Children's Evaluations of Different Lies by In-group and In-group Members: The Role of Theory of Mind and Executive Function

Abstract

 The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of lie type and liar's membership attributes on children's evaluation of lies, and to examine the roles of theory of mind and executive function. 89 children aged 5-7 from a kindergarten and a primary school in Jingzhou City, Hubei Province were selected for the experiment (M = 5.94 years old, SD = 0.86, including 43 boys and 46 girls), and each child was asked to listen to four Stories about the protagonist lying, and children were asked to evaluate the protagonist's behavior, after which the children's theory of mind and executive function were measured using the false belief task and the software NIH Toolboxs. It was found that children rated white lies higher than malicious lies, and children rated members within the group higher than members outside the group. Regression analysis found that the development of theory of mind after controlling for children's gender and age negatively predicted children's evaluation of malicious lies in the group, and executive function positively predicted children's evaluation of white lies. To sum up, executive function, theory of mind, lie types, and membership attributes may all affect children's assessment of lies.