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There are more TV sets in the US than there are people in the UK. |
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Babies not as innocent as they pretend
Posted on Thursday, July 05, 2007 (CDT) by Thoth
 Whether lying about raiding the biscuit tin or denying they broke a toy, all children try to mislead their parents at some time. Yet it now appears that babies learn to deceive from a far younger age than anyone previously suspected.
Behavioural experts have found that infants begin to lie from as young as six months. Simple fibs help to train them for more complex deceptions in later life. Until now, psychologists had thought the developing brains were not capable of the difficult art of lying until four years old.
Following studies of more than 50 children and interviews with parents, Dr Vasudevi Reddy, of the University of Portsmouth's psychology department, says she has identified seven categories of deception used between six months and three-years-old.
Infants
quickly learnt that using tactics such as fake crying and pretend
laughing could win them attention. By eight months, more difficult
deceptions became apparent, such as concealing forbidden activities or
trying to distract parents' attention.
By the age of two, toddlers could use far more devious techniques, such as bluffing when threatened with a punishment.
Dr Reddy said: "Fake crying
is one of the earliest forms of deception to emerge, and infants use it
to get attention even though nothing is wrong. You can tell, as they
will then pause while they wait to hear if their mother is responding,
before crying again.
"It demonstrates they're
clearly able to distinguish that what they are doing will have an
effect. This is essentially all adults do when they tell lies, except
in adults it becomes more morally loaded."
She added: "Later it
becomes more sophisticated by saying, 'I don't care' when threatened
with a punishment - when they clearly do."
Dr Reddy thinks children
use early fibs to discover what kinds of lie work in certain
situations, and also learn the negative consequences of lying too much.
Copyright: Telegraph
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No Comments Allowed for Anonymous, please register |
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Re: Babies not as innocent as they pretend
by Curlybird on Thursday, July 05, 2007 (CDT)
(User Info | Send a Message) | Babies are innocent. The life they are born into is what teaches them about manipulation and deception. Babies are very adept at picking up signals around them even before they are born. We teach them by our actions and thus they learn. If we act with integrity around children, that is what they will learn. If we do not, they will learn otherwise as they have got built in BS detectors that are finely honed.
CB |
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Re: Babies not as innocent as they pretend
by myztique on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (CDT)
(User Info | Send a Message) | | Anyone that's ever had kids will tell you this is true. Young babies will definitely fake cry if you ignore them. I've seen babies that are just fussing for attention and being ignored because mom is busy or it's their nap time suddenly give out a piercing scream as if they are hurting or something is terribly wrong. As soon as mom rushes to see what's wrong, baby shuts up and just looks at her as if to say "What took you so long?" |
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Re: Babies not as innocent as they pretend
by Nasaya on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (CDT)
(User Info | Send a Message) | | Nothing in this article surprises me one bit. One of those things I instinctively knew BEFORE having a child. Amazing tho, that these "scientists" have to research things that are just "common sense". Of course, no one nowadays seems to have any "common sense". |
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