Parental warmth moderates the relation between children’s lying and theory-of-mind

Abstract

Lying is a prevalent and normative behavior in young children. Conceptually, it is strongly linked with children’s theory-of-mind development. However, empirical studies show that the link between children’s lying and theory-of-mind is heterogeneous. This study examined whether parental control and parental warmth moderate the link between children’s lying and theory-of-mind understanding. Three- to six-year-old Singaporean children (N = 116, Mage = 59 months, 59 male, 81.0% Chinese) participated in the temptation resistance paradigm, in which they were asked to guess the identity of a toy but instructed not to peek at it when left alone. Parental control and parental warmth were assessed via a parent–child interactive game. Results showed that the relation between children’s maintenance of their initial lie and general theory-of-mind understanding was moderated by parental warmth. Specifically, there was a negative relation between children’s lying and theory-of-mind for dyads with high parental warmth, but a positive relation between children’s lying and theory-of-mind for dyads with low parental warmth. Overall, the findings suggest that children’s lying behavior is the outcome of a complex interaction between cognitive and social factors.