dc.description.abstract | A substantial body of research has accumulated on the types of
cues individuals use to determine whether others are lying rather than
telling the truth (Depaulo, Stone & Lassiter, 1985). The bulk of the
research, however, has dealt with adults. The present research was
designed to fill in the gap in our knowledge about such processes in
children. In particular, the study examined children's use of gaze cues,
limb movement cues, vocal pitch cues and valence cues to determine
whether others are lying or telling the truth. Children from senior
kindergarten, second and fourth grades were presented videotapes of
actors who stated their liking and disliking for clothes, movies and T.V.
programs. The actors displayed different types of gazes (direct versus
indirect), limb movements (active versus nonactive), vocal pitches (high
versus normal) and valence (liking versus not liking). The children
judged on 3-point scales how much they believed the actors were lying
or telling the truth and provided explanations for their judgments. It was
found that the children did not use the anxiety cues in their judgments,
although they did show consideration of the cues in their explanations.
Age differences were found in children’s use of the valence cues in their
lying judgments; senior kindergarten and second grade, judged the
negative statements as being more indicative of lying than were the
positive statements and the reverse was shown by the fourth graders.
Close scrutiny of the data revealed that fourth grade children tended to use the anxiety cues in their lying judgments. It was proposed that the
children’s use of the anxiety cues may emerge later in development. | |