Investigating the Effects of Authoritarian Parenting and Power Distance on Lie-Telling Behavior in Preschoolers

Lie-telling is a dishonest assertation requiring deceptive intent (Turri & Turri, 2015) and emerges in children around the age of three years (Fu et al., 2018). Children begin to tell lies to hide minor transgressions (e.g., peeking at a toy when instructed not to do so). Lies told for one’s own benefit are called antisocial lies (Talwar & Crossman, 2011). Prosocial lies, also known as white lies, are told to protect others’ feelings or to be polite (Talwar & Crossman, 2011). Prosocial lie-telling emerges later than antisocial lie-telling (at ca. 3.5 years; Fu et al., 2018). The complex process of lie-telling requires children already having acquired pronounced social and cognitive knowledge (Talwar & Lee, 2008). Specifically, the development of lie-telling behavior is associated with children’s executive functions and Theory of Mind (Fujito & Yato, 2015; O’Connor et al., 2020; Talwar & Lee, 2008; Talwar et al., 2017). Theory of Mind (ToM) is described as the ability to understand other’s mental states (e.g., beliefs, desires, intentions) and acknowledge that these can be different from the own ones (Apperly, 2012). To successfully (that is convincingly) tell lies, children must be able to put themself into another person’s shoes, understand that their perspective can be different, and instill a false belief into their interaction partner (Fu et al., 2018). Similarly, executive functions (EF) – that is cognitive processes guiding our thoughts and actions in order to achieve goals (Miller & Wallis, 2009) – help to inhibit truth-telling and support successful lie-telling (Fu et al., 2018). While these cognitive aspects have been researched already (ToM, Fujito & Yato, 2015; EF, O’Connor et al., 2020), the social and contextual factors are among the less studied predictors of children’s lie-telling behavior (Talwar & Crossman, 2011). Previous research suggest that socio-environmental factors such as the socioeconomic status, the child-caregivers relationship, or culture influence whether children show lie-telling or cheating behavior (e.g., Prodan et al., 2022; Talwar & Crossman, 2011). In the current study, we investigate whether caregivers’ cultural values and parenting style influence children’s lie-telling behavior between the age of four and five. Parenting Style and Lying Previous work indicates that caregivers’ values and parenting styles play a role in children’s moral development (Talwar et al., 2022) and the frequency of children’s lie-telling (Górriz Eguaras & Ibabe Erostarbe, 2021). Caregivers’ parenting style may be classified along the two dimensions responsiveness and demandingness (Baumrind, 1989; Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Responsiveness represents the extent to which caregivers show affective warmth, understanding, and support towards the child (Aunola et al., 2000). Demandingness describes how much demands caregivers put upon the child and how much control is exercised towards the child (Aunola et al., 2000). Depending on caregivers’ values in these two dimensions, their parenting style may be classified as authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, or uninvolved. We would like to emphasize at this point that these categorizations are a simplification of the behavior caregivers show towards their children and parenting is more diverse and multi-facetted. Therefore, we will assess parenting style with a more multi-dimensional scale for the current study (i.e., Alabama Parenting Questionnaire, Reichle & Franiek, 2009). Previous studies suggest the authoritarian style seems to be connected to children’s lie-telling behavior especially (Górriz Eguaras & Ibabe Erostarbe, 2021; Prodan et al., 2022). Caregivers with this parenting style show high demandingness and low responsiveness (Aunola et al., 2000). The authoritarian parenting style is characterized by a strong imbalance of power, where the caregivers exert control over the child, leaving no room for dissent or discussion. Further characteristics of authoritarian parenting are punishment, harsh treatment, submission, low levels of trust, high levels of psychological control, and low engagement towards the child (Aunola et al., 2000). This punitive context can make truth-telling – even in case of relatively small transgressions – to be perceived as dangerous (Bureau & Mageau, 2014). In line with this, previous research indicates that children of authoritarian caregivers tell more prosocial as well as antisocial lies (antisocial lying, Górriz Eguaras & Ibabe Erostarbe, 2021; Talwar & Lee, 2011; prosocial lying, Popliger et al., 2011) and that lie-telling is perceived more positively by children between the ages of 5 and 11 whose mothers scored higher on authoritarian parenting (Mojdehi et al., 2022). In the current study, we measure authoritarian parenting style via the scale powerful imposition of the German adaptation of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (DEAPQ-EL-GS; Reichle & Franiek, 2009). Powerful imposition is characterized by rigid and inflexible rules, orders, strong parental control, and harsh non-physical punishment (Reichle & Franiek, 2009). Power Distance and Lying Another factor, which has shown to influence lie-telling, is culture and people’s cultural values (e.g., Lau et al., 2013; Mealy et al., 2007; Mojdehi et al., 2022; Sweet et al., 2010). For instance, Lee et al. (1997) found that 7- to 11-years-old Taiwanese and Chinese children evaluated lies more positively compared to their Canadian peers. Pervious work indicates that the cultural dimension power distance to be associated with lie-telling especially (e.g., Cantarero et al., 2021; Mealy et al., 2007). Power distance is one of nine cultural dimensions postulated by House et al. (2004) and is defined as the extent to which the members of a society accept differences in authority (Bright & Cortes, 2019). People who score high on power distance are more accepting towards hierarchical differences, hold superiors in greater respect, and are also less accepting of lie-telling than people scoring lower on power distance. That is, in cultures with higher power distance, lie-telling is perceived as indicative of a lack of respect (Mealy et al., 2007). In the current study, caregivers’ scores on the power distance scale are assessed with the Global Leadership and Organization Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE; House et al., 2004) questionnaire. The Current Study In the current study, we aim to investigate whether an authoritarian parenting style and caregivers’ power distance are associated with children’s lie-telling behavior (see Figure 1). 1. Lying and parenting style: Do children lie more often and better when their caregivers score higher on the powerful imposition scale of the Alabama Parenting questionnaire? 2. Lying and power distance: Do children lie more often and better when their caregivers score lower on the power distance scale of the GLOBE questionnaire? To answer these questions, children’s lie-telling behavior is measured with two tasks. The first task, the Temptation Resistance Paradigm (TRP, Lewis et al., 1989), assesses children’s frequency of spontaneous lie-telling. The children are instructed not to peek at a small plastic animal while the experimenter leaves the room. This exposes the children to a highly tempting situation, which result in them often peeking at the small plastic and thus committing a minor transgression (Talwar & Lee, 2011). After her return, the experimenter will ask the children whether they peeked. Lie-telling is defined as children’s answer to this question, that is whether they lie or admit their transgression (i.e., peeking). The second task, a modified version of a hide-and-seek deception task by Sai et al. (2018), is used to assess the quality of prompted lie-telling. In this task, the child is instructed to hide a walnut in one of their hands and the experimenter must inquire the location of the walnut. The hide-and-seek deception task is made up of several rounds, in which the child must adapt his or her strategy by switching between lie and truth telling to win the game. It is thus a thoughtful and intentional act of deception (Sai et al., 2018). To assess lie-telling, the number of attempts that the child needs to win three times will be measured. Since the current study is part of a larger project, additional variables are collected which are not relevant to this project. These variables include children’s vocabulary size, inhibitory control, working memory, and Theory of Mind (see https://osf.io/7y8qu for details on project).

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