Brief Report
Parenting by lying in childhood is associated with negative developmental outcomes in adulthood

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104680Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Childhood experience of parents’ lying is related to lying to parents in adulthood.

  • Childhood experience of parents’ lying is related to adulthood maladjustments.

  • Parenting by lying may negatively impact children’s later psychosocial functioning.

Abstract

Parenting by lying refers to the parenting practice of deception to try to control children’s behavioral and affective states. Although the practice is widely observed across cultures, few studies have examined its associations with psychological outcomes in adulthood. The current research fills this gap by sampling 379 young Singaporean adults who reported on their childhood exposure to parenting by lying, their current deceptive behaviors toward parents, and their psychosocial adjustment. Results revealed that the adults who remembered being exposed to higher levels of parenting by lying in childhood showed higher levels of deception toward their parents and higher levels of psychosocial maladjustment. Our findings suggest that parenting by lying may have negative implications for children’s psychosocial functioning later in life.

Introduction

Honesty is a moral imperative in human societies. Parental attitudes and behaviors, however, are at odds with one another. Parents often emphasize the importance of honesty when socializing their children (Heyman, Luu, & Lee, 2009), yet parents worldwide lie to their children to elicit compliance (Heyman, Hsu, Fu, & Lee, 2013). Parental lying behavior that aims to elicit children’s compliance has been frequently referred to as parenting by lying (Heyman et al., 2013).

The role that parenting by lying plays in children’s sociomoral development is not entirely clear. Namely, what are the links among parenting by lying, children’s lying behavior, and children’s subsequent psychosocial outcomes? To date, only one study has investigated such associations (Santos, Zanette, Kwok, Heyman, & Lee, 2017). The current research extends Santos et al.’s (2017) work by examining parenting by lying in a sample of Singaporean young adults who reported their childhood exposure to parenting by lying and their current lying behaviors and psychosocial functioning.

In early childhood, children frequently observe their parents’ behaviors and are likely to use these observations to infer which behaviors are normative (Bandura, 1969). From a parental socialization framework, parenting by lying may promote lying behavior in children because parents model lying behaviors that their children might imitate. Prior research has shown that when non-kin adults model dishonesty to children, adults’ dishonesty can affect children’s moral behavior (Hays and Carver, 2014, Scheiderer and O’Connor, 1973). For example, 5- to 7-year-old children were more likely to lie about their cheating behavior in a game if an experimenter lied to them prior to the game (Hays & Carver, 2014).

Children’s own lying behavior can be indicative of maladaptive outcomes, including the development of externalizing behavior difficulties such as disruptiveness (Gervais, Tremblay, Desmarais-Gervais, & Vitaro, 2000) and conduct problems (Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986, Warr, 2007). Although less research has examined the relationship between lying and internalizing problems, there is evidence to suggest that children’s lying behavior is also associated with internalizing problems such as anxiety and social isolation through the experience of guilt and shame after lying (Baumeister et al., 1994, Keltner and Buswell, 1996). Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that frequent engagement in deceptive behavior is a marker of psychopathy, which is characterized by callous unemotional traits and a disregard for the rights of others (Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995).

Beyond their own dishonesty, children’s maladjustment problems may also be associated with parenting by lying. Specifically, it is possible that repeated exposure to parental lying erodes trust within interpersonal relationships (Michaelson and Munakata, 2016, Yi et al., 2014). If children learn that their parents are untrustworthy, children may be less trusting in relationships (Yi et al., 2014). As a result, children might experience difficulties in forming and maintaining close relationships, which in turn may lead to the development of internalizing problems such as social withdrawal and depression (Bernath & Feshbach, 1995). In addition, children who observe parenting by lying may be inadvertently learning ineffective ways of handling difficult situations and dealing with interpersonal conflicts. Specifically, through observing parents’ practice of lying, children can become aware of its effectiveness in inducing behavioral compliance from others (Heyman et al., 2013). Eventually, children may imitate their parents and turn to pathological lying to elicit behavioral compliance, which is an example of externalizing behavior (Hays and Carver, 2014, Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986). Engaging in pathological lying is an early risk factor of psychopathy (Levenson et al., 1995). Thus, it is important to investigate the associations between parenting by lying and internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and the expression of psychopathic traits in order to better understand associations between parenting by lying and psychosocial functioning across development.

To date, only four studies have investigated the phenomenon of parenting by lying. These studies have used three different ways to measure parenting by lying: observing parents and children (Brown, 2002), asking adults about the lies their parents told them in childhood (Heyman et al., 2009, Santos et al., 2017), and asking parents about the lies they told to their children (Heyman et al., 2009, Heyman et al., 2013). Findings from these studies demonstrate that parenting by lying, in which parents lie to influence their children’s behavioral or emotional states, is a common parenting practice everywhere it has been studied, including the United States (Heyman et al., 2009, Heyman et al., 2013), Canada (Santos et al., 2017), China (Heyman et al., 2013), and Mexico (Brown, 2002).

There has been only one study addressing the associations between parenting by lying and psychosocial maladjustment (Santos et al., 2017). In this cross-sectional study, childhood exposure to parenting by lying was positively correlated with adulthood lying to parents and psychosocial maladjustment issues, including both externalizing and internalizing problems. One major limitation of the study, however, is that the sample was entirely female and, therefore, might not be generalizable to male individuals. Although adults generally show similar amounts of lying behavior regardless of gender (Chiu et al., 2016, DePaulo and Kashy, 1998), male inclusion in the parenting by lying framework is critical, especially given that adolescent boys report both a higher tolerance of lying (Keltikangas-Järvinen & Lindeman, 1997) and a greater frequency of lying to parents when compared with their female counterparts (Engels, Finkenauer, & Van Kooten, 2006). Furthermore, there are gender differences in the prevalence of externalizing and internalizing problems, where male individuals are more likely to experience externalizing problems and female individuals are more likely to experience internalizing problems (Zahn-Waxler, Shirtcliff, & Marceau, 2008). Thus, the current study included a larger, more representative sample than the study by Santos et al. (2017) through the inclusion of both male and female participants.

The current study investigated parenting by lying in Singapore, where Chinese, Malay, and Indian cultures coexist. Sampling from a multiracial culture allows us to expand our understanding of parenting by lying. In addition, the vast majority of the Singaporean population is fluent in English, allowing the study to be conducted using the same measures as the previous studies, which provides greater grounds for exploring cross-cultural similarities/differences between Singapore and other English-speaking countries such as the United States and Canada.

Three predictions were tested in the current study. First, individuals who report higher levels of exposure to parenting by lying in childhood will also report deceiving their parents more frequently in adulthood. Second, the frequency of lying to parents will be positively correlated with psychosocial maladjustment, particularly externalizing problems, internalizing problems, and psychopathic attributes. Third, exposure to parenting by lying in childhood will be associated with higher levels of psychosocial maladjustment in adulthood, and the relationship will be mediated by the frequency of lying to parents in adulthood.

Section snippets

Participants

A total of 379 Singaporean adults participated in the current study (186 women; Mage = 21.67 years, SD = 1.98). Our sample consisted of 88.7% Chinese, 4.2% Indian, 3.7% Malay, and 3.4% “other”. Participants were recruited from a developmental psychology class (n = 274) and through on-campus advertisements (n = 105). Participants were compensated for their time with either course credit or 15 Singapore dollars. The study was approved by Nanyang Technological University’s institutional ethics

Results

Prior to conducting the analyses, two participants with z scores beyond 3 standard deviations of the mean on the lying to parents questionnaire were identified as outliers and subsequently were removed from the analyses. The final sample consisted of 377 participants (186 women; Mage = 21.66 years, SD = 1.98).

Pearson correlation coefficients among demographic factors (gender, age, and household income), recruitment type, and the five outcome measures were computed (see Table 1). Parenting by

Discussion

The current study aimed to investigate the associations between exposure to parenting by lying in childhood and psychosocial outcomes later in life. Specifically, we examined the association between self-recalled childhood exposure to parenting by lying and current lying behavior toward parents as well as current psychosocial maladjustment among young Singaporean adults. There were four major findings. First, greater recall of exposure to parenting by lying in childhood was associated with more

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Nanyang Technological University Start Up Grant, Singapore (M4081490) and a Singapore Ministry of Education Social Science Research Thematic Grant (MOE2016-SSRTG-017) to Peipei Setoh.

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