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Your child tells you he didn't eat a cookie despite the tell-tale crumbs all over his mouth. You call your boss to say you're taking 'a sick day,' feigning a cough while on the phone. You're both lying, but is it the same?
Whether we're 2 years old or 62, our reasons for lying are mostly the same: to get out of trouble, for personal gain and to make ourselves look better in the eyes of others. But a growing body of research is raising questions about how a child's lie is different from an adult's lie, and how the way we deceive changes as we grow.
Developmental psychologists are trying to understand lying through behavior. Neuroscientists are tracking which regions of the brain are activated when we spin lies. Their results could shed light on issues from why a tween lies to your face about breaking a vase to whether young children can be trusted to give eye-witness testimony in court. One intriguing new study suggests that lying may spring from a completely different part of the brain in children compared with adults.
What has become clear from studies including the work of Kang Lee, a professor at the University of Toronto and director of the Institute of Child Study, is that lying is a sign of normal maturation.
Parents and teachers who catch their children lying 'should not be alarmed -- and their children are not going to turn out to be pathological liars,' says Dr. Lee, who has spent the last 15 years studying how lying changes as kids get older, why some people lie more than others as well as which factors can reduce lying. 'The fact that their children tell lies is a sign that they have reached a new developmental milestone.'
Dr. Lee and Victoria Talwar, a colleague he often collaborates with at McGill University, conducted a series of studies in which they bring children into a lab with hidden cameras. Children and young adults age 2 to 17 are enticed to lie by being told not to peek at a toy -- often a plush purple Barney dinosaur -- that is put behind the child's back. The test giver then leaves the room for one minute, ostensibly to answer a phone call, giving the child ample time to peek at the toy. Whether or not the child sneaks a look is caught on tape.
For young kids, the temptation to cheat is 'tremendous' and 90% peek in these experiments. Even adolescents and adults are tempted in similar situations, says Dr. Lee.
When the test giver returns to the room, the child is asked if he or she peeked. At age 2, about a quarter of children will lie and say they didn't. By 3, half of kids will lie, and by 4, that figure is 90%, studies show.
This trend continues until kids are about 15. By that age, nearly everyone who cheated in the experiment will lie about it. The good news: The number of liars begins to decline beyond this age. By 17, the percentage that lies drops to about 70%.
Researchers have also examined why some kids lie more than others, and have found that it isn't related to better moral values or religious upbringing. Rather, it's kids with better cognitive abilities who lie more. That's because to lie you also have to keep the truth in mind, which involves multiple brain processes, such as integrating several sources of information and manipulating that information, according to Shawn Christ, a neuropsychologist at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
The ability to lie -- and lie successfully -- is thought to be related to development of brain regions that allow so-called 'executive functioning,' or higher order thinking and reasoning abilities. Kids who perform better on tests that involve executive functioning also lie more.
参考译文：
你的孩子对你说他没吃曲奇饼，尽管他的嘴巴边上全是暴露真相的饼干渣。你打电话给你的老板说你请个“病假”，一边打电话还一边挤出一声咳嗽。你们两个都在撒谎，但这一样吗？
无论我们是两岁还是62岁，我们撒谎的原因大都一样：为了摆脱麻烦、得到好处或者是为了让我们在别人眼里变得更好。不过越来越多的研究正在提出这样的疑问：孩子的谎言和大人们的谎言有何不同；随着年龄的增长，我们的撒谎行为会发生何种变化。
发展心理学家们正在努力通过人们的行为举止来理解说谎。神经学家们则在探究在我们编造谎话时究竟是大脑的哪个区域被激活。从为什么十几岁的少年会当着你的面谎称不曾打碎花瓶，到是否可以采信小孩子在法庭上的证言，他们的研究结果可能会给出一些答案。一个有趣的新研究显示，和成人相比，孩子们的撒谎行为可能来源于一个完全不同的大脑区域。
包括多伦多大学(University of Toronto)教授、儿童问题研究所(Institute of Child Study)负责人李强(Kang Lee)所作的研究在内，众多研究表明，说谎标志着正常的成熟。
发现孩子说谎的父母和老师们“不应该感到恐慌──他们的孩子也不会变成病态说谎者，”李强说。他在过去的15年里的研究课题是：随着孩子年龄的增长撒谎会发生怎样的变化，为什么有些人会说更多的谎话，以及哪些因素可以减少说谎。“孩子说谎标志着他们到达了一个新的发展阶段。”
李强和他经常合作的麦吉尔大学(McGill University)同事维多利亚•塔尔瓦(Victoria Talwar)进行了一系列研究：他们将孩子带入一间安装有隐蔽摄像头的实验室。测试者告知年龄从两岁到17岁的儿童和青少年受试者不要偷看放在他们背后的一个玩具──这个玩具通常是紫色毛绒恐龙Barney──以此诱使他们撒谎。然后，测试者离开房间一分钟，表面上是接电话，给孩子们足够的时间去偷看玩具。而孩子们是否偷看则被录像带记录了下来。
对于儿童来说，偷看的诱惑力是巨大的，因此有90%的儿童在实验中都偷看了玩具。即便是青少年和成年人在类似的情况下也受到了引诱，李强说。
测试者回到房间后询问孩子们是否偷看了玩具。研究显示，在两岁的孩子里，大约有四分之一的人会撒谎说他们没有看过。三岁的孩子有一半会说谎，而到了四岁，这个数字是90%。
这个趋势在孩子们大约15岁前都成立。而到了15岁，几乎所有在实验中偷看过玩具的人都会说谎。好消息是：在15岁以上的孩子里说谎者的数量开始出现下降。而到了17岁，说谎的比例减少到了大约70%。
研究人员还调查了为什么某些孩子比其他孩子更爱说谎。他们发现，这和更为高尚的道德观或者和宗教成长环境无关。相反，那些拥有更优秀的认知能力的孩子们更爱撒谎。密苏里大学哥伦比亚分校(University of Missouri-Columbia)神经心理学家肖恩•克赖斯特(Shawn Christ)说，这是因为要想撒谎，你必须在头脑里保留真相，而这包含了几个步骤的大脑思维过程，比如整合几方面的信息以及操控这些信息。
说谎──而且是成功说谎的能力被认为是与某个大脑区域的发展相关联的，该区域负责所谓“执行能力”，也就是更高级的思维和推理能力。那些在包含执行能力的测试中表现更好的孩子们也会说更多的谎言。
原文链接：Why We Lie So Well
