title: Children trust people who lie to benefit others.
abstract: The current research examined whether children consider who benefits from lies when judging the trustworthiness of liars. Across two studies (total N=214), 6- to 11-year-olds trusted individuals who lied to promote the interests of others, but not those who lied to promote their own interests. In contrast, children trusted individuals who told the truth regardless of who benefited. Trust in individuals who lied to promote the interests of others was evident even in the absence of moral approval for their actions. These results demonstrate that children take into account both the truth value of a speaker's statements and who benefits when assessing trustworthiness and that moral approval is not a prerequisite for trust.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province 321004, China.
authors.forename: Genyue
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province 321004, China; Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. Electronic address: gheyman@ucsd.edu.
authors.forename: Gail D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Heyman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province 321004, China.
authors.forename: Guowei
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province 321004, China.
authors.forename: Peilong
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province 321004, China; Erick Jackman Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6, Canada.
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000533:Altruism; D002648:Child; D008192:Deception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D002666:Psychology, Child; D035502:Trust / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Lie telling; Moral evaluation; Motives; Reasoning; Testimony; Truth telling