Adults often urge children to tell only the truth and never lie. But the study showed that if children really do this, then adults evaluate them much more severely.
The truth can hurt and even kill a person, so we quite often resort to the so-called saving lie. For example, we do not tell a seriously ill person that his chances of recovery are very small, we do not tell an unsympathetic woman about her appearance, and we do not blame a colleague at work about an unpleasant smell from his mouth. This is well understood by adults, but not by children, according to a study by the University of Texas. It showed that if children spoke harsh truths, then adults perceived them more severely than those who spoke polite lies.
Psychologists advise children to stop lying about Santa Claus
A group of adult volunteers were shown 267 videos of children aged 6 to 15 telling the truth or lies in various social situations. For example, they informed their interlocutor that he had spinach stuck in his teeth. All adults were asked to express their opinion about the children. It turned out that if they followed the recommendations of adults and spoke the pure truth, then they made a worse impression on these adults, compared to those children and adolescents who preferred to lie for good.
Adults can recognize children's lies only half the time
True, adults reported that they were likely to reward the most those children who were able to utter the subtle truth while maintaining politeness. The results of this study show once again that young children receive conflicting messages from adults about whether they should be honest or lie, that is, be polite, or speak the truth as they see it in front of them. (READ MORE)
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University of Texas
Medicine
a public state university in Austin (Texas, USA) and the main one in the system of the University of Texas