Practice What You Preach? Exploring Parental Lying Attitudes, Behaviors, and Teaching

Many parents lie to their children. Paradoxically, many also disapprove of lying to children and teach children that lying is unacceptable, suggesting discrepancies between parental lying attitudes, lying behaviors, and teaching about lying. This study explored the alignment and discrepancies between parental attitudes, behaviors, and teaching across three lie types: other-oriented, self-oriented, and instrumental. Cross-sectional data were collected from parents in the Netherlands (N = 312, 79.8% mothers) and analyzed using correlational and Latent Profile Analyses. Between-parent associations suggested a general alignment between parental attitudes, behaviors, and teaching, with variations in strength depending on the type of lie. However, within-parent analyses showed that many parents exhibited discrepancies between their lying attitudes, behaviors, and teaching. The prevalence and patterns of alignment and discrepancies also differed by lie type. These findings suggest that most parents do not fully practice what they believe or preach, nor do they consistently preach what they believe, reflecting internal conflicts within parents and inconsistencies in moral socialization within families. This study not only expands on the limited understanding of parental alignment and discrepancies between lying attitudes, behaviors, and teaching but also proposes novel hypotheses of potential mechanisms underlying parental discrepancies, including parental stress, hierarchical family dynamics, and societal norms.