Lying to recommend unqualified friends: Diverging implications for interpersonal and epistemic trust inferences

When people are asked to recommend individuals they care about, they often grapple with conflicts regarding the level of honesty they should maintain when being truthful could potentially hinder those individuals' chances of receiving beneficial opportunities. In the current study, we examined how adolescents evaluate people based on how they respond to such dilemmas, with a focus on how it affects judgments of interpersonal and epistemic trustworthiness. We tested a sample of high school students in the southwestern United States (N = 78; Mage = 16.45 years), who were asked about a moral dilemma in which a story character needed to decide whether to recommend an unqualified friend. We experimentally manipulated whether the friend was very close to the standard (requiring a small exaggeration) or was far from the standard (requiring a large exaggeration) between participants. Across both exaggeration conditions, we observed a dissociation in judgments of epistemic and interpersonal trustworthiness: Lie-tellers were judged to be more interpersonally trustworthy than epistemically trustworthy, whereas truth-tellers were judged to be more epistemically trustworthy than interpersonally trustworthy. These results show that adolescents are capable of using information about an individual's lie-telling versus truth-telling decisions to make highly nuanced social inferences.

A field approach to observing changes in behavioural welfare indicators over 2 years in stabled horses

In stabled horses, several behaviours are considered to be important indicators of the state of welfare at the individual level: stereotypies, aggressive behaviours towards humans and the "withdrawn", alert, sternal, lateral and observation postures. Until now, these behaviours have been extensively studied in relation to different horse management practices. However, little is known about their changes or consistency over time. This study aimed to investigate differences in the expression of these behaviours assessed on 44 stabled horses during an initial 3-month period and then again on the same individuals 2 years later. Out of the six behaviours studied, two showed significant differences between the 2 years with medium effect sizes: the levels of aggressiveness towards humans increased (Wilcoxon signed-rank test: V = 65, P = 0.005) and those of recumbent rest during the day decreased (V = 416, P < 0.001) over time. The results also suggested limited evidence of major changes over time in the expression of stereotypies, the "withdrawn", alert and observation postures. However, the principal component analyses carried out on all the behaviours showed that alert and observation postures may slightly decrease over time for some individuals. Regarding stereotypies and the "withdrawn" posture, the results mainly suggested a change at the individual level in the expression of these behaviours over time. This study provided new insights into the dynamic nature of several behaviours when the horses' living conditions are not fundamentally altered and raised hypotheses about the state of welfare of stabled individuals over a 2-year period.

Parenting by lying and children's lying to parents: The moderating role of children's beliefs

How are children socialized about lying? One way is parental modeling of lying given that parents tell various lies to their children for parenting purposes, which is a practice known as parenting by lying. Importantly, how children perceive and interpret the lying behavior around them may be crucial to how they then learn to lie. Yet, we do not know how children's perceptions of different types of parental lies drive this socialization. In a comprehensive birth cohort of parent-child dyads (N = 564; children aged 11 and 12 years) in Singapore, we collected multi-informant reports of instrumental lies (parental lies told for child compliance) and white lies (parental lies told to instill positive emotions), children's belief in parental lies, and children's lying to parents. We found greater consistency in parent and child reports of instrumental lies than of white lies and that children reported greater belief in instrumental lies than in white lies. Children's reported exposure to instrumental lies was associated with greater lying to parents. However, for white lies this relationship was evident only when children had moderate to low beliefs in parental lies. Examining the interplay between parental lies and children's beliefs in those lies, the current study illuminates the potential pathways to children's lying behaviors.

Is childhood lying shaped by callous-unemotional traits or does lie-telling make children more callous-unemotional? A longitudinal between- and within-person perspective

The current study aims to advance knowledge on the causal interrelationship between childhood CU traits and lying both at a between- and a within-person perspective across a significant developmental period of mid-childhood to mid-adolescence. Cross-lagged panel models and Random-intercept cross-lagged panel models were used to investigate the prospective associations between lying and the distinct subcomponents of CU traits, including Callousness, Uncaring, and Unemotional in a sample of 719 children (T1; Mage = 10.73 years, SDage = 1.38, range = 7-15 years, 54.4% girls) across four assessment points. Results supported large vulnerability effects at the between-person level across time, indicating that CU traits predominantly influence the subsequent development of lying, with Callousness and Uncaring showing most profound effects on subsequent developmental processes of lying. At the within-person level, fluctuations in CU traits and lying were overall meaningfully related, but no causal relationship could be empirically determined. These findings provide a differentiated etiological viewpoint on the intertwinement of CU traits and lying at a young age, and underscore the importance of an early identification of children with callous and uncaring tendencies in order to prevent more persistent lying in adolescence.

Bullshit can be harmful to your health: Bullibility as a precursor to poor decision--making

Bullshitting is characterized by sharing information with little to no regard for truth, established knowledge, or genuine evidence. It involves the use of various rhetorical strategies to make one's statements sound knowledgeable, impressive, persuasive, influential, or confusing in order to aid bullshitters in explaining things in areas where their obligations to provide opinions exceed their actual knowledge in those domains. Distinct from gullibility (i.e., a propensity to accept a false premise in the presence of untrustworthiness cues), we highlight the research on bullibility (i.e., believing bullshit even in the face of social cues that signal something is bullshit) and its links to erroneous judgments and decisions. A deeper understanding of bullibility is critical to identifying and correcting poor decision-making.

Accelerometer-measured physical activity and posture among older adults in assisted-living residences

Objective

Few studies have detailed the physical activity and postural patterns (e.g. lying or sitting) in older adults with declining activities of daily living (ADL). Therefore, we aimed to address this issue by quantifying physical activity using an accelerometer and measuring time spent in various postures among older adults in assisted-living residences.

Methods

We quantified physical activity using an accelerometer (ActivPAL) and measured time spent in various postures in 35 older adults (mean age: 89.1 years) with chronic conditions residing in two assisted-living residences in Japan. ActivPAL was attached to the thigh and trunk of patients to distinguish between sitting and lying postures.

Results

Participants had a mean count of 6.2 comorbidities, and they were divided into three groups (fully independent, requiring minimal assistance and requiring care) based on their activities of daily living capacity using the Barthel Index. Residents aged ⩾90 years walked a mean of 1109.1 steps and spent 167.3 min upright per day. Fully independent participants walked a mean of 3587.6 steps daily; those requiring minimal assistance walked 1681.0 steps daily; and those requiring care walked 428.9 steps daily.

Conclusions

Our findings indicated that step count, number of sit-to-stand transitions, stepping time, and upright time decreased significantly as activities of daily living capacity decreased. Comorbidity type and number of comorbidities were not related to their lying time except for depression status. Lying time was associated with depression status.

Effects of bed cleanliness on tucked and extended sleep-related lying postures of Japanese Black fattening cattle

OBJECTIVE

Resting comfort may influence sleep-related lying postures in cattle. This study aimed to investigate the effects of bed cleanliness on tucked (TSP) and extended (ESP) head positions in sleep-related lying postures.

METHODS

The study was conducted over two experimental periods. In each period, four Japanese Black fattening cattle were assigned to the cleaning treatment (CL), in which bedding material was replaced once during each experimental period. Four cattle were assigned to the control treatment (CON) with no bed cleaning. Daily duration, bout frequency, and bout length of sleep-related lying postures were measured, and bed moisture, ammonia concentration in the air, plasma cortisol, and serotonin concentration were also measured within one week before and after cleaning treatment in each period.

RESULTS

The bed moisture and ammonia concentrations decreased in CL after bed cleaning. Following bed cleaning, the duration and bout frequency of TSP in CL decreased compared to that observed in CON, whereas ESP in CL increased after bed cleaning. Total duration of sleep-related lying postures and cortisol and serotonin levels did not differ between CL and CON.

CONCLUSION

These results suggest that cattle in sleep-related lying postures shifted from tucked head positions to extended head positions in response to improved bed cleanliness.

Lying about the future: Shuar-Achuar epistemic norms, predictions, and commitments

Is there variation across cultures in what counts as a lie? Here we present evidence for a potentially unique conceptualization of lying in Shuar-Achuar communities in Ecuador, contrasting this conceptualization with people in twelve other countries and non-Shuar-Achuar Ecuadorians. In Shuar-Achuar communities, but not others, predictions of the future that turn out to be false are considered lies, even when the events that render them false are unforeseen. Failed commitments, on the other hand, are not seen as lies when unforeseen events prevent them from being kept. To explain this phenomenon, we suggest that there is an epistemic norm that regulates predictive speech acts in Shuar-Achuar communities, linked to the view that the future can be known under certain special circumstances. This norm holds that claiming knowledge of the future is a form of lying when events prove the prediction false. Commitments, on the other hand, do not imply certainty about the future and so are not considered lies when circumstances prevent them from being fulfilled. In addition, we found several other factors that influence whether speech acts are categorized as lies, including the speaker's expertise, group membership, and the nature of the outcome.

Effect of day time on smartphone use posture and related musculoskeletal disorders risk: a survey among university students

BACKGROUND

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are one of the most important problems among young smartphone users worldwide. Portability leads to a wide variety of postures during the different activities of the day. The objective evaluation of these postures coupled with ergonomic tools allows evaluating the level of MSD risk to which users are exposed.

METHODS

The purpose was to investigate the effect of the time of day on the posture adopted during smartphone use among university students. The study was conducted through a cross-sectional survey of 263 university sports students. Four time of day, i.e. morning, afternoon, evening and night, and a taxonomy of 41 postures called SmarTaxo were considered. SmarTaxo included 18 sitting, 11 standing, 10 lying and 2 walking postures and their ergonomic score. After checking the normality of the data, a non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test was used to study the effect of the time of day on the use duration of the different postures.

RESULTS

The total mean duration use per typical weekday was 5.39 ± 2.19 h for males and 5.15 ± 1.60 h for females with maximal duration during evening. The average smartphone use durations were statistically longer in afternoon and evening for all sitting (9.44 and 9.22 min respectively, p < 0.05) and calling (3.38 and 3.33 min respectively, p < 0.05) postures. The longest duration for standing postures was recorded for afternoon (8.91 min, p < 0.05). The lying postures were significantly more present in evening (19.36 min). Some postures were more used during a time of day. The side-lying posture was used more in evening and has an ergonomic score of 6, i.e. a high MSD risk.

CONCLUSIONS

The survey showed that users are exposed to MSDs regardless of posture and time of day. Sitting postures are used more in the morning and afternoon while lying postures are used more in the evening. As long as the rate of use is so high (> 5 h per day), young people will remain highly exposed to MSDs.

Cognitive Load and Deception Detection Performance

The ability to detect deception is one of the most intriguing features of our minds. Cognitive load can surprisingly increase the accuracy of detection when there is a substantial load compared to when the detection is performed without cognitive load. This effect was tested in two experiments. In the first experiment, the participants were asked to watch truth/lie videos while completing a concurrent task (N-back in a 3-back version; intuitive processing), providing verbal reasoning after watching each video (deliberative processing), or watching the videos alone (control group). The cognitive load caused by the concurrent task led to a higher accuracy in deception detection compared to the other conditions. In the second experiment, we examined how this effect worked under various amounts of cognitive load. Participants watching truth/lie videos were assigned to one of three experimental conditions (N-back in three versions: 1, 3, and 5-back) or to a control group. The participants in the 3-back and 5-back conditions exhibited a significantly higher accuracy in deception detection than those in the 1-back and control groups. Thus, the effect of increased accuracy in deception detection is due to cognitive load and is related to the amount of cognitive load present.

Effects of one hour daily outdoor access on lying and sleeping postures, and immune traits of tethered cows

Objective

We investigated the effects of outdoor access for 1 h per day on the animal welfare (AW) of tethered cows, in terms of lying and sleeping postures, and immune function.

Methods

A total of five dry cows were tethered all day indoors (tethering) for 30 days and then tethered indoors with 1 h daily outdoor access (ODA-1h) for 30 days. To analyze the effects of ODA-1h, we calculated the total duration and bout frequency per day, and bout duration of lying and sleeping postures during the last five days of each treatment period. We also analyzed the populations of T cells, B cells, and NK cells in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) by fluorescence-activated cell sorting, and determined the concanavalin A (Con A) -induced proliferation rate of T cells.

Results

The mean total time per day of lying during the ODA-1h treatment was significantly shorter than that during the tethering treatment (p<0.001). The Con A-induced proliferation rate of T cells during the ODA-1h treatment was significantly higher than that during the tethering treatment (p = 0.007). The proportion of NK cells in PBMC during the ODA-1h treatment tended to be higher than that during the tethering treatment (p = 0.062).

Conclusion

Although ODA-1h may decrease lying time, it increases the available space for tethered cows towards that typically found in grazing and free barn feeding systems. This increased available space promotes the expression of normal behaviors such as walking and social behaviors except lying, and may also improve the immune function of tethered dry cows, thereby improving their overall welfare.

People lie less when they put on a medical face mask

The current study examined how a face mask people wore during the COVID-19 pandemic affects frequent lying and successful telling and detecting lies and truths in a face-to-face deception task. Participants were psychology students who acted as senders and receivers of true and false communications under three conditions: visible face, wearing a face mask, and blindfolding in addition to the face mask. Participants arrived in groups of eight. They first completed a lying questionnaire and then participated in the deception task. Their goal was to outperform the rest of the group to retain a bonus of additional course credit. Results indicated that participants reduced the number of lies told when wearing the face mask compared to chance expectancy (d = -.27) and visible face (d = -0.21). In addition, participants were more successful in detecting truths in the face mask condition than in the visible face condition (d = 0.21). Finally, self-assessed lie-telling ability predicted frequent lying in the face mask but not in the other conditions. It was suggested that participants wearing the face mask were affected by the attitudes and norms that prevailed during the COVID-19 pandemic, where consideration was required, and people were relatively thoughtful and kind. The face mask reminded participants of these norms and motivated participants to act accordingly.

Deception in negotiations: Insights and opportunities

Deception pervades negotiations and shapes both the negotiation process and outcomes. In this article, we review recent scholarship investigating deception in negotiations. We offer an integrative review of recent theoretical and empirical research, and we argue that the dominant experimental paradigms that scholars have used to study deception have limited our understanding of deception in negotiations. We call for future work to develop new paradigms to investigate the role of relationships, reputations, emotions, and negotiation experience. We also call for future work to expand our understanding of practical prescriptions to curtail a negotiator's risk of being deceived.

Audience Control over Children's Honest Reports

We evaluated audience control over children's honest reports using a reversal (ABA or ABAB) design. Four typically developing children performed a computer game in which they had to shoot a target and then report on their performance during and at the end of each session. Baseline assessed the accuracy of their reports in the absence of an experimenter. During the audience condition, an adult was present in the room and observed the child during the task. Participants accurately reported their errors when an adult was present, whereas they lied about their performance by systematically reporting errors as correct responses when an adult was absent. Honest reports about their total score at the end of the session also increased in the presence of the audience member. These results suggest that the presence of an adult exerted control over children's honest/accurate reports. We discussed the reasons why the presence of an adult may have served as a discriminative stimulus for honest reports.

Development and initial validation of an underreporting of Disordered Eating Behaviors Scale

The purpose of this study was to develop the Underreporting of Disordered Eating Behaviors Scale (UDEBS) to detect attempts by respondents to underreport eating patterns that reflect symptoms of an eating disorder. In "Study 1", the scale and validity measures were administered via an online survey to 692 undergraduates. In "Study 2", these measures were administered to 810 undergraduates using a simulation design where participants were randomized to four conditions: (1) answering as truthfully as possible, or as if they are trying to hide (2) Binge Eating Disorder (BED), (3) Anorexia Nervosa (AN), or (4) Bulimia Nervosa (BN). "Study 1" results suggested that men and women have divergent UDEBS distributions and item endorsement rates; therefore, separate analyses were performed by gender. Individuals who scored above one standard deviation (SD) on the UDEBS reported less body dissatisfaction and disordered eating (ps < 0.05) than those who scored one SD below. In "Study 2" women who were instructed to hide an eating disorder reported significantly higher UDEBS scores than women instructed to answer truthfully. There were no significant differences between conditions for men. The final 15-item scale indicated that women who complied with instructions to underreport produced scores 1.45 (BN) to 1.72 (AN) times greater than the truthful responding condition. This novel scale can potentially assist in detecting women who underreport in relation to disordered eating, which may be useful in research and clinical contexts where underreporting is a concern. Future research is needed with men and clinical samples.Level I Evidence obtained from an experimental study.

Public Announcements, Public Lies and Recoveries

The paper gives a formal analysis of public lies, explains how public lying is related to public announcement, and describes the process of recoveries from false beliefs engendered by public lying. The framework treats two kinds of public lies: simple lying update and two-step lying, which consists of suggesting that the lie may be true followed by announcing the lie. It turns out that agents' convictions of what is true are immune to the first kind, but can be shattered by the second kind. Next, recovery from public lying is analyzed. Public lies that are accepted by an audience cannot be undone simply by announcing their negation. The paper proposes a recovery process that works well for restoring beliefs about facts but cannot be extended to beliefs about beliefs. The formal machinery of the paper consists of KD45 models and conditional neighbourhood models, with various update procedures on them. Completeness proofs for a number of reasoning systems (converse belief logic, public lies logic, lying and recovery logic, conditional neighbourhood logic, plus its dynamic version) are included.

Omission bias in children's and adults' moral judgments of lies

This study examined whether omission bias occurs in moral judgments of lies. Omission bias is the tendency to judge acts of commission as morally worse than equivalent acts of omission. Children aged 8 and 9 years (third graders) and 11 and 12 years (sixth graders), as well as adults, made moral judgments about lies of commission and omission to conceal transgressions. Descriptions of four scenarios varied in terms of whether the protagonists lied to benefit themselves or others and whether the transgression was deliberate or accidental. The results showed that both age groups of children, as well as adults, judged that lies of commission were morally worse than lies of omission in all four scenarios, indicating that omission bias clearly occurs in moral judgments of lies. However, there were age differences in the magnitude of omission bias. Third and sixth graders generally showed omission bias of the same magnitude for all scenarios, whereas omission bias in adults was stronger for the scenarios that benefited self rather than others and for scenarios in which deliberate transgressions, rather than accidental ones, were concealed. These results reveal differences in moral judgments of lies between middle childhood and adulthood.

Deception Detection in Politics: Can Voters Tell When Politicians are Lying?

In this study, we investigate voters' unaided perceptions of whether politicians are lying. We conduct an experiment in which participants attempt to uncover politicians' dishonesty by watching videos of their speeches. We find that verbal cues (specifically, the amount of detail in the speech) and general demeanor cues explain the success (failure) of veracity judgments far better than paraverbal and nonverbal cues. We also find evidence of a truth bias-people are more likely to judge statements to be true than false-despite the political setting, where voters might have been more skeptical. However, gender plays a deterministic role for veracity judgments in political context; female politicians are more likely to be judged as honest.

Pathological Lying: Psychotherapists' Experiences and Ability to Diagnose

OBJECTIVE

Pathological lying has been discussed in the research literature for more than a century, mostly in case studies. Recent research has supported pathological lying as a diagnostic entity, although it remains absent from nosological systems. The current study aimed to survey practitioners about their experiences working with clients who engage in pathological lying and to examine practitioners' abilities to diagnose pathological lying.

METHODS

Psychotherapists (N=295) were recruited and asked to report about their experiences with patients who engaged in pathological lying. Participants were also presented with four clinical vignettes and a definition of pathological lying and were asked to determine whether the individuals portrayed in the vignettes met that definition.

RESULTS

Most practitioners reported clinical experience with patients exhibiting pathological lying, although such patients made up a small proportion of their caseloads. Clinicians described these patients as lying with great frequency and indicated that lying caused marked distress and impaired functioning in social, occupational, financial, and legal domains. The behavior typically had begun during adolescence and had continued for ≥5 years. Respondents reported usually offering a diagnosis other than pathological lying, such as a personality disorder. By using a published definition of pathological lying, respondents (N=156) were able to reliably identify cases of pathological lying portrayed in clinical vignettes and were able to consistently discriminate between pathological lying and both related and unrelated disorders.

CONCLUSIONS

The participants largely endorsed the proposition of including pathological lying in nosological systems such as the DSM and ICD, which could allow for accurate diagnosis and effective treatments.

The coin that is most current is flattery? Stability and discontinuity of false praise-telling from 5 to 7 years of life

Preschool children engage in flattery behaviors, including expressing opinions toward other people or objects that-although favorable-are not truly held. Research shows that in the following years, the number and complexity of motives underlying such insincere behavior increase. The current study focused on children's overt behavior, examining two aspects of the development of false praise-telling: individual stability and group-level discontinuity. Using an art-rating task, a total of 164 children aged 5 to 7 years were tested at three points in time (T1/2/3): M_T1 age = 5.66 years, SD = 0.1; M_T2 age = 6.65 years, SD = 0.16; M_T3 age = 7.61 years, SD = 0.14. The results show that, having become capable of giving false praise in politeness settings at 5.5 years of age, children continue to flatter others in this way at later ages, indicating that false praise-telling is an individually stable characteristic. In addition, a statistically significant increase in the proportion of false praise-telling to non-lying behavior in children over the 2-year study period was observed. This indicates that the discontinuity, namely the growth in children's flattery behavior, occurs from 5 to 7 years of age. The findings are discussed with respect to the diverse factors that might underlie and affect children's tendency to praise others falsely in politeness settings.

Is Lying Bound to Commitment? Empirically Investigating Deceptive Presuppositions, Implicatures, and Actions

Lying is an important moral phenomenon that most people are affected by on a daily basis-be it in personal relationships, in political debates, or in the form of fake news. Nevertheless, surprisingly little is known about what actually constitutes a lie. According to the traditional definition of lying, a person lies if they explicitly express something they believe to be false. Consequently, it is often assumed that people cannot lie by more indirectly communicating believed-false claims, for instance by merely conversationally implicating them. In this paper, we subject this claim to an empirical test. In a preregistered study of 300 participants, we investigate how people judge cases of implicit deceptions that would usually be excluded by the traditional definition of lying (i.e., conversational implicatures, presuppositions, and nonverbal actions). Our results show that people do in fact consider it possible to lie by indirect means, suggesting that people have a broader concept of lying than is usually assumed. Moreover, our findings indicate that lie judgments are closely tied to the extent to which agents are perceived as having committed themselves to the believed-false claims they have communicated. We discuss the implications of our results for the traditional definition of lying and propose a new commitment-based definition of lying that can account for the findings of our experiment.

Evaluation of environmental and comfort improvements on affective welfare in heifer calves on smallholder dairy farms

A controlled trial on zero-grazed smallholder dairy farms was conducted to determine the effect of environmental and comfort improvements on sucking and lying behaviours in heifer calves on Kenyan smallholder dairy farms. The study involved 187 heifer calves from 150 farms in two Kenyan counties, 75 farms per county. Farms in one county received animal welfare training and improvements in the calf pen that included: 1) placement of rubber mats on the lying area; 2) fixing gaps/holes in the flooring and roofing; and 3) attaching a rubber nipple on the wall of the calf pen. During the 16-month data collection period, bimonthly farm visits were used to collect data on lying time (using accelerometers) and other animal- and farm-level factors. Multilevel mixed-effects linear regression was used to model daily lying times and frequency of lying bouts, with the animal as a random effect. Over the visits, daily lying times and lying bout durations averaged 12.6-86.7 min/bout, respectively, while the median for the frequency of lying bouts was between 30-46/day. Provision of rubber nipples for non-nutritive sucking lowered proportions of cross-sucking, self-sucking and object-sucking behaviours slightly but not significantly. In a final daily lying time model, superficial lymph node enlargement, body condition score and use of wood shaving/ sawdust/ crop waste as beddings had positive associations. In contrast, group housing and rubber mat use had negative associations with daily lying time. In an interaction term, lying time was significantly higher for calves on clean versus dirty floors if the age was <190 days but this difference diminished significantly in older animals. In a second interaction term, lying time was lower for calves with leaking versus non-leaking roofs, regardless of the pen floor level, but lying time was higher on elevated than non-elevated floors if the roof was intact. In the final model of the frequency of lying bouts, the use of a rubber mat, the years of experience in dairy farming, and calf body weight had negative associations. In contrast, body condition score had a positive association. In an interaction, the frequency of daily lying bouts was lower on clean floors than dirty floors, irrespective of tethering status, but when the floor was dirty, the lying bouts were higher for animals not tethered than the ones sometimes tethered. We conclude that the comfort improvements enhanced the welfare and lying experience of heifer calves on smallholder dairy farms.

Dishonesty and mandatory mask wearing in the COVID-19 pandemic

In an attempt to slow down the spread of the coronavirus, an increasing number of countries, including Israel, have made wearing masks mandatory for their citizens not just in close public places but also while waking in the streets. Failing to comply with this regulation entails a fine enforced by the police. Still, while many passersby do wear a mask that covers both their mouth and nose, others wear a mask improperly around their chin or neck or walk the streets wearing no mask at all. We speculate that the former passersby prepare themselves for a possible encounter with a police officer, in which case they could lie and claim that their mask unnoticeably slipped down from its proper position. The present paper reports the results of a field experiment designed to examine the hypothesis that, given the opportunity, passersby who wear their mask around their chin or neck are more likely to lie than those who wear no mask at all, although intuition may suggest otherwise. Incentivizing passersby's dishonesty with the Die-Under-the-Cup (DUCT) task, the experiment results support our hypothesis.

Evaluating heart rate variability as a predictor of the influence of lying on memory

Previous research suggests self-provided misinformation (lying) impairs memory for the truth, whereby more incorrect details are remembered compared to being truthful. The cognitive control processes evoked by inhibiting retrieval of truthful information may come at the expense of retaining that information in memory. Because lying requires quick adaptability to the situation, heart rate variability (HRV), reflecting cognitive control processes, is a useful metric of these cognitive demands. The present experiment extends previous research (Paige et al., 2019) and had participants complete a questionnaire orally in front of a panel while electrocardiography (ECG) data was collected. Participants were instructed to tell the truth for half of the questions and lie for the other half. For a subset of the questions, participants were instructed to elaborate on their response. After a delay, participants completed the same questionnaire on the computer, responding truthfully to all items. Results revealed that correct memory was lower for items participants previously lied about compared to truthful items. Although prior work suggests increased HRV is associated with increased cognitive control, HRV did not predict memory for truth or lie items. These findings are consistent with past literature showing that lying impairs memory for veridical information compared to truth-telling.

The link between parental mental state talk and children's lying: An indirect effect via false belief understanding

Past research shows that parental mental state talk (MST) is closely associated with children's theory-of-mind (ToM) understanding. The current study extends previous work by investigating whether parental MST is also associated with children's ToM in action (i.e., lying). A total of 90 Singaporean 3- to 5-year-olds participated in this study with their parents. Parental MST was measured using a storytelling task with a wordless picture book. Mediation analysis revealed an indirect effect: Children's ToM understanding served as a mediator in the path between parental MST and children's lying, whereas there was no significant direct effect of parental MST on children's lying. This study is the first to focus on the relation between parental MST and ToM in an applied setting. Our findings suggest that parental MST can help children to develop sociocognitive skills, which in turn can help children to gain the insight that lying may be used as a strategy for personal gain.

Papa Don't Preach? : Using Lies to Expose the Truth about Who Suppresses Female Sexuality

The suppression of sexuality is culturally widespread, and women's sexual promiscuity, activity, and enjoyment are almost always judged and punished more harshly than men's. It remains disputed, however, to what end people suppress sexuality, and who benefits from the suppression of female sexuality. Different theories predict that women in general, men in general, women's intimate partners, or parents benefit most. Here we use the lies women and men tell-or imagine telling-about their sexual histories as an indirect measure of who is most involved in the suppression of sexuality. We asked men and women what they would reply if asked questions by their mother, father, current partner, attractive confederate, and various same- or opposite-sex friends and colleagues about their number of previous sex partners, age at first romantic kiss, age at first consensual sex, and cheating on a previous partner or spouse. By comparing the size and direction of the lies that subjects told, we tested competing predictions of several cultural and evolutionary theories concerning why female sexuality is suppressed and who is driving its suppression. We found that men and women told larger and more frequent lies to their parents, with women telling the largest and most frequent lies of all to their fathers. Additionally, the majority of lies by both men and women were in sexually conservative directions. Our findings suggest that mothers, and especially fathers, restrict female sexuality.

Young children's willingness to deceive shows in-group bias only in specific social contexts

The ability to deceive others is an early-emerging and socially complex skill, but relatively little is known about when and how a social partner's identity affects young children's willingness to lie. To understand how group membership affects children's lying, we used a minimal group paradigm to examine children's willingness to deceive in-group and out-group members across varied contexts that systematically varied in their costs and benefits. A total of 69 children aged 4 to 7 years played three versions of a sticker-hiding game: a Self-Benefit scenario (child could lie for personal gain), an Other-Benefit scenario (child could lie to help someone else), and a No-Benefit scenario (child could lie to spite someone else). Children lied the most in the Self-Benefit scenario, lying equally to in-group and out-group members in this context. When the potential for self-gain disappeared, however, in-group bias emerged. In the Other-Benefit scenario, children lied more to out-group members in order to help in-group members. Even when the potential to help another was removed (the No-Benefit scenario), children still engaged in more lie telling to out-group members. Results suggest that children's lying is sensitive to group membership, but only in certain social situations, as children's desire to benefit themselves may outweigh in-group bias. Future research should examine alternate contexts, such as lying to avoid punishment, to determine when group membership is most salient. Overall, results indicate that young children are able to flexibly apply a complex social cognitive skill based on group membership and contextual demands, with implications for social behavior and intergroup relations throughout development.

Quantity matters: The frequency of deception influences automatic memory retrieval effects

We investigated automatic retrieval of the knowledge of having lied or having told the truth to a question, depending on (a) the quality of the statement (true vs. false response) and (b) the overall proportion of (dis-)honest responses. We therefore manipulated the proportion of lies and truths being told in an oral interview. Automatic retrieval of this meta-knowledge was assessed with a categorisation task, where the probe words dishonest and honest had to be classified, while questions from the interview served as task-irrelevant prime stimuli. Results revealed an automatic retrieval of knowledge about having lied to a question only for participants who had told few lies in the interview, but not for those who had told many lies. No retrieval effects were obtained regarding questions that had been answered truthfully. These findings suggest a combined influence of quality and quantity of dishonest statements on automatic memory retrieval, thereby being in accordance with recent accounts of action control.

Editors' Review and Introduction: Lying in Logic, Language, and Cognition

We describe some recent trends in research on lying from a multidisciplinary perspective, including logic, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, we outline the seven contributions to this special issue of topiCS.

Politicians lie, so do I

This research analyzed whether political leaders make people lie via priming experiments. Priming is a non-conscious and implicit memory effect in which exposure to one stimulus affects the response to another. Following priming theories, we proposed an innovative concept that people who perceive leaders to be dishonest (such as liars) are likely to lie themselves. We designed three experiments to analyze and critically discussed the potential influence of prime effect on lying behavior, through the prime effect of French political leaders (including general politicians, presidents and parties). Experiment 1 discovered that participants with non-politician-prime were less likely to lie (compared to politician-prime). Experiment 2A discovered that, compared to Hollande-prime, Sarkozy-prime led to lying behavior both in gravity (i.e., bigger lies) and frequency (i.e., lying more frequently). Experiment 2B discovered that Republicans-prime yielded an impact on more lying behavior, and Sarkozy-prime made such impact even stronger. Overall, the research findings suggest that lying can be triggered by external influencers such as leaders, presidents and politicians in the organizations. Our findings have provided valuable insights into organizational leaders and managers in their personnel management practice, especially in the intervention of lying behavior. Our findings also have offered new insights to explain non-conscious lying behavior.

Influence of age on the effects of lying on memory

False memories are elicited from exposure to misleading information. It is possible that self-provided misinformation, or lying, has similar effects. We hypothesized that lying impairs memory for younger adults, as increased cognitive control, necessary to inhibit a truthful response, comes at the expense of retaining veridical information in memory. Because older adults show deficits in cognitive control, we hypothesized their memory is unaffected by lying. In the present study, participants made truthful and deceptive responses on a computer while EEG data were recorded. We investigated medial frontal negativity (MFN), an ERP component associated with deception and cognitive control, which may be differentially generated across age groups due to differences in cognitive control. Unexpectedly, results revealed that older adults showed reduced accurate memory for items to which they previously lied compared to younger adults. There were no age differences in correct memory for truth items. We did not find the expected MFN effect, however results revealed long-lasting negative slow waves (NSW) to lie items across age in the pre-response period and following the response cue, suggesting the role of working memory processes in deception. These findings demonstrate that lying is another source of misinformation and influences memory differently across the lifespan.

On the ball: Short-term consequences of movement fakes

In competitive situations, humans sometimes use fake actions. Fake actions are carried out to pretend a certain action goal, which however is not actually pursued, such as pump fakes in basketball, or drop shots in tennis. Here, we studied the short-term consequences of producing or observing fakes on the planning and detection of subsequent fake actions. Two players participated in a game, an attacker and a defender. Attackers had to either throw a ball into a target basket of the defender, or to mimic such a throw without actually throwing. Defenders had to discriminate between real throws and faked throws. Participants changed the roles of attacker and defender, and switched between real and faked throws randomly, on a trial-by-trial basis. We found that the (self-)observation of a fake action facilitated the detection of subsequent fake actions of opponents, but did not facilitate the subsequent planning of own fake actions. We conjecture that previous encounters of fake actions help to focus on the movement aspects that are most diagnostic for such fake actions. As a potential practical consequence, we recommend to not generate multiple fake actions in sports within a short time, to prevent potential short-term perceptual adaptation effects of defenders.

The Phenomenology of Lying in Young Adults and Relationships with Personality and Cognition

Despite research suggesting that lying may be a normal aspect of development and a fairly frequent occurrence in many adults, surprisingly little is known about its phenomenology and possible associations with relevant personality traits and cognitive functions. University students were invited to participate in an online study, which included a 91-item questionnaire and four neurocognitive tasks (selected to focus on frontal lobe function). The survey included questions about frequency of lying and reasons for doing so, mental health history, personality traits, religiosity, and insight into lying. Those who lied daily ("Daily Liars") were compared to those who lied less frequently ("Non-Daily Liars"). 18.1% of the sample reported lying every day. Daily Liars showed worse grade point averages, quality of life, and self-esteem. Daily Lying was associated with negative functional impact on school, social, and family/home domains. We did not find evidence that is was associated with frontal lobe dysfunction on the cognitive tasks examined.

Correlates of sedentary behavior among community-dwelling adults with anxiety in six low- and middle-income countries

We investigated correlates of sedentary behavior (SB) among community-dwelling adults with elevated anxiety symptoms in six low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Cross-sectional data from the World Health Organization's Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (2007-2010) were analyzed. Associations between SB levels and the correlates were examined using multivariable linear and logistic regressions. Out of 42,469 individuals aged ≥ 18 years, there were 2630 participants with anxiety (47.6 ± 16.5 years; 66.6% female). Correlates significantly associated with being sedentary ≥ 8 h/day were being male, older age, a lower income, never married (vs. married/cohabiting), being unemployed, poor self-related health, alcohol consumption, and less social cohesion (highest quartile vs. lowest). Disability and bodily pain were associated with more time spent (min/day) sedentary. Future intervention research should target the risk groups based on identified sociodemographic correlates. Also, whether the promotion of social cohesion increases the efficacy of public health initiatives should be examined with prospective data.

The descriptive epidemiology of sitting in Chilean adults: Results from the National Health Survey 2009-2010

BACKGROUND

Although evidence on the health effects of sedentary behavior (SB) has grown systematically in recent years, few developing countries have reported population levels of SB, especially in South America. Our objective was to describe time spent sitting in a representative sample from Chile categorized by age, gender, educational level, and body mass index (BMI).

METHODS

A national health survey was conducted in Chile in a nationally representative sample (n = 5411) in 2009-2010. Sitting time (ST) was measured with the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire Version 2.

RESULTS

Data were from 5031 participants (43.26 ± 0.41 years, mean ± SE; 40.3% male). Overall, there were no gender differences in mean ST (men: 158.10 ± 5.80 min/day, women 143.45 ± 4.77 min/day; p = 0.05). ST was lower in those who lived in rural areas compared with urban areas (99.4 min/day vs. 160.0 min/day; p = 0.001). ST increased significantly with increasing BMI, but only in men (p = 0.009), and was positively related to years of education in both men and women (p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSION

The findings were different from those reported in other countries and contexts, reinforcing the need for international surveillance and monitoring over time to inform policy makers. Differences in ST across different groups emphasize the need to develop tailored messages and interventions for reducing ST in different population subgroups.

Eye contact reduces lying

The perception of watching eyes has been found to reduce dishonest behavior. This effect, however, has only been shown in situations where it can be explained by increased adherence to rules and norms, and thus a watching-eyes effect on dishonesty per se has not been demonstrated. Moreover, the effect has been investigated only with images of watching eyes, not in an interactive situation with a live person, which may arguably have different effects on behavior. In the present study, the effect of watching eyes on dishonesty was investigated with an interactive computer game of lying. Participants played the game against a confederate, whom they believed to be another participant. On each trial, they were briefly presented with a view of the confederate, after which they chose whether to lie in the game. The confederate alternated between the use of direct and downward gaze. The results showed that another individual's direct gaze reduced lying in the game. The findings have implications for both everyday and professional situations, such as clinical conversations and police interrogations.

Testing the applied potential of the Sheffield Lie Test

The Sheffield Lie Test (SLT) has been frequently used in laboratory research investigating basic mechanisms of deception. Its applied potential as a lie detection tool has been contested. The current two experiments used a reaction time SLT and investigated whether it can discriminate between participants who committed a mock crime and participants who performed an everyday activity. Results of the first experiment revealed that guilty participants (n = 32) took longer and committed more errors when having to deceptively deny the mock crime and deceptively confirm having performed the everyday activity in contrast to truthfully admitting the mock crime and denying the everyday activity. Innocent participants (n = 29) showed the reversed pattern. Individual Cohen's d's and the area under the ROC curve revealed a high above chance discrimination between both groups. In a second experiment, we repeated this procedure, yet participants were now given a more elaborate explanation of the alibi activity that all should pretend to have done. Although results still revealed the expected pattern in innocent participants (n = 48), the effect was not significant any more for the guilty participants (n = 46). Accordingly, classification accuracies also dropped. These two experiments demonstrate the applied potential of the SLT, yet at the same time its severe limitations. Potential solutions and suggestions for future research will be discussed.

The change of sleeping and lying posture of Japanese black cows after moving into new environment

OBJECTIVE

Environmental change is one of the stressful events in livestock production. Change in environment disturbs cow behavior and cows require several days to regain a stable behavioral pattern. Sleeping posture (SP) and lying posture (LP) have been used as indicators for animal that are relaxed and well-acclimated to their environment. The aim of this study was to examine the time required by Japanese black cows for stabilization of SP and LP after moving into new environment.

METHODS

Seven pregnant Japanese black cows were used. Cows were moved into new tie-stall shed and their sleeping and lying posture measured 17 times during 35 experimental days. Both SP and LP were detected by accelerometer fixed on middle occipital and hip-cross, respectively. Daily total time, frequency, and average bout of both SP and LP were calculated.

RESULTS

Daily SP time was the shortest on day 1 and increased to the highest on day 3. It then decreased until day 9, after that stabilized about 65 min/d till the end of experiment. Daily LP time changed in same manner as daily SP time. The average SP bout was the longest on day 1, and then decreased to stable level on day 7. On the other hand, the average LP bout was the shortest on day 1, and it increased to stable level on day 7.

CONCLUSION

These results showed that pregnant Japanese black cows needed 1 week to stabilize their SP. However, there were different change patterns between the average SP and LP bout, even though the change pattern of daily SP and LP time were similar.

Correlates of sedentary behaviour among adults with hazardous drinking habits in six low- and middle-income countries

Sedentary behaviour is associated with poor mental health, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, all of which are a concern among hazardous drinkers. Little is known about sedentary behaviour and it's correlates in hazardous drinkers, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. We investigated correlates of sedentary behaviour among community-dwelling adults aged ≥18 years with hazardous drinking patterns in six low- and middle-income countries. Cross-sectional data were analyzed from the World Health Organization's Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health. Hazardous drinking was defined as consuming >7 (females) or >14 (males) standard drinks per week. Associations between time spent sedentary and a range of correlates were examined using multivariable linear and logistic regression. The mean time spent sedentary in 2142 individuals with hazardous drinking patterns (mean age = 45.7 years; 13% female) was 216±135min/day. Nine percent (95%CI=6.1-13.2%) were sedentary for ≥8h per day. Living in an urban setting and unemployment were strong sociodemographic correlates of being sedentary for ≥8h per day. From a health-related perspective, weak grip strength, stroke and disability were associated with increasing time spent sedentary. The current data provides important guidance for future interventions across low- and middle-income countries to assist hazardous drinkers to reduce sedentary behaviour.

Electric stimulation of the right temporo-parietal junction induces a task-specific effect in deceptive behaviors

How the brain generates a lie is an important and unsolved issue in neuroscience. Previous studies indicated that mentalizing, the ability to understand and manipulate the mental states of others, plays a critical role in successful deception. Accordingly, recent neuroimaging studies reported deception-related activity in the right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ), a brain region closely related to the mentalizing ability. Detailed functions of rTPJ in deception, however, remain unclear. In the present study, we investigated a causal relationship between rTPJ and deception using transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS). Subjects received anodal tDCS to their rTPJ or V1 (control) and then performed three tasks in which they aimed to deceive another participant to get monetary rewards. In one of the three tasks, we found a significant decrease in a rate of successful deception when rTPJ was stimulated, indicating that neural enhancement of rTPJ caused poorer (not better) deceptive performances. Our results suggest that, in some tasks involving selfish (money-motivated) lying, neural processing in rTPJ does not contribute to successful deception through the metalizing ability. Rather, it would be related to the self-monitoring of morally-unacceptable behaviors (lying). The neural enhancement of rTPJ therefore increased the psychological resistance to lying, resulting in poorer deceptive performances.

Sedentary Behavior Research Network (SBRN) - Terminology Consensus Project process and outcome

BACKGROUND

The prominence of sedentary behavior research in health science has grown rapidly. With this growth there is increasing urgency for clear, common and accepted terminology and definitions. Such standardization is difficult to achieve, especially across multi-disciplinary researchers, practitioners, and industries. The Sedentary Behavior Research Network (SBRN) undertook a Terminology Consensus Project to address this need.

METHOD

First, a literature review was completed to identify key terms in sedentary behavior research. These key terms were then reviewed and modified by a Steering Committee formed by SBRN. Next, SBRN members were invited to contribute to this project and interested participants reviewed and provided feedback on the proposed list of terms and draft definitions through an online survey. Finally, a conceptual model and consensus definitions (including caveats and examples for all age groups and functional abilities) were finalized based on the feedback received from the 87 SBRN member participants who responded to the original invitation and survey.

RESULTS

Consensus definitions for the terms physical inactivity, stationary behavior, sedentary behavior, standing, screen time, non-screen-based sedentary time, sitting, reclining, lying, sedentary behavior pattern, as well as how the terms bouts, breaks, and interruptions should be used in this context are provided.

CONCLUSION

It is hoped that the definitions resulting from this comprehensive, transparent, and broad-based participatory process will result in standardized terminology that is widely supported and adopted, thereby advancing future research, interventions, policies, and practices related to sedentary behaviors.

Children's confession- and lying-related emotion expectancies: Developmental differences and connections to parent-reported confession behavior

Young children understand that lying is wrong, yet little is known about the emotions children connect to the acts of lying and confessing and how children's emotion expectancies relate to real-world behavior. In the current study, 4- to 9-year-old children (N=48) heard stories about protagonists (a) committing transgressions, (b) failing to disclose their misdeeds, and (c) subsequently lying or confessing. Younger children (4-5years) expected relatively positive feelings to follow self-serving transgressions, failure to disclose, and lying, and they often used gains-oriented and punishment-avoidance reasoning when justifying their responses. Older children (7-9years) had the opposite pattern of emotional responses (better feelings linked to confession compared with lying). Older children expected a more positive parental response to a confession than younger children. Furthermore, children who expected more positive parental responses to confession were reported by parents to confess more in real life than children who expected more negative parental responses to confession. Thus, the current research demonstrates a link between children's emotion expectancies and actual confession behavior.

Daily patterns of synchrony in lying and feeding of cows: Quasi-natural state and (anti-) synchrony factors

Synchrony is thought to provide fitness advantages to group-living animals, but little is known how animals maintain synchrony. We investigated intensity of synchrony factors (milking, feed-provision) in cattle herds. Intensity decreased from dairy cows milked in a parlour to cows milked by a robot to suckler cows raising calves. On 30 farms, 10 of each type, we recorded synchrony in lying and feeding. Peaks in lying synchronously were visible in the early morning, around noon, and late at night. These peaks decreased from the suckler cows to the cows milked in a parlour and to the cows milked by a robot. Complementary peaks were found for synchronous feeding. The asynchronous milking times with the milking robot decreased synchrony. Unexpectedly, the suckler cows with the weakest synchrony factors also showed a high level of synchrony. These results indicate that internal motivations for synchrony may be present in addition to external synchrony factors.

Psychiatric aspects of normal and pathological lying

The paper outlines the difference between the so-called normal (common) lying and pathological lying. Pathological lying is an intriguing topic, still lacking any strong professional consensus, clear etiology, treatment options and prognoses. The paper explores some possible psychological mechanisms of pathological lying, reviews biological factors in pathological lying, and considers forensic significance of normal and pathological lying. The relationship between pathological lying and mental disorders is also discussed. The authors suggest that lying should be considered as a heterogenic and multidimensional behavioral pattern. The paper highlights how important it is to assess the patient's control over lying, the function of lying, insight into and awareness of lying, as well as the effect of lying on everyday functioning.

Lying despite telling the truth

According to the standard definition of lying an utterance counts as a lie if the agent believes the statement to be false. Thus, according to this view it is possible that a lie states something that happens to be true. This subjective view on lying has recently been challenged by Turri and Turri (2015) who presented empirical evidence suggesting that people only consider statements as lies that are objectively false (objective view). We argue that the presented evidence is in fact consistent with the standard subjective view if conversational pragmatics is taken into account. Three experiments are presented that directly test and support the subjective view. An additional experiment backs up our pragmatic hypothesis by using the uncontroversial case of making a promise.

Liar, liar, working memory on fire: Investigating the role of working memory in childhood verbal deception

The aim of the current study was to investigate the role of working memory in verbal deception in children. We presented 6- and 7-year-olds with a temptation resistance paradigm; they played a trivia game and were then given an opportunity to peek at the final answers on the back of a card. Measures of both verbal and visuospatial working memory were included. The good liars performed better on the verbal working memory test in both processing and recall compared with the bad liars. However, there was no difference in visuospatial working scores between good liars and bad liars. This pattern suggests that verbal working memory plays a role in processing and manipulating the multiple pieces of information involved in lie-telling.

The truth about lying

The standard view in social science and philosophy is that lying does not require the liar's assertion to be false, only that the liar believes it to be false. We conducted three experiments to test whether lying requires falsity. Overall, the results suggest that it does. We discuss some implications for social scientists working on social judgments, research on lie detection, and public moral discourse.

The motor cost of telling lies: electrocortical signatures and personality foundations of spontaneous deception

Although universal, lying is generally considered immoral behavior. Most neuroscience studies on lying sanction or instruct deceptive behaviors and thus might fail to acknowledge the significance of lie-related moral conflicts. By combining electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings with a novel paradigm in which participants decided freely whether to deceive another person, we have generated indices of the cognitive (reaction times and stimulus-locked event-related components) and moral (readiness potential and its correlations with deception-related personality traits) cost of spontaneous deception. Our data fail to support the consensus that deception is cognitively more demanding than truth telling, suggesting that spontaneous deception, as opposed to lying out of requirement, might not mandate additional cognitive workload. Interestingly, lying was associated with decreased motor readiness, an event-related potential (ERP) component that is linked to motor preparation of self-determined actions and modulated when we face moral dilemmas. Notably, this reduction was less extensive in manipulative participants and greater in those who cared highly about their impression management. Our study expands on previous findings on deception by associating a cortical marker of reduced preparation to act with individual differences in moral cognition.

Lying in neuropsychology

The issue of lying occurs in neuropsychology especially when examinations are conducted in a forensic context. When a subject intentionally either presents non-existent deficits or exaggerates their severity to obtain financial or material compensation, this behaviour is termed malingering. Malingering is discussed in the general framework of lying in psychology, and the different procedures used by neuropsychologists to evidence a lack of collaboration at examination are briefly presented and discussed. When a lack of collaboration is observed, specific emphasis is placed on the difficulty in unambiguously establishing that this results from the patient's voluntary decision.

Elementary school children's cheating behavior and its cognitive correlates

Elementary school children's cheating behavior and its cognitive correlates were investigated using a guessing game. Children (n=95) between 8 and 12 years of age were asked to guess which side of the screen a coin would appear on and received rewards based on their self-reported accuracy. Children's cheating behavior was measured by examining whether children failed to adhere to the game rules by falsely reporting their accuracy. Children's theory-of-mind understanding and executive functioning skills were also assessed. The majority of children cheated during the guessing game, and cheating behavior decreased with age. Children with better working memory and inhibitory control were less likely to cheat. However, among the cheaters, those with greater cognitive flexibility use more tactics while cheating. Results revealed the unique role that executive functioning plays in children's cheating behavior: Like a double-edged sword, executive functioning can inhibit children's cheating behavior, on the one hand, while it can promote the sophistication of children's cheating tactics, on the other.