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Whether it’s the Christmas Nativity Scene or an amateur production of Cats, most parents have had to endure their fair share of school plays.
If your child participated, chances are they told you it was amazing, regardless of your performance.
But a new study suggests this could actually be harmful.
Researchers at Nanyang Technological University say lying to your children can turn them into liars later in life.
“The bad news for parents is that sometimes honesty can be the best policy,” said Peipei Setoh, lead author of the study.
Whether it’s the Christmas Nativity or an amateur production of Cats, most parents have had to endure their fair share of school plays (file image)
Most parents are guilty of telling their children a lie or two.
However, until now, the impacts of these lies have been largely unexplored.
In their study, the team enlisted the help of 564 children aged 11 to 12, as well as their parents.
Participants were surveyed about their use of two different types of lies: instrumental lies and white lies.
Instrumental lies are lies told to get the child to comply, such as: “Finish all your food or you’ll be sick!”
White lies, meanwhile, are those told to instill positive emotions, such as “You were great in that school play!”
Surveys revealed that parents used instrumental lies more frequently than white lies, and children reported greater belief in instrumental lies than white lies.
“Instrumental lies are used to get a child to comply when they misbehave, for example a parent threatens to call the police if the child misbehaves,” Ms Setoh said.
Surveys revealed that parents used instrumental lies more often than white lies, and children reported believing instrumental lies more than white lies (file image)
However, children exposed to these types of lies were significantly more likely to lie to their parents.
Meanwhile, white lies usually come from a good place, but they can also turn your child into a liar.
However, this only happens if they realize that what you have told them is not true.
“White lies can be motivated by good intentions, but if children realize they have been lied to, this can also lead to the child lying,” Ms Setoh added.
Researchers hope the findings will encourage parents to think twice before lying to their children.
“Our findings underscore the value of differentiating parental lying by type when investigating its role in children’s lying socialization, as well as the importance of considering children’s perceptions and interpretation of parental lying. of children,” the team wrote in their study, published in the journal Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
WHAT ARE THE NINE WAYS TO DETECT A LIAR?
The great pause: Lying is a fairly complex process for the body and brain. First your brain produces the truth which it then has to suppress before inventing the lie and realizing that lie.
This often leads to a longer than normal pause before responding, as well as a delaying verbal technique such as “Why do you ask that?” instead of a direct and open answer.
The eye dart: Humans have more eye expressions than any other animal and our eyes can give themselves away if we try to hide something.
When we look to the left to think, we are often accessing remembered memories, but when we roll our eyes to the right we may be thinking more creatively. Additionally, guilt over a lie often causes people to use a gesture to break eye contact, such as looking down or away.
The lost breath: Bending the truth triggers an instant stress response in most people, meaning fight or flight mechanisms are activated.
The mouth becomes dry, the body sweats more, the pulse quickens, and the breathing rate changes to shorter, shallower breaths that can often be seen and heard.
Overcompensate: A liar often goes overboard, talking and gesticulating too much in an attempt to be more convincing. These exaggerated body language rituals can involve too much eye contact (often without blinking!) and overly emphatic gesturing.
The more someone gestures, the more likely it is that they are lying (file image)
The poker face: Although some people prefer to employ the poker face, many assume that less is more and almost shut down in terms of movement and eye contact when they are economical with the truth.
The face is hidden: When someone tells a lie, they often suffer from a strong desire to hide their face from the audience. This can lead to a partial cutting gesture such as the well-known nose touch or mouth covering.
Self-comfort touches: The stress and discomfort of lying often produces gestures intended to comfort the liar, such as rocking them, stroking their hair, twirling, or playing with wedding rings. We all tend to use self-comforting gestures, but this will increase dramatically when someone lies.
Microgestures: These are very small gestures or facial expressions that can appear on the face so quickly that they are difficult to see. Experts often use filmed footage that is then slowed down to capture the true body language response that emerges in the midst of the performed lie.
The best time to spot them in real life is to look for the facial expression that appears after the liar has finished speaking. The mouth may twist or the eyes may roll in an instant.
Booing hands: The most difficult body parts to manage are the hands or feet and liars often struggle to stay on message while lying.
When gestures and words are at odds, it is called incongruent gesticulation and many times it is the hands or feet that tell the truth.