Children's awareness of being deceptive

Deception is a complex phenomenon and an incriminating cognitive process, which makes it interesting to study. This is why Anne, Kim, Desiree, Maayke, Evelien and I have interviewed Marc Swerts. Marc Swerts, who is professor at the University of Tilburg, has recently studied the deception by children.

Adults are more aware of social aspects than children, and use non-verbal communication in a very conscious manner. The Clinton–Lewinsky affaire is an interesting example to analyze, but also Barack Obama's speeches show his skills in concealing thing that are not completely true. The analysis of lying adults is also used by the tv-program 'Lie to me'.

The ability to deceive is the ability to understand that someone's perspective of the world can differ from you own perspective. This is called Theory of mind, and young children don't have this ability yet.

Marc Swerts has investigated children's awareness of being deceptive with the use of a game. The game is about a prince and a dragon. The game evokes children to lie spontaneously about the hiding place of a dragon, in order to protect the prince. It is interesting to see whether and how lies can be detected in children.

Watch the entire interview and the results of the study: