When parents lie: An experimental study into the effect of parental modeling of lying on children’s polite lies

Many parents lie to their children. Because prominent socialization theories hypothesize that children learn about lying via parental modeling of lying or honesty, it is important to examine whether parental lying affects children’s lying behavior. While there is empirical evidence for the modeling effect of lying by an experimenter on child’s lying, a modeling effect has never been studied in parent-child dyads. The current preregistered study is the first to manipulate parental lying to examine its effects on children’s polite lying. Parents (n = 105) were randomly assigned to a lie- or truth-condition where they told a polite lie or the truth about a drawing of an experimenter in front of their child. Polite lying of their 4- to 8-year-old was subsequently assessed in the disappointing gift paradigm where children received an undesired gift from the same experimenter. Our results demonstrated no effect of parental modeling of lying or honesty on child’s polite lying. The results are discussed in context of parent-child history of interactions, the societal norms around polite lying, and socialization messages conveyed from parental modeling. Although we do not find evidence for a direct effect of parental modeling of polite lying on child polite lying, future research is warranted to explore the effect of parental modeling on child lying in alternative experimental designs, the potential effect of parental modeling of lying for other types of lies and beyond the experimental context.