They Say: Kids Bad Liars, Excellent Deniers

In our house, it's a battle over brushing teeth. 

"Honey, did you brush your teeth?"  I ask.

"Yes …" she answers.

"Go brush your teeth, now," I say. Liar, I mumble under my breath. And off she goes.

We're also in a hitting/pinching/ sticking-tongue-out-at-little-sister phase.

"Mum, she hit  me," says little sister.

"Did you hit her?" I ask.

"Nooooo! I didn't hit her," answers the older one.

"OK. Find something else to do, you guys," says me, the big ol' gullible mom.

But there's good news! I'm not the only one. In fact, a new study shows that adults are pretty good at sniffing out lies that are reports of things that did not happen (unbrushed teeth, for example). But we're total suckers when it comes to false denials (hitting sister but claiming otherwise).

The dysfunction in my little family aside, these findings are important for researchers. Teasing apart the differences may make reported accounts of child abuse and court testimony more reliable. 

From UPI: 

"The large number of children
coming into contact with the legal system — mostly as a result of
abuse cases — has motivated intense scientific effort to understand
children's true and false reports," study author Gail Goodman said in a
statement. "Arguably even more important, however, are adults'
abilities to evaluate children's reports."

"While accurately detecting
false reports protects innocent people from false allegations, the
failure to detect false denials could mean that adults fail to protect
children who falsely deny actual victimization," Goodman said.

The research was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychology Association in Boston.