Lying as Ability or Skill

Development of Lying Ability

Children begin spontaneously telling lies very early, but the lies of 2-year-olds are remarkably unconvincing. Young children have difficulty maintaining lies and will often reveal information that clearly exposes the falsehood. As children get older, they become more skilled at keeping truth and lies straight and can produce answers to follow-up questions that are consistent with the original lie.

There is some evidence that, in regard to children's lying, practice helps. Children in harsh, punitive environments quickly learn to use lying as a means of avoiding punishment, so it is no surprise that they lie more frequently than other children; however, they also tell more sophisticated lies than their same-age peers, demonstrating greater ability to maintain their falsehoods in response to questioning.

Young children have difficulty maintaining lies and will often reveal information that clearly exposes their falsehood. Children become more skilled at keeping truth and lies straight as they get older, producing answers to follow-up questions that are consistent with the original lie.

[Page 622]In addition to practice, one reason that children get better at lying with age seems to be that the skills of inhibition, memory, and theory of mind (the awareness that others have intentions and desires that are different from one's own) improve with development. In general, lies can be broken into three components: primary (untrue statement), secondary (taking the other person's lack of knowledge into account), and tertiary (maintaining the lie with other statements). While inhibition is likely important for the primary aspect—the initial false statement and withholding of truth—theory of mind is important for the secondary aspect and working memory for the tertiary aspect. Given that most people are not particularly good at the detection of simple lies, it may be that skills at the secondary and tertiary stages are most important to successful lying. If the deceiver cannot maintain the lie successfully and keep track of what the deceived person does and does not know, the falsehood is more likely to be detected.

Among older children and adolescents, these skills continue to be important. Older adolescents tend to be more effective at telling lies than younger adolescents, and adolescents rated as more socially competent tend to show greater lying skill than those rated as less socially competent. Cumulatively, this evidence suggests that lying, like other skills and abilities, improves with development and practice.

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