Punishment Threats Aren’t the Best Way to Keep Kids from Lying
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iStock/Thinkstock(MONTREAL) — During childhood, George Washington allegedly confessed to chopping down a cherry tree, either because he was very honest or perhaps he knew that getting caught lying about it would make his punishment far worse.
However, a professor of psychology at Montreal’s McGill University says that the best way to get kids to ‘fess up today is by not threatening them with punishment.
Victoria Talwar tested her theory with 370 children ages four to eight. She put each one in a room for one minute with an instruction not to sneak a peek at a toy that was behind them.
With a video camera filming them, it turns out that about two-thirds peeked anyway. Interestingly, the older the kid, the less likely they peeked.
When asked if they obeyed the instruction not to peek, two-thirds lied about it. As it happened, older children lied more often than younger ones.
But this is what intrigued Talwar. The youngsters who tended to lie were the ones most worried about being punished. Meanwhile, the young truth-tellers were honest because it would please adults while the older truth-tellers were more inclined to admit they peeked at the toy because it was the right thing to do.
Therefore, Talwar concludes that “punishment does not promote truth-telling. In fact, the threat of punishment can have the reverse effect by reducing the likelihood that children will tell the truth when encouraged to do so.”
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