to tell a white lie, the lie would serve to
protect the lie-recipient’s feelings, while being contrary to their
own desires and feelings.
For this purpose, we adapted a paradigm pioneered by
Saarni (1984) and Cole (1986) in which children received an
undesirable toy instead of an expected desirable gift. This
procedure represents a naturalistic situation where white lies
are socially desirable and truth-telling is inappropriate. It is
also a situation that children are highly familiar with (e.g.,
receiving socks as Christmas gifts from grandparents) as they
must decide whether to tell the truth in the hope of getting a
better gift, or to tell a lie to be polite and to please the giftgiver. Hence, the undesirable gift paradigm provides an ideal
situation to examine children’s decisions to tell white lies when
such a decision is inconsistent with their own feeling and
desires. Moreover, it mimics a natural situation in which
children are often explicitly taught by their parents to be polite
and to tell white lies. Therefore, it is also ideal for examining
the effect of parental instruction on children’s white lie-telling
behaviors, an issue that has not received direct empirical
examination.
To examine children’s actual white lie-telling behavior, a
modified undesirable gift paradigm was used. In the present
study, the experimenter gave children an undesirable gift and
left the room immediately before the children could respond
to the gift. Upon returning, the experimenter directly asked
whether the child liked the gift, requiring the children to
verbally express their like or dislike of the gift. This allowed the
assessment of both children’s genuine verbal and nonverbal
reactions to the gift in the absence of the gift-givers, and their
dissembled verbal and nonverbal behaviors in front of the giftgiver. In the traditional paradigm, children’s disliking of the
gift is typically verified on a different occasion by an unfamiliar
experimenter. In the present investigation, we asked parents to
make such verifications during the same session, as children
are presumed to be more inclined to disclose their true feelings
to their own parents.
The modified undesirable gift paradigm was used in three
experimental conditions with children 3 to 11 years of age.
In the Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching condition, the
child received the gift after playing a game and was left alone
in the room so that the parent could not influence the child’s
decision to lie or tell the truth. The experimenter returned
and asked the child whether she/he liked the gift. This
condition examined whether children would spontaneously
tell a white lie or would tell the blunt truth that they disliked
the gift.
In the Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition, the
child’s parent was in the room when the gift was given. After
the experimenter left the room, the parent explicitly instructed
the child not to tell the truth that they did not like the gift. The
experimenter returned and asked the child whether she/he
liked the gift. This condition examined the influence of
parental coaching on children’s lie-telling behavior. We
predicted that children would be more inclined to lie when
instructed to do so by their parent than when not coached.
Talwar and Lee (2002b) suggest that children might be socialized to be polite and tell white lies through parental coaching.
However, there is no direct evidence suggesting that parental
coaching can actually influence children’s white lie-telling
behavior. In fact, existing studies often showed that parental
coaching is not always effective in eliciting lying behaviors in
children (Talwar, Lee, Lindsay, & Bala, 2004).
In a third condition, the Parent Undesirable Gift-Coaching
condition, children’s parents played a game with the experimenter and they received an undesirable gift. The parents told
the children that they did not like the gift but instructed their
children to conceal this information if the experimenter asked
about it. Note that in the previous two conditions the
disappointment due to receiving an undesirable gift may
decrease children’s desire to positively express their liking of
the gift, which might lead to increased likelihood of blunt
truth-telling. In the present condition, the undesirable gift
belonged to their parent, therefore the children should experience less disappointment than children in the other two
conditions and might be more inclined to tell a white lie to be
polite. We predicted the Parent Undesirable Gift-Coaching
condition to yield the highest percentage of lie-telling in
children, among the three conditions.
The present study also examined children’s positive and
negative facial expressive behaviors using Ekman and Friesen’s
(1978) Facial Action Coding System (FACS). This anatomically based, comprehensive, and objective technique for measuring observable facial movement is a significant improvement
over the holistic judgments of children’s nonverbal behaviors
used by Talwar and Lee (2002b). FACS permits more precise
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2006, 30 (6), 1–11
analysis, which may allow us to identify unique nonverbal
behaviors of child white lie-tellers. Two control conditions
were included for comparison in which all aspects of the
procedure were identical except that a desirable gift was given
in place of the undesirable gift. In the Child Desirable GiftControl condition, the child received a desirable gift, making
it comparable to the two Child Undesirable Gift conditions. In
the Parent Desirable Gift-Control condition, the parent
received the desirable gift, so as to be comparable to the Parent
Undesirable Gift-Coaching condition. Children’s facial
expressions were coded to determine whether white lie-tellers
who received an undesirable gift could be distinguished from
the control non-liars who received a desirable gift.
With regard to nonverbal display rule use, Saarni (1984) and
Davis (1995), found that school-aged children were able to
both mask their natural disappointment reactions and use the
appropriate nonverbal display rules for the situation. Similarly,
Cole (1986) found that even 3- and 4-year-olds masked their
disappointed emotional expressions when the experimenter
was present, but not when they were alone. Based on these
findings, children in the experimental condition were expected
to display more negative expressions when receiving the gift
than those in the control conditions. Also, we expected that
white lie-tellers would attempt to mask their negative
expressions in the presence of the gift-giver. Children’s
negative displays were expected to decrease and their positive
displays to increase significantly from the period when they
were left alone after receiving the undesirable gift and the
period when they were asked by the experimenter about the
gift.
Finally, the literature offers contradictory predictions
regarding the effect of age on lie-telling and children’s abilities
to conceal verbally and nonverbally (Cole, 1986; Davis, 1995;
Lewis et al., 1989; Saarni, 1984; Saarni & von Salisch, 1993;
Talwar & Lee, 2002a; 2002b). It may be that as children get
older, they become better at telling white lies, as research on
nonverbal behavior suggests (Saarni, 1984). Conversely it may
be that young children are already able to use verbal and
nonverbal display rules to tell white lies (Cole, 1986; Talwar &
Lee, 2002b). Similarly, there are mixed findings in the literature regarding sex differences in display rule use (Cole, 1986;
Davis, 1995; Saarni 1984). However, given the findings that
girls and boys are socialized differently in terms of emotion
regulation (Fuchs & Thelen, 1988; Garner & Power, 1996;
Jones, Abbey, & Cumberland, 1998) and that girls are better
able to mask their deception (Lewis et al. 1989; Saarni, 1984),
we hypothesized that girls may be better than boys in their
actual use of verbal and nonverbal display rules.
Method
Participants
A total of 323 children (171 boys) between the ages of 3 and
11 years of age participated (see Table 1). The mean age was
6.7 years (SD = 2.56), ranging from 37 to 143 months. There
were 74 children in the Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching
condition (M = 6.8 years, SD = 2.53), 85 children in the
Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition (M = 6.7 years,
SD = 2.56), 77 children in the Child Undesirable Gift–
Coaching condition (M = 6.8 years, SD = 2.54), 42 children
in Child Desirable Gift–Control condition (M = 7.1 years,
Table 1
Distribution of participants across conditions
Preschoolers Early elementary Older elementary
(3–5 years)
(6–8 years)
(9–11 years)
Child Undesirable
Gift–No Coaching
Male
Female
Child Undesirable
Gift-Coaching
Male
Female
Parent Undesirable
Gift-Coaching
Male
Female
Child Desirable
Gift-Control
Male
Female
Parent Desirable
Gift-Control
Male
Female
15
10
15
11
13
10
15
12
13
12
14
11
16
14
16
12
15
12
7
8
5
8
6
8
7
8
7
9
7
7
SD = 2.6 years), and 45 children in Parent Desirable
Gift–Control condition (M = 7.5 years, SD = 2.78). The
control children were recruited to match as closely as possible
the age and gender profiles of the child lie-tellers in their corresponding experimental conditions. As a result, the sample sizes
for the control groups were smaller than the experimental
groups because only a subset of the children in the experimental conditions lied.
The majority of children were from white, middle and upper
middle income families in a medium-sized North American
city. Children were recruited through a database of study
participants who had indicated interest in future participation
in studies as well as through newspaper advertisements. The
majority of parents contacted agreed to participate in the
study. All were brought to the university lab by their parents
and the majority of parents (95%) were mothers. Parental
consent and child oral assent were obtained prior to testing.
Materials
The commercial game “Memory” was used with children
under 6 years of age, and “Scattergories” was used with the
older children and parents. After pilot testing, a wrapped bar
of plain white soap was used as the undesirable gift and a
wrapped rainbow-colored slinky was used as the desirable gift.
One miniature video camera was concealed within a wooden
box on the table to obtain a frontal view of children’s head and
upper body and record their responses.
Procedure
Children and their parents were brought to the playroom to
give the child time to adjust to the new people and surroundings and to allow the parent to fill out the consent forms. The
experimenter showed the parent the rooms that were used and
explained the procedure.
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TALWAR ET AL. / WHITE LIE-TELLING IN CHILDREN
Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching condition
Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition
The experimenter led the child into the testing room. In the
center of the room there was a table and three chairs. The child
was asked to sit on the chair facing the experimenter. After the
child was seated at the table, the experimenter initiated the
game and went over the instructions with the child. They were
told that after the game they would receive a gift from a prize
bucket placed adjacent to the children on the floor. A variety of
commercial children’s toys could be seen in the bucket. The
game was designed such that the child always won. Just before
the game was over, a knock at the door was heard and the experimenter was informed that she had a phone call. The experimenter finished the game, congratulated the child, and thanked
the child for playing the game. As the experimenter prepared to
leave the room she moved towards the door where the prize
bucket was placed. Instead of taking a toy from the prize bucket,
the experimenter placed the wrapped bar of soap on the table
for the child as the promised gift in such a way that the child
could not see the experimenter’s face or make eye contact with
the experimenter. Before the child could unwrap and inspect
the toy, the experimenter immediately left the room for one
minute claiming to take the phone call. Similar to the Cole’s
(1986) Experiment 2 procedure, the child was left alone in the
room and their parent was not present at any time during the
procedure. This allowed the child to privately look at the toy
and to react without the influence of another person. These
reactions were recorded via the hidden camera.
When the experimenter returned, she asked the critical
question, “Do you like your gift?” Once children answered the
question, another game was played with them. Following the
game the experimenter left the room and the parent came in
the room to probe the child to determine whether the child
truly liked the unattractive gift. Children were coded as “white
lie-tellers” if they told their parent that they did not like the
gift but said that they did like it to the experimenter, the giftgiver. No children told their parent that they liked the gift. If
children told the experimenter that they did not like the gift,
they were coded as “blunt truth-tellers”. Following the session,
the child was shown the hidden video camera, fully debriefed,
and given the opportunity to exchange their gift for another
desirable gift from the prize bucket.
The procedure for this condition was the same as that of the
Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition except that the
experimenter played the game with the parent. The children
were told to help their parent if they knew the answers.
However, it was made clear that it was the parent’s turn to play
the game. Just before the game was over a knock at the door
was heard and the experimenter was informed that she had a
phone call. The game was concluded and the parent was
announced the winner. Before leaving to take the phone call,
the experimenter gave the unattractive gift to the parent. After
the experimenter left the room, the parent, who had been
instructed on what to do prior to the start of the experiment,
expressed her/his disappointment with the gift and asked the
child not to tell the experimenter that she or he did not like it
if asked. One minute later, the experimenter re-entered the
room and asked the parent to fill out a form in another room.
After the departure of the parent, the child was asked the
critical question: “Does your mom/dad like her/his gift?”
Children were coded as telling a white lie if their parent did
not like the gift but children told the experimenter that their
parent liked it.
Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition
The procedure for this condition was the same as the Child
Undesirable Gift–No Coaching condition except that (1) the
parent was present when the game was played and when the
children received the unattractive gift, and (2) the parent was
told to coach their children to tell a white lie if the children
did not like the gift. However, to ensure that parental
coaching was as naturalistic as possible, parents were not
specifically instructed on what to say to their children. During
the experimenter’s absence, the parent asked the children
whether they liked the gift. Once it was determined that they
did not like the gift, the parent asked the children not to tell
the experimenter that they did not like the gift if asked. One
minute later, the experimenter returned and asked the parent
to fill out a form in another room. After the parent left, the
children were asked the critical question: “Do you like the
gift?” Children were coded as white lie-tellers if they told
their parent that they did not like the gift but told the
experimenter they did like it.
Child Desirable Gift–Control condition
This condition was identical to the Child Undesirable Gift–
Coaching condition except that the gift given to the children
was an attractive one. Based on pilot testing, the desirable toy
was a colourful slinky wrapped in a box. All children expressed
their liking of the gift. The experimenter returned and also
asked the children the critical question: “Do you like the gift?”
All children told both the experimenter and later their parent
that they liked the gift. These children are henceforth referred
to as “control non-liars.”
Parent Desirable Gift–Control condition
This condition was identical to the Parent Undesirable
Gift–Coaching condition except that the gift given to the
parent was desirable. While the experimenter was away, the
parent expressed pleasure at receiving the gift (colourful slinky)
as previously instructed by the experimenter. The experimenter then returned to the room, asked the parent to leave
the room, and asked the children, “Does your mom/dad like
her/his gift?” All children (control non-liars) told the experimenter that their parent liked the gift.
FACS coding for nonverbal behavior
To examine whether children in the experimental conditions
could be differentiated from children in control conditions, the
facial expressions of the white lie-tellers, blunt truth-tellers,
and the control non-liars were coded according to Ekman and
Friesen’s (1978) FACS. For the three Child Gift conditions,
two specific segments of children’s facial expressions were
selected for analysis from the videotaped session. The first
segment of the videotape began after children received and
unwrapped the gift and the experimenter left the room and
ended when the child’s attention shifted to another activity or
object in the room. This segment is henceforth referred to as
the Reaction Segment (M = 14s, SD = 6.8). For example, after
the initial reaction to the gift, the child might look at pictures
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2006, 30 (6), 1–11
scores for all of the FAUs were added together to derive a
negative display score, with the maximum score being 9 and
the minimum 0. Among the FAUs that can be unambiguously
identified as positive behaviors, only lip corner pull (LCP,
smiling) was frequently displayed by our sample. There were
three levels of smiling, X, Y, and Z, according to Ekman and
Freisen (1975). A positive display score was constructed with
a score of 0 if children did not smile or a score of 1, 2, or 3
as the intensity of smiling increased. This method of coding is
similar to Cole (1986). The rest of the FAUs were displayed
by less than 20% of the children and were not analyzed. For
some children, positive display scores were missing due to
problems such as their face being turned away or out of the
range of the camera.
Results
Children’s lie-telling behavior
As shown in Figure 1, the percentage of white lie-tellers was
68%, 87%, and 87% in the Child Undesirable Gift–No
Coaching, Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching, and Parent
Undesirable Gift–Coaching conditions, respectively. To
examine the differences in children’s lie-telling, a series of
logistic regression analyses were conducted. Logistic regression can be used to test different models (models with or
without higher order interaction terms) and select a final
model that best fits a particular set of data in both a theoretical and statistical sense. For this and subsequent logistic
regression analyses conducted herein, the independent variables, since they were chosen for theoretical reasons (see
Menard, 2002), were first entered as predictors. Additional
predictors (i.e., interactions) were added individually to determine whether they would contribute significantly to the model.
Significance was assessed by a Block χ2 test (also known as the
χ2 Difference test). In this test, the retention of each predictor
in a model must lower the variability substantially to justify
using a more complex model.
Our analyses revealed that the best fit model included age,
sex, and condition without interaction terms as significant
predictors of children’s white-lie-telling. The regression model
was significant, χ2 (3, N = 236) = 22.19, p < .01, and 81% of
100
80
% of children
on the wall or the game on the table in the Child Undesirable
Gift–No Coaching condition. In the Child Undesirable Gift–
Coaching condition, the child might turn to their parents to
respond to their inquiries about their liking or disliking of the
gift. When such attention shift occurred, the Reaction Segment
was considered concluded. The data from this segment allowed
for the examination of whether children in the experimental
conditions displayed differential facial expressions when they
received an undesirable gift when compared to the control
children who received a desirable gift.
The second segment of the video began after the experimenter (i.e., the gift-giver) asked the critical question, “Do you
like the gift?” and ended after the child responded. This
segment (henceforth referred to as the Question Segment)
allowed for the comparisons between the facial expressions of
the children who told a white lie about their liking of the undesirable gift and those of children who genuinely liked the
desirable gift and told the truth about it (M = 8s, SD = 3.2).
Similar to Saarni (1984), the amount of time for each segment
varied for each child because the experimenter was instructed
to interact with the child as naturalistically as possible.
For the two Parent Gift conditions, only the Question
Segment during which children responded to the critical
question “Does your mom/dad like the gift?” was coded. The
data from this segment allowed for the examination of whether
children who told a white lie on behalf of their parent displayed
differential facial behaviors from those who told the truth about
their parent liking the desirable gift. Children’s reactions to their
parent’s initial receipt of a gift were not coded because children
were a third party who merely observed the gift-giving.
Using a VCR with the frame-by-frame advancing and
rewinding feature, two independent coders watched video clips
of each child as many times as desired to code the child’s facial
expressive behaviors and to determine whether a particular
Facial Action Unit (FAU) was present or absent. Slow-motion
playback and still-frame analyses of the tapes were used to
code expressive behavior. Similar to the coding procedure of
previous research (Cole, 1986; Davis, 1995; Saarni, 1984;
1992), for each segment, the presence of each FAU was
recorded and repeated instances of the same behavior were not
counted toward frequency totals. During facial coding, the
audio portion of the tape was turned off. The two coders were
uninformed about the expectations and conditions of the
study. The mean inter-coder agreement for all FAUs was 86%,
and the range of inter-coder reliability was between 78% and
96%. The differences in coding were later resolved by coreviewing of the tapes by the coders.
All FAUs as prescribed by Ekman and Freisen (1975) were
coded initially. Nevertheless, several FAUs have been identified in previous research as being particularly indicative of
negative emotions such as disappointment, sadness, disgust,
and anger (see Ekman, 1985; Cole, 1986). Ten of the FAUs
were selected for analysis to generate positive and negative
display scores. These scores were based on research demonstrating specific actions and their associated emotional displays
(Ekman & Friesen, 1975; Izard, 1979). The negative FAUs
included brow lower (BL), upper lip raise (ULR), lip press
(LP), lip tightener (LT), lip corner depress (LCD), cheek
raiser (CR), nose wrinkler (NW), nasolabial furrow deepen
(NFD), and chin raise (CHR). These nine FAUs were also the
most frequently occurring in our sample. For each participant,
a score of 1 was assigned for each FAU present, and a score
of 0 was assigned for each FAU that was absent. Then, the
60
40
20
0
Child
Undesirable
Gift–No
Coaching
Figure 1.
Parent
Undesirable
Gift–Coaching
Child
Undesirable
Gift–Coaching
Percentage of white lie-tellers by condition.
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TALWAR ET AL. / WHITE LIE-TELLING IN CHILDREN
cases were correctly classified by this model. All 191 children
who lied were classified as lie-tellers. The condition effect was
significant, (β = 0.41, Wald = 17.95, p < 0.01). Further inspection revealed that the significant condition effect was due to
the difference between the Child Undesirable Gift–No
Coaching condition and Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching
conditions, Wald (1, N = 159) = 13.12, p < .01, and between
Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching and the Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching conditions, Wald (1, N = 151) = 13.27,
p < .01. Our hypothesis that more children would lie in the
Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition was not
confirmed. However, fewer children told white lies in the no
coaching condition (50 children lied) than in the coaching
conditions (Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching: 74 children
lied; Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching: 67 children lied). The
age effect was significant, (β = –0.012, Wald = 4.09, p < .05).
As age increased, children were more likely to tell a white lie.
While 72% of preschoolers (ages 3–5) told a white lie, 80% of
early elementary school (ages 6–8) children and 84% older
elementary school children (ages 9–11) told white lies. Younger
children were slightly more reluctant to lie for their parents
than the older children even when they were instructed to do
so. There was no significant effect found for sex of child, (β =
0.048, Wald = 0.19, n.s.)Lie-tellers’ answers to the question
“Did you/your mother like the gift?” were further coded for
content. Children’s answers were coded into two categories: 1)
simply indicating that they liked the prize with an affirmative
response (e.g. “yes”), or 2) answering positively with elaboration (e.g. “Yes! We collect soap!”; “We need soap”). Overall,
36% of children gave positive answers with elaboration. A
logistic regression analysis was conducted with lie-teller’s
answers entered as predicted variable (DV), and age (continuous variable), sex, and condition (categorical variable) as the
predictors (IVs). The regression model was significant, χ2 (3,
N = 185) = 26.16, p < .01 with 71% of the cases were correctly
classified. The condition effect was significant, (β = .562, Wald
= 17.03, p < .01). Children in the Parent Undesirable
Gift–Coaching condition gave more elaborated answers (56%)
than children in the Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching (28%)
and Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching conditions (15%).
There was also a significant age effect, (β = –0.12, Wald = 4.41,
p < .05). Older elementary school children were more likely to
give elaborated answers (55%) than early elementary school
children (31%) and preschoolers (28%). Thus, as age
increased, children became better white lie-tellers.
FACS analysis of nonverbal behavior
In order to analyze children’s success at concealing their lie in
their expressive behavior, children’s negative and positive
nonverbal expressive displays were analyzed using FACS
similar to the method used by Cole (1986). Table 2 shows the
means and standard deviations of the positive and negative
display scores for each condition. Analyses were conducted on
both children’s positive and negative expressive behavior to
examine whether a) white lie-tellers differed from blunt truthtellers in each of the Undesirable Gift conditions (Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching, Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching,
and Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching conditions) and b)
white lie-tellers differed from control children in the Child
Desirable Gift-Control and Parent Desirable Gift-Control
conditions. The FACS data were analyzed separately for the
positive and negative display scores for the Child Gift and
Table 2
Means (standard deviations) of positive and negative displaay
scores in different conditions
Positive display
score
Child Undesirable
Gift–No Coaching
Lie-teller
Blunt truth-teller
Child Undesirable
Gift–Coaching
Lie-teller
Blunt truth-teller
Child Desirable
Gift–Control
Control Non-Liar
Parent Undesirable
Gift–Coaching
Lie-teller
Blunt truth-teller
Parent Desirable
Gift–Control
Control Non-Liar
Negative display
score
Reaction
segment
Question
segment
Reaction
segment
Question
segment
.58
(.78)
.41
(.93)
1.00
(.93)
.89
(.98)
1.33
(1.59)
.89
(1.08)
.42
(.64)
.37
(.79)
.98
(.95)
.63
(.92)
.86
(.87)
1.25
(1.16)
.52
(.93)
1.00
(1.06)
.24
(.64)
.25
(.46)
1.12
(.70)
.73
(.72)
.16
(.33)
.06
(.24)
.58
(.80)
.25
(.45)
.15
(.33)
.25
(.85)
.63
(.66)
.03
(.16)
Parent Gift conditions, respectively, because the Parent Gift
conditions did not have the data for the Response Segment.
(1) White lie-tellers vs. blunt truth-tellers
Positive display scores. Repeated measures ANOVAs were
conducted to compare the positive expressive scores (DV) of
the blunt truth-tellers (i.e., who told the experimenter that they
themselves or their parents did not like the gift) and those of
the white lie-tellers in each condition (Child Undesirable
Gift–Coaching and Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching).
The within subject factor was segment (Reaction versus
Question) and the between subject factors were sex, type of
child (white lie-teller or blunt truth-teller) and age (continuous variable). The reason that the comparison was only made
within each condition, rather than across conditions, was to
examine whether the blunt truth-tellers displayed positive
behaviors differently than did the white lie-tellers, who otherwise encountered exactly the same situation. Significant effects
were only found for the Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching
condition. For this condition, the age effect was significant,
F(1,62) = 9.83, p < .01, ε 0.87. As age increased, children
increased their intensity of smiling. There was also a significant
difference between boys and girls, F(1,62) = 4.57, p < .05,
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2006, 30 (6), 1–11
ε 0.56. Girls showed more positive expressions (M = 1.20, SD
= 0.93) than did boys (M = 0.57, SD = 0.94). There was also
a significant Segment ⫻ Type of Child interaction, F(1,62) =
5.04, p < .05, ε 0.61. Further inspection revealed that the effect
was mainly due to the blunt truth-tellers showing less positive
expressive behavior (M = 0.56, SD = 0.92) during the
Reaction segment than white lie-tellers (M = 0.97, SD = 0.95),
suggesting that the blunt truth-tellers might be more disappointed by the undesirable gift. However, the blunt truthtellers showed more positive expressive (M = 1.19, SD = 0.99)
behavior in the Question segment than the white lie-tellers (M
= 0.80, SD = 0.87), even though they verbally declared that
they did not like the gift to the experimenter. There were no
significant effects for the Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching
condition.
For the Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition,
because no Reaction Segment was coded (children themselves
did not receive the gift), an ANOVA was performed with
children’s positive display scores during the Question Segment
as the DV. The IVs were: age (continuous variable), sex, and
type of child. No significant effects were found. Thus, overall
white lie-tellers and non-liars (blunt truth-tellers) did not differ
in their positive expressive behaviour.
Negative display scores. Repeated measures ANOVAs were
conducted to compare the negative expressive scores (DV) of
the blunt truth-tellers and those of the white lie-tellers in both
Child Undesirable Gift conditions. The within subject factor
was segment (Reaction versus Question) and the between
subject factors were sex, type of child (white lie-teller or blunt
truth-teller) and age (continuous variable). There were no
significant effects for the Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching or
the Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching condition.
For the Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition, an
ANOVA was performed with children’s negative display scores
during the Question Segment as the DV. The IVs were: age (in
months, continuous variable), sex, and type of child. No
significant effects were found. Overall, white lie-tellers and
blunt truth-tellers did not differ in their negative expressive
behaviour.
(2) White lie-tellers vs. control non-liars
Positive display scores. The positive scores of the child white
lie-tellers in the Child Undesirable Gift conditions (the Child
Undesirable Gift–Coaching and Child Undesirable Gift–No
Coaching) were compared to those of the children in the Child
Desirable Gift–Control condition. The purpose of this
comparison was to examine whether the white lie-tellers smiled
differently from the control children when they received the
gift (the Reaction Segment) and when they told a white lie to
the experimenter (the Question Segment). A repeated
measures ANOVA was performed with positive display scores
as the DV. The within subject factor was segment (Reaction
versus Question) and the between subject factors were sex,
condition (Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching, Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching, and Child Desirable Gift–Control)
and age (continuous variable). A full model was used. Among
the 153 children who were either white lie-tellers or controls
in these conditions, 127 children had valid (i.e. not missing due
to technical problems) positive display scores for both
segments. The ANOVA only revealed a significant age effect,
F(1,120) = 4.63, p < .05, ε 0.77. As age increased, children
7
smiled more, regardless of segments and conditions. No other
main effects were significant.
A significant Segment ⫻ Condition interaction was found,
F(2,120) = 6.48, p < .01, ε 0. 69. To examine this significant
interaction, post hoc analyses (pairwise t tests, LSD) was
performed to compare the children’s positive display scores
between the Reaction and Question Segments (Table 2). The
white lie-tellers in the Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching
condition significantly increased the intensity of their smile
from the Reaction Segment to the Question Segment, t(60) =
3.67, p < .0.01. However, no significant increase in the positive
scores was obtained for the white lie-tellers in the Child
Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition. In contrast, the Control
children who received a desirable gift significantly reduced
their positive display scores from the Reaction Segment to the
Question Segment, t(32) = 2.52, p < .05.
A significant Sex ⫻ Segment interaction was found,
F(1,120) = 3.88, p < .05, ε 0.56. This effect appeared to be
due to the fact that regardless of conditions, girls increased
their positive expression in the Question segment (M = 0.96,
SD = 0.84) from the Reaction Segment (M = 0.78, SD =
0.90), whereas boys did not do so between the Reaction (M
= 0.78, SD = 0.84) and Question Segments (M = 0.73,
SD = 0.88).
For the two Parent Gift conditions, because no Reaction
Segment was coded (children themselves did not receive the
gift), an ANOVA was performed with children’s positive
display scores during the Question Segment as the DV. The IVs
were: age (continuous variable), sex, and condition (Parent
Undesirable Gift–Coaching and Parent Desirable GiftControl). A full model was used. Of the 119 children who were
either white lie-tellers or controls in these conditions, 109 had
valid positive display score for the Question Segment. The
ANOVA revealed a significant age effect only, F(1,108) = 4.07,
p < .05, ε 0.69. As age increased, children increased their
intensity of smiling regardless of conditions.
Negative display scores. The negative scores of the child white
lie-tellers in the Child Undesirable Gift conditions (the Child
Undesirable Gift–Coaching and Child Undesirable Gift–No
Coaching) were compared to those of the children in the Child
Desirable Gift–Control condition. For the Child Gift
conditions, a repeated measures ANOVA was performed to
examine negative displays (DV) during both the Reaction and
Question Segments. The within subject factor was segment
(Reaction versus Question) and the between subject factors
were sex and condition (Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching,
Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching, and Child Desirable Gift–
Control), with age ( in months, continuous variable). Among
the 153 children who were either white lie-tellers or controls
in these conditions, 125 children had valid negative displays
scores for both segments. The ANOVA revealed a significant
condition effect only, F(2,118) = 11.34, p < .001, ε 0. 99 and
a significant Condition ⫻ Segment interaction, F(2,118) =
6.80, p < .01, ε 0.84.
To examine the significant interaction, post hoc analyses
(pairwise t tests, LSD) were performed to compare the
children’s negative display scores between the Reaction and
Question Segments (Table 2). Only in the Child Undesirable
Gift–No Coaching condition did the white lie-tellers’ scores
between the two segments differ significantly, t(34) = –3.86,
p < .0.01. As shown in Table 2, the white lie-tellers in this
condition reduced their negative expressions significantly from
8
TALWAR ET AL. / WHITE LIE-TELLING IN CHILDREN
the time when they just received the undesirable gift and were
left alone to the time when they told a white lie in front of the
gift-giver.
An ANOVA was performed to examine children’s negative
display scores (DV) during the Question Segment of the
Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching and the Parent Desirable
Gift–Control conditions. The IVs were sex, condition and age
(continuous variable). A full model was used. Of the 119
children who were either lie-tellers or controls in these
conditions, 109 had valid negative display scores for the
Question Segment. No significant effects were found.
Parental instructions
Parent’s instructions to their child while the experimenter was
absent in the Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching and Child
Undesirable Gift–Coaching conditions were coded. Parent’s
instructions were coded into the following categories: 1) simply
stating the children should not say that they disliked the prize
(18% of parents’ instructions); 2) asking the children not to
hurt the experimenter’s feelings by saying that they did not like
the prize (34%); 3) telling the children not to say that the prize
was undesirable and suggesting to the children what they
should say or how they should behave (21%); 4) telling the
children not to say the prize was disliked because it would hurt
the feelings of the experimenter and suggesting to the children
what they should say or how they should behave (22%); and
5) in addition to 3 or 4, children were also asked to “promise”
not to tell they disliked the prize (5%). These five categories
were collapsed into two categories: simple instruction (1–2,
52%) and elaborated instruction (3–5, 48%). The inter-coder
agreement was 90%.
To examine the relation between parents’ instructions and
their children’s decision to lie or to tell the truth, as well as the
effect of condition on parental instructions, a logistic regression analysis was conducted. Parents’ instructions were used
as the predicted variable (DV), and age (continuous variable),
sex, type of child (lie-teller or confessor), and condition (categorical variable) were used as the predictors (IVs). The bestfitting model included age, sex, type of child and condition
without interaction terms. The regression model was significant, χ2 (4, N = 150) = 24.50, p < .01 and 70% of cases were
classified by this model. The condition effect was significant,
(β = 1.21, Wald = 11.20, p < .01). The parents in the Parent
Undesirable Gift condition were more likely to use elaborated
instructions (48%) than those in the Child Undesirable Gift
condition who used more simple instructions (66%). The type
of child effect was also significant (β = –1.98, Wald = 8.64,
p < .01). The blunt truth-tellers were more likely to have
received simple instructions (85%) compared to white lietellers (53%).
The relation between parents’ instructions and lie-teller’s
elaborations in Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching and Child
Undesirable Gift–Coaching was examined. Another logistic
regression analysis was conducted with lie-teller’s answers used
as the predicted variable (DV), and age (continuous variable),
sex, parent’s instructions, and condition (categorical variable)
used as predictors. The regression model was significant, χ2 (4,
N = 140) = 25.79, p < .01 and 68% of cases were correctly
classified. The condition effect was significant, (β = 1.04; Wald
= 7.41, p < .01). The type of instructions was also significant,
(β = 1.31; Wald = 11.99, p < .001). Children who received
simple instructions gave simple answers without elaboration
(72%) while children who received elaborated instructions
tended to give elaborated answers (61%).
Additional exploratory analyses were performed to examine
the influence of parental instructions on children’s nonverbal
behaviors during the Question Segment. Separate ANOVAs for
positive and negative nonverbal scores (DVs) were conducted
for both Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching Condition and
Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching Condition, with type of
child and parental instruction type used as IVs. Significant
findings were only obtained for the Child Undesirable
Gift–Coaching Condition: the type of child ⫻ parental instruction type interaction was significant, F(1,58) = 4.78, p < .05,
ε 0.62. This effect seemed to be due to the fact that the white
lie-tellers who received elaborated instructions from their
parents had higher positive expressive behavior (M = 0.89,
SD = 0.97) than those who received simple instructions (M =
0.63, SD = 0.62). In contrast, the blunt truth-tellers who
received simple instructions had higher positive expression
scores (M = 2.00, SD = 0.82) than the blunt truth-tellers who
received elaborated parental instructions. The latter did not
display any smiling at all (M = 0.0). The observed power was
0.81.
Discussion
The present study revealed that children from 3- to 11-years-old
are able to tell white lies and use appropriate verbal and
nonverbal display rules when receiving an undesirable gift. In
addition, parental coaching had a significant impact on these
children’s white lie-telling behavior.
Verbal display rule use
In the Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching condition, 68%
of the children spontaneously told a white lie to the gift-giver,
suggesting that children will adhere to verbal display rules and
spontaneously tell a white lie in a politeness situation. The
results from the Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition
showed that children are highly responsive to parental
coaching. When parents provided the prosocial rationale for
telling a white lie, 86% of the children subsequently told a
white lie, which is significantly greater than the rate in the
Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching condition. This
condition effect suggests that while many children spontaneously lie, some children need to be reminded of the politeness rule by a socialization agent. Furthermore, children who
received elaborated instructions were more likely to elaborate
when lie-telling.
The fact that brief parental coaching produced a significant
increase in children’s white lie-telling behavior indicates that
children are sensitive and amenable to verbal politeness display
rules. However, our findings should not be interpreted as
suggesting that a brief instruction is sufficient to train a child
to be polite. These children might have been socialized to tell
white lies by their parents in previous instances and might have
told white lies previously. The brief instruction by parents in
our study might have served as a reminder of the need to
adhere to the appropriate verbal display rules for the current
situation.
No significant difference was found in terms of the rate of
lying between Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition
(86%) and Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2006, 30 (6), 1–11
(87%). This result is inconsistent with our prediction that
children in the latter condition would be more inclined to tell a
white lie on behalf of their parents. However, children in the
Parent Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition were more likely
to give elaborated answers, which was related to parent’s
coaching. Parents in the Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching
condition were overall less elaborative in their instructions to
their children than the parents in the Parent Undesirable
Gift–Coaching condition. It is possible that more children might
have told a white lie in the Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching
condition had these parents given more elaborated instructions.
Because we intended to make the parental coaching as naturalistic as possible, parents in the two conditions were not asked
to give exactly the same form of coaching. This possibility thus
needs to be tested in future studies.
Age effect
Unlike Talwar and Lee (2002b), the present study found that
as age increased children were more likely to tell a white lie
and become better lie-tellers. Younger children were less likely
to tell a white lie than older children and older children were
more likely to elaborate on their lies by providing rationales for
their “liking” the prize. Several children spontaneously told the
experimenter that their parent was “very happy about the soap
because they had run out of it at home” or that they “collect
soap” (both of the statements were in fact not true!). The
difference between our findings and Talwar and Lee (2002b)
may be due to the wider age range included in the present
study. Our results suggest similar to Talwar and Lee (2002b)
that white lie-telling develops early as many young children did
tell a white lie. However, it also suggests that this ability
develops rapidly as children enter school years and their ability
to maintain their white lies improves. These findings are similar
to previous studies that have reported that school-age children
are better at concealing their lies to cover their transgression
when asked follow-up questions (Gordon, Talwar & Lee, 2005;
Talwar & Lee, 2002a). Future studies may find developmental
differences if children are asked to elaborate their lies in a more
prolonged interaction with the gift-giver.
Another noteworthy age-related finding is that as age
increased children smiled more, which is consistent with
suggestions that children tend to exhibit more positive behaviors to others as they become more socialized (Ekman &
Friesen, 1969; Ekman, Friesen, & Ellsworth, 1972; Izard,
1979; Lewis & Michalson, 1985; Saarni, 1979, 1984).
However, this age effect was obtained regardless of whether
they received a desirable gift or an undesirable gift.
Nonverbal display rule use
Our results suggest that children as young as 3 years of age are
able to use nonverbal display rules to mask disappointment and
dissemble positive behaviors in the present politeness situation.
This finding is consistent with the results of Davis (1995),
Saarni (1984), and specifically Cole (1986) who found that
preschoolers showed less negative displays to a disappointing
gift in front of the gift-giver than when alone. The children in
the Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching condition expressed
significantly greater negativity in the experimenter’s absence
than in her presence.
In the Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition there was
no significant difference in negative expression scores between
9
the segment when experimenter was present and the segment
when the experimenter was absent. This result was probably
due to the fact that children were not actually alone in the
room. Although parents were not providing any coaching
during the Reaction segment, the mere presence of the
children’s parents elicited greater positive expressions and less
negative expressions in children, perhaps due to their earlier
social interaction history in similar situations with parents. In
contrast, in the absence of the parent in the Child Undesirable
Gift–No Coaching condition, children freely expressed their
disappointment with the undesirable gift when alone in the
room. However, this negativity was quickly controlled once the
experimenter re-entered the room and negative expressions
were replaced with smiling, suggesting that children were
perhaps making elaborate efforts to adhere to the nonverbal
display rules for this situation. Nevertheless, the children’s
negative scores during the Question Segment in the Child
Undesirable Gift–No Coaching condition were still significantly greater than the other two conditions. Thus, without
parental coaching, some children found it difficult to suppress
completely their negative facial expressions in front of the giftgiver. In contrast, brief parental instruction was sufficient to
reduce children’s negative expressions to a level that was indistinguishable from the control condition.
In terms of smiling, children in the Child Desirable Gift–
Control condition smiled more during the experimenter’s
absence and less during her presence, which might reflect a
natural course of emotional reaction to a desirable gift in
children. Children might be initially pleased with the desirable
gift and later became habituated to the gift. In contrast, the
white lie-tellers in the Child Undesirable Gift–No Coaching
condition hardly smiled when they just received the
disappointing gift but increased their smiling significantly
when the experimenter returned and probed them about
whether they liked the gift. This behavior is consistent with
nonverbal politeness-related display rules that dictate that one
should dissemble positive behaviors in front of a gift-giver
(Cole, 1986; Davis, 1995; Saarni, 1984; Talwar & Lee, 2002b),
suggesting that the increased smiling might be deliberate.
Interestingly, the type of parental instruction children
received from their parent was associated with children’s
subsequent nonverbal behavior in front of the gift-giver. In the
Child Undesirable Gift–Coaching condition, those lie-tellers
who received elaborate instructions had more positive nonverbal behaviors than those who only received a simple instruction from their parents. It appears that parents’ elaborated
instruction facilitated not only children’s verbal display rule
use (to tell a white lie) but also their nonverbal display use in
the politeness situation. This result is in line with the general
findings that maternal reports of emotional expressiveness and
parental expectations are related to children’s expressive
behavior (Fabes et al., 1994; Fuchs & Thelen, 1988; Garner
& Power, 1996; Jones et al., 1998). It should be noted that the
appropriate nonverbal display rule use was achieved despite the
fact that no parent actually instructed their children about how
to behave nonverbally in front of the gift-giver.
In the same condition, the blunt truth-tellers who acted
contrary to their parents’ detailed instructions showed little
positive expressive behavior. We speculated that this lack of
smiling may reflect the blunt truth-tellers’ awareness that they
were behaving contrary to their parents’ clear and detailed
instructions. The blunt truth-tellers who received simple
instructions from parents displayed the highest level of
10
TALWAR ET AL. / WHITE LIE-TELLING IN CHILDREN
intensity in smiling among all types of children in the five
conditions. There are several possible explanations: perhaps
these children may not have taken their parent’s guidance
seriously or they might have felt mischievous, or they were
using positive display behavior to smooth a potentially negative
interaction with the experimenter.
It should be noted that the differences found between the
white lie-tellers, the blunt truth-tellers, and the control
children were very few and subtle. The differences in facial
expressions were only detected by trained coders using the
fine-grained analysis of FACS. These differences may not be
detectable by the average observer. Talwar and Lee (2002b)
found that university students were unable to distinguish white
lie-tellers from non-liars despite the fact there were subtle
expressive differences between them as identified by finegrained analyses. Further, studies examining children’s lietelling to conceal their own transgressions (Lewis et al., 1989;
Talwar & Lee, 2002a) also found that university students and
parents could not detect young children’s lies. In addition,
police and customs officers who were trained and presumably
experienced with lie-detection failed to detect children’s lies
about their transgressions (Leach, Talwar, Lee, Bala, &
Lindsay, 2004). These findings suggest that children as young
as 3 years of age can successfully regulate their nonverbal
behaviors and lie skillfully. Given these findings, the white lietellers in the present study might be difficult to detect by naive
adult observers.
Sex differences
With regard to verbal behavior, boys and girls were equally
likely to tell a white lie, which is consistent with the findings
of the existing studies on children’s anti- and pro-social lying
behavior (e.g., Lewis et al., 1989; Talwar & Lee, 2002a;
2002b). With regard to nonverbal behaviors, our results added
further inconsistency to the already inconsistent literature
regarding sex difference. Girls displayed more positive behaviors in front of the experimenter than the boys. However, this
sex difference was obtained regardless of whether they received
a desirable or undesirable gift. This null effect for positive
behavior is consistent with that of Saarni (1984) but inconsistent with the results of Cole (1986) and Davis (1995). In terms
of negative nonverbal behaviors, the boys and girls in our study
also failed to show any difference, which is in line with the
finding of Cole (1986), but not consistent with the results of
Saarni (1984) and Davis (1995). The inconsistent findings
may be due in part to the use of different types of nonverbal
coding systems used (e.g., holistic vs. anatomically based) and
different types of experimental design (e.g., within subjects vs.
between subjects). Future studies need to harmonize research
design and scoring method to delineate the exact nature of the
sex differences in children’s nonverbal displays when receiving
a disappointing gift.
Conclusions and implications
The present study demonstrated that children will tell a white
lie in a politeness situation and this ability increases with age.
Many children are able to use spontaneously appropriate
verbal and nonverbal display rules for this situation. Parental
coaching can facilitate children’s decisions to tell a white lie
and their display of appropriate nonverbal behaviors when
telling a white lie. Further, although some children cannot
suppress completely their negative expressions, most of them
are able to modify their nonverbal expressions of emotion to
be consistent with their verbal statement, with or without
parental coaching. These findings suggest that children are able
to co-ordinate between the verbal and nonverbal channels in
order to deceive. Most of the children in the present study
modified their nonverbal expressions of emotion to be consistent with their verbal statement. Thus, our findings suggest that
at a young age children may be able to carry out integrated
multi-modal social communications with others.
The present findings add to the limited, yet increasing
amount of evidence that verbal deception emerges early and
develops rapidly (Lewis et al., 1989; Newton, Reddy, & Bull,
2000; Talwar & Lee, 2002a; Wilson, Smith, & Ross, 2003), and
children from preschool years onward tell not only “black lies”
(Barnes, 1994) that are antisocial, but also white lies that serve
politeness purposes (Talwar & Lee, 2000b). In addition, the
present finding suggests that children do not follow the rules
of social communication rigidly. In the present undesirable gift
situation, most children resolved the conflict between the need
to inform truthfully (Grice, 1980) and the need to be polite
(Lakoff, 1973). They chose politeness over truthfulness exactly
as required by the social convention prescribed for this politeness situation (Sweetser, 1987).
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