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A recent study co-authored by the University of Toronto’s Kang Lee suggests that learning to lie can confer cognitive benefits, kids who lie earlier tend to have much better cognitive abilities. A professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and his co-authors in China, Singapore and the United States, based their findings on an experiment in which they asked 42 preschool-aged children in China.
They were split into two groups with an equal number of boys and girls, with an average age of about 40 months. Over four days, they played a game in which they hid a treat, such as popcorn, from an adult in one hand. The grown-up had to choose the hand that the child indicated. If the child successfully deceived the adult, they got to keep the treat. The experimental group of kids was taught how to lie in order to win the game while the control group was not.
On standardized tests used to measure executive function, including self-control and “theory of mind” the capacity to understand another person’s intentions and beliefs-the kids who were taught deception out-performed the control group. Negative human social behaviors may confer cognitive benefits when such behaviors call for goal pursuing, problem solving, mental state tracking, and perspective taking.
Learning to deceive causally enhances cognitive skills in young children. Children have been found to be capable of fibbing before they are seven years old, and some as early as two. Lying is a normal part of growing up, the earlier one learns to deceive, the better. Self-control and theory of mind are fundamental cognitive skills that humans must have to survive.