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Your child tells you he didn't eat a cookie despite the tell-tale crumbs all over his mouth. You call your boss to say you're taking 'a sick day,' feigning a cough while on the phone. You're both lying, but is it the same?
Whether we're 2 years old or 62, our reasons for lying are mostly the same: to get out of trouble, for personal gain and to make ourselves look better in the eyes of others. But a growing body of research is raising questions about how a child's lie is different from an adult's lie, and how the way we deceive changes as we grow.
Developmental psychologists are trying to understand lying through behavior. Neuroscientists are tracking which regions of the brain are activated when we spin lies. Their results could shed light on issues from why a tween lies to your face about breaking a vase to whether young children can be trusted to give eye-witness testimony in court. One intriguing new study suggests that lying may spring from a completely different part of the brain in children compared with adults.
What has become clear from studies including the work of Kang Lee, a professor at the University of Toronto and director of the Institute of Child Study, is that lying is a sign of normal maturation.
Parents and teachers who catch their children lying 'should not be alarmed -- and their children are not going to turn out to be pathological liars,' says Dr. Lee, who has spent the last 15 years studying how lying changes as kids get older, why some people lie more than others as well as which factors can reduce lying. 'The fact that their children tell lies is a sign that they have reached a new developmental milestone.'
Dr. Lee and Victoria Talwar, a colleague he often collaborates with at McGill University, conducted a series of studies in which they bring children into a lab with hidden cameras. Children and young adults age 2 to 17 are enticed to lie by being told not to peek at a toy -- often a plush purple Barney dinosaur -- that is put behind the child's back. The test giver then leaves the room for one minute, ostensibly to answer a phone call, giving the child ample time to peek at the toy. Whether or not the child sneaks a look is caught on tape.
For young kids, the temptation to cheat is 'tremendous' and 90% peek in these experiments. Even adolescents and adults are tempted in similar situations, says Dr. Lee.
When the test giver returns to the room, the child is asked if he or she peeked. At age 2, about a quarter of children will lie and say they didn't. By 3, half of kids will lie, and by 4, that figure is 90%, studies show.
This trend continues until kids are about 15. By that age, nearly everyone who cheated in the experiment will lie about it. The good news: The number of liars begins to decline beyond this age. By 17, the percentage that lies drops to about 70%.
Researchers have also examined why some kids lie more than others, and have found that it isn't related to better moral values or religious upbringing. Rather, it's kids with better cognitive abilities who lie more. That's because to lie you also have to keep the truth in mind, which involves multiple brain processes, such as integrating several sources of information and manipulating that information, according to Shawn Christ, a neuropsychologist at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
The ability to lie -- and lie successfully -- is thought to be related to development of brain regions that allow so-called 'executive functioning,' or higher order thinking and reasoning abilities. Kids who perform better on tests that involve executive functioning also lie more.
參考譯文：
你的孩子對你說他沒吃曲奇餅，盡管他的嘴巴邊上全是暴露真相的餅干渣。你打電話給你的老板說你請個“病假”，一邊打電話還一邊擠出一聲咳嗽。你們兩個都在撒謊，但這一樣嗎？
無論我們是兩歲還是62歲，我們撒謊的原因大都一樣：為了擺脫麻煩、得到好處或者是為了讓我們在別人眼里變得更好。不過越來越多的研究正在提出這樣的疑問：孩子的謊言和大人們的謊言有何不同；隨著年齡的增長，我們的撒謊行為會發生何種變化。
發展心理學家們正在努力通過人們的行為舉止來理解說謊。神經學家們則在探究在我們編造謊話時究竟是大腦的哪個區域被激活。從為什么十幾歲的少年會當著你的面謊稱不曾打碎花瓶，到是否可以采信小孩子在法庭上的證言，他們的研究結果可能會給出一些答案。一個有趣的新研究顯示，和成人相比，孩子們的撒謊行為可能來源于一個完全不同的大腦區域。
包括多倫多大學(University of Toronto)教授、兒童問題研究所(Institute of Child Study)負責人李強(Kang Lee)所作的研究在內，眾多研究表明，說謊標志著正常的成熟。
發現孩子說謊的父母和老師們“不應該感到恐慌──他們的孩子也不會變成病態說謊者，”李強說。他在過去的15年里的研究課題是：隨著孩子年齡的增長撒謊會發生怎樣的變化，為什么有些人會說更多的謊話，以及哪些因素可以減少說謊。“孩子說謊標志著他們到達了一個新的發展階段。”
李強和他經常合作的麥吉爾大學(McGill University)同事維多利亞•塔爾瓦(Victoria Talwar)進行了一系列研究：他們將孩子帶入一間安裝有隱蔽攝像頭的實驗室。測試者告知年齡從兩歲到17歲的兒童和青少年受試者不要偷看放在他們背后的一個玩具──這個玩具通常是紫色毛絨恐龍Barney──以此誘使他們撒謊。然后，測試者離開房間一分鐘，表面上是接電話，給孩子們足夠的時間去偷看玩具。而孩子們是否偷看則被錄像帶記錄了下來。
對于兒童來說，偷看的誘惑力是巨大的，因此有90%的兒童在實驗中都偷看了玩具。即便是青少年和成年人在類似的情況下也受到了引誘，李強說。
測試者回到房間后詢問孩子們是否偷看了玩具。研究顯示，在兩歲的孩子里，大約有四分之一的人會撒謊說他們沒有看過。三歲的孩子有一半會說謊，而到了四歲，這個數字是90%。
這個趨勢在孩子們大約15歲前都成立。而到了15歲，幾乎所有在實驗中偷看過玩具的人都會說謊。好消息是：在15歲以上的孩子里說謊者的數量開始出現下降。而到了17歲，說謊的比例減少到了大約70%。
研究人員還調查了為什么某些孩子比其他孩子更愛說謊。他們發現，這和更為高尚的道德觀或者和宗教成長環境無關。相反，那些擁有更優秀的認知能力的孩子們更愛撒謊。密蘇里大學哥倫比亞分校(University of Missouri-Columbia)神經心理學家肖恩•克賴斯特(Shawn Christ)說，這是因為要想撒謊，你必須在頭腦里保留真相，而這包含了幾個步驟的大腦思維過程，比如整合幾方面的信息以及操控這些信息。
說謊──而且是成功說謊的能力被認為是與某個大腦區域的發展相關聯的，該區域負責所謂“執行能力”，也就是更高級的思維和推理能力。那些在包含執行能力的測試中表現更好的孩子們也會說更多的謊言。
原文鏈接：Why We Lie So Well
