Contagious lies: if you lie, your child becomes like Pinocchio

Parents, you are warned: telling lies to children, even if for good, triggers a chain reaction that leads them to become, in turn, “pinocchio”.

According to a study conducted at the University of San Diego, California, and published in the journal Developmental Science, those who accustom their children to lies do nothing but instigate in them the habit of not telling the truth. Their reasoning is simple: if mom and dad lie, it means that telling the truth is unimportant.

The study on frottola

In the survey, carried out on 187 children between the ages of 3 and 7, a group of children were told that there was a huge plate of candy in the next room, and then admitted that it was a lie.

The other half of children, however, were simply asked to play.

The researchers then asked the children in both groups to recognize toys they couldn’t see by listening to music or sound. One of the melodies, Beethoven’s Per Elisa, was not associated with any game.

Whenever the children had to give the answer about the unknown sound, the operator would leave the room, asking them not to look behind the curtain and thus discover the corresponding game.

After a minute and a half, the operator would come back and ask what they had done.

It turned out that 80% of the children who had been told the lie about candy had looked behind the curtain, and of these, 90% lied saying they had not.

The difference was more marked between children aged 5 to 7 years, i.e. older.

The US experts have therefore concluded that if an adult tells even one lie, a mechanism is triggered by which the child feels entitled to lie in turn.