Care and trust make children more honest

The social environment and parents' parenting style can influence how often children lie.

This was the result of a study for which researchers from the Universities of Würzburg, Bonn and Oxford surveyed around 1600 families and examined the behavior of schoolchildren and parents. According to the study, children can learn to be more honest when they experience affection and trust.

In the study, which has been running since 2011, Würzburg economics professor Fabian Kosse and his two colleagues investigated the consequences of a lack of resources on the development of children and young people. The willingness to lie is one aspect of this, explained Kosse.

For the study presented in "The Economic Journal", the team followed children and their families from Cologne and Bonn from primary school age onwards, most of whom came from educationally disadvantaged and socio-economically deprived households.

Those who receive attention are more honest

Among them, more than 200 randomly selected children took part in a mentoring program for a year, in which volunteers spent time with them once a week, did something fun together and thus became a permanent caregiver.

The other children were placed in the control group. Children from more educated households served as an additional comparison. According to Kosse, this showed that "inequality arises very early in life - including in the willingness to lie." In one experiment, the scientists had the children roll the dice and predict the result of their roll beforehand.

If the prediction and the result matched, they were allowed to take a small amount of money. They were unobserved - so no one checked whether there was actually a match. The proportion of cheating was calculated by the researchers using statistical probabilities.

This showed: "Children who had taken part in the mentoring program were more honest in the overall results," said Kosse. While 44 percent of them cheated, 58 percent of the control group without mentors did so.

Trust leads to honesty

According to the study, children from households with a high level of education also lied less. "A caring and attentive parenting style is associated with fewer lies. Even if parents are more willing to trust their children and other people, this leads to more honesty," said Kosse.

The scientists see the result as a long-term success for the mentoring program: the children took part in the dice experiment four years later. This shows that early childhood interventions not only improve a child's performance, but can also influence their social and moral behavior, according to the study.

Mentoring programs are an effective form of support, especially for children from homes with comparatively little stimulation and care.