Being honest won't pay. Seven- but not 5-year-olds begin to predict that others will lie for reputational reasons.
Children begin to manage their reputation around school-age, but it remains unclear when they start to explicitly reason about reputational strategies such as lying from a third-person perspective. The current study investigated whether 5- and 7-year-old children would explicitly predict reputationa...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2025-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317334 |
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| _version_ | 1841533217193066496 |
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| author | Mareike Klafka Ulf Liszkowski |
| author_facet | Mareike Klafka Ulf Liszkowski |
| author_sort | Mareike Klafka |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Children begin to manage their reputation around school-age, but it remains unclear when they start to explicitly reason about reputational strategies such as lying from a third-person perspective. The current study investigated whether 5- and 7-year-old children would explicitly predict reputational lying in the context of a third party interaction. Participants were told hypothetical stories and asked to predict whether a protagonist would lie to a peer character about a selfish resource allocation. Results revealed that about half of the 7-year-olds and neglectable few of the 5-year-olds began to predict that the protagonist would lie to his peer out of reputational concern and whitewash the selfishly distributed amount. The prediction of reputational lying did not differ for ingroup or outgroup third parties. Seven-year-olds justified their prediction of a lie with reference to how the protagonist would look to others. While reputational lying has been shown in 5-year-olds in comparable interactive scenarios with peers, a more abstract, explicit understanding of reputational lying seems to be a more complex cognitive ability, emerging around the age of 7 years. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-221150c2452d44d8a978ef2ed6070916 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj-art-221150c2452d44d8a978ef2ed60709162025-01-17T05:31:20ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01201e031733410.1371/journal.pone.0317334Being honest won't pay. Seven- but not 5-year-olds begin to predict that others will lie for reputational reasons.Mareike KlafkaUlf LiszkowskiChildren begin to manage their reputation around school-age, but it remains unclear when they start to explicitly reason about reputational strategies such as lying from a third-person perspective. The current study investigated whether 5- and 7-year-old children would explicitly predict reputational lying in the context of a third party interaction. Participants were told hypothetical stories and asked to predict whether a protagonist would lie to a peer character about a selfish resource allocation. Results revealed that about half of the 7-year-olds and neglectable few of the 5-year-olds began to predict that the protagonist would lie to his peer out of reputational concern and whitewash the selfishly distributed amount. The prediction of reputational lying did not differ for ingroup or outgroup third parties. Seven-year-olds justified their prediction of a lie with reference to how the protagonist would look to others. While reputational lying has been shown in 5-year-olds in comparable interactive scenarios with peers, a more abstract, explicit understanding of reputational lying seems to be a more complex cognitive ability, emerging around the age of 7 years.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317334 |
| spellingShingle | Mareike Klafka Ulf Liszkowski Being honest won't pay. Seven- but not 5-year-olds begin to predict that others will lie for reputational reasons. PLoS ONE |
| title | Being honest won't pay. Seven- but not 5-year-olds begin to predict that others will lie for reputational reasons. |
| title_full | Being honest won't pay. Seven- but not 5-year-olds begin to predict that others will lie for reputational reasons. |
| title_fullStr | Being honest won't pay. Seven- but not 5-year-olds begin to predict that others will lie for reputational reasons. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Being honest won't pay. Seven- but not 5-year-olds begin to predict that others will lie for reputational reasons. |
| title_short | Being honest won't pay. Seven- but not 5-year-olds begin to predict that others will lie for reputational reasons. |
| title_sort | being honest won t pay seven but not 5 year olds begin to predict that others will lie for reputational reasons |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317334 |
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