4 ms·

Your post implies that kids under 4 years old can't lie. This is, of course, patently untrue. (Mine told lies at 12 months.)

subroutine 8y ago
I should have qualified that: "lie with high-rates of success". To clarify, at 1-years-old your infant could not formulate a high quality representation of your 'mind'. That is he/she couldnt fully appreciates that information held in your brain was different than the info available to themselves (the union/intersection/xor of info), nor did they have a strong intuition regarding how vastly different your two mental abilities were, without a theory of how minds work. The classic experiment I mentioned above involves a child and two adults in a kitchen. One of the adults wants a piece of candy (or something - going from memory here), but the other adult says they cannot have it yet, and puts it in a cabinet. All 3 witness where the candy is placed. At which point the one who wants the candy leaves, but on their way out the door says "when i get back I want the candy". So then it is just one adult and the kid in the room. The adult asks the kid to move the candy to a different location in the kitchen. The kid does this and then sits back down. After a few minutes the adult says to the kid something like - "That other adult who wants the candy will be back in a few minutes. Where do you think they will look first when they get back?" - without fail 3 year olds will point to the cabinet where the candy is currently located, whereas 5 year olds will always point to the cabinet they adult who left saw it last. Something happens in brain development during age-4 that gives us the capacity to understand that different minds hold different information based on their own experiences. This task has been repeated dozens of different ways, including simply having an adult standing in a different location in a room as 3,4,5 year olds, where the adult's view of a wall (of pictures) is clearly obscured by some screen. Then they ask the kids stuff like... how many pictures of teddybears will that adult say there is on that wall? Again 3 year olds report what they themselves see, while 5 year olds perform like adults would on this task.
- ballenf 8y ago
  Thanks for the detailed explanation. As a parent, I can see what you imply with regard to different kinds of lying. A very young child will lie to avoid an undesirable result in a very basic way: "Did you throw your food on the floor?" (with food plainly visible to all). Child nods emphatic "no". While older child only lies when they think that I don't have enough information to know the truth for sure.

subroutine 8y ago

I should have qualified that: "lie with high-rates of success". To clarify, at 1-years-old your infant could not formulate a high quality representation of your 'mind'. That is he/she couldnt fully appreciates that information held in your brain was different than the info available to themselves (the union/intersection/xor of info), nor did they have a strong intuition regarding how vastly different your two mental abilities were, without a theory of how minds work. The classic experiment I mentioned above involves a child and two adults in a kitchen. One of the adults wants a piece of candy (or something - going from memory here), but the other adult says they cannot have it yet, and puts it in a cabinet. All 3 witness where the candy is placed. At which point the one who wants the candy leaves, but on their way out the door says "when i get back I want the candy". So then it is just one adult and the kid in the room. The adult asks the kid to move the candy to a different location in the kitchen. The kid does this and then sits back down. After a few minutes the adult says to the kid something like - "That other adult who wants the candy will be back in a few minutes. Where do you think they will look first when they get back?" - without fail 3 year olds will point to the cabinet where the candy is currently located, whereas 5 year olds will always point to the cabinet they adult who left saw it last. Something happens in brain development during age-4 that gives us the capacity to understand that different minds hold different information based on their own experiences. This task has been repeated dozens of different ways, including simply having an adult standing in a different location in a room as 3,4,5 year olds, where the adult's view of a wall (of pictures) is clearly obscured by some screen. Then they ask the kids stuff like... how many pictures of teddybears will that adult say there is on that wall? Again 3 year olds report what they themselves see, while 5 year olds perform like adults would on this task.

ballenf 8y ago
Thanks for the detailed explanation. As a parent, I can see what you imply with regard to different kinds of lying. A very young child will lie to avoid an undesirable result in a very basic way: "Did you throw your food on the floor?" (with food plainly visible to all). Child nods emphatic "no". While older child only lies when they think that I don't have enough information to know the truth for sure.