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Alexander F. Yuan / AP, file
A parent takes photos of her daughter playing the drums at a children's play area in a shopping mall in Beijing on Jan. 10.
BEIJING -- Parents throughout the world have been known to tell a white lie to cajole dinner into a fussy child or explain the pile of gifts that appears under the Christmas tree as if by magic.
According to a new study, Chinese parents rank among the biggest fibbers.
The study in the International Journal of Psychology titled “Instrumental lying by parents in the US and China” found that most respondents -- 84 percent of Americans and 98 percent of Chinese -- admitted that they lied to their children. Chinese parents, however, were far more likely to lie to force changes in behavior, it found.
“A larger proportion of the parents in China reported that they employed instrumental lietelling [sic] to promote behavioral compliance, and a larger proportion approved of this practice, as compared to the parents in the U.S.,” the authors said in the report.
The researchers from the University of San Diego, the University of Toronto and Zhejiang Normal University interviewed 114 American and 85 Chinese parents who had at least one child aged 3 years or older.
The participants were given a list of fibs and asked to report which ones they had told their children.
For example, 68 percent of Chinese respondents reported telling their children, “If you don’t follow me, a kidnapper will come to kidnap you while I’m gone.” Only 18 percent of American respondents made similar claims.
Sixty-one percent of the Chinese parents said they would tell their children, “Finish all your food or you’ll grow up to be short.” Just 10 percent of American parents utilized that particular little white lie.
According to the study, Chinese parents surveyed told 15 out of the 16 “specific instrumental lies” at higher rates than American parents.
More news from China in NBC's Behind the Wall
The only exception was a false claim that there is no more candy in the house, which was reported by 57.5 percent of parents in the United States as compared with 42.9 percent of Chinese parents.
American parents reported using more of what the study calls comparison lies -- untrue statements intended to generate positive feeling or to promote fantasy characters.
Sixty percent of Americans said they would use the line, “That was beautiful piano playing,” even if they thought it sounded terrible. In contrast, 44 percent of Chinese declared they would lie in those circumstances.
The results could be interpreted to mean that Chinese parents are more comfortable lying in general, but the study’s authors said that Chinese parents “made more negative evaluations of children’s lies,” and expressed more negative views than their American counterparts on fibs about fantasy characters like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Indeed, 88 percent of American respondents said they had used the lie, “Santa Claus will come to deliver your present on Christmas Eve.”
The study suggested that the wide acceptance of parental lying among Chinese adults could be driven by a strong desire for social cohesiveness and an emphasis on respect and obedience, according to the authors.
In other words, lying can be an effective tool in socializing children.
Or as one Chinese parent put it, “When teaching children, it is okay to use well-intentioned lies. It can promote positive development and prevent your child from going astray.”
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I've read quite a few posts and responded to some. This is my opinion on the whole matter.
We all lie. Everyday. Every politician in the world is a liar. Every one of our Presidents have lied to us at one point or another. We all have our reasons for lying. And to top it all off, none of us like being lied to.
This study is important sociologically as we become more technologically advanced and the world becomes smaller every day. We need to understand why people do the things they do. It is the only way to truly protect ourselves from whatever unknowns are out there. It is simply a study of human nature. The violent countries we have been dealing with have been the "squeaky wheels" and we have had no choice but to get quite the education on their beliefs and way of life. This is a more subtle issue and if there is a correlation between why certain countries lie about the things they do and the way the people of those countries are nurtured and taught how to be, then we need to learn and understand so we are not surprised and can react accordingly.
Knowledge is the key, is it not?
this is an asian phenomenon - that lying is an acceptable tool in getting what you want. it is so widespread and woven into their cultural fabric that they do not even see it as a lie, but a manipulation of the trutch.
Y'all did catch the part where the article said that 98% of Chinese lie to their kids versus 84% of Americans didn't you? Sometimes one needs to look oneself in the mirror a few times before bashing an entire ethnicity for something the vast majority of us do ourselves.
I think the American parents were lying about lying. The Chinese parents were just being more honest about it!
Very amusing Jeff Gundy. Everyday, kids in the U.S. are told lies about Jebus and God. Fiction. Ever watch Fox News? Geez, what a hypocrit you are. In 1993, before traveling to China, I requested a State Department packet, and the 'warnings' sent me included the certainties that there would be PLA filming me in my hotel, and if I took a taxi with a local, I would be arrested. These were 100% false, or giving the writers considerable benefit of the doubt, they had not been updated in quite a while... Once when President Clinton became quite popular in China--for actually going there as the first U.S. president in almost a quarter of a century, the U.S. bombed the Chinese consulate in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The official excuse was it was an accident--based on an "old map." I think both cultures lie, but Americans such as yourself enjoy hearing and repeating lies and pretend you are moral in doing so...
From a society that uses piracy as an industry, we should not be surprised at the percentage of liars in China. Ethics and morals start at home.
BTW, perpendicular to this argument, does anyone remember the Bush administration's assertion of WMD's in Iraq? Thus, there is one mammoth, powerful country still warmongering all over the middle East to this day, and hint, no, it is NOT China...
Bush didn't lie - he believed what he was saying - just dumb as a bag of rocks
lol! That is what is scary, I also think that Bush actually believed all his lies.
That's the conventional line, RCB. But, his IQ is high. People hear the Southern accent and make a kind of prejudiced assumption about W. Do you REALLY think Jeb will be president one day? I don't. Bush's name only got him so far. The guy was not a good president, but he really was not dumb. He knew what he was doing.
I'm surprised politicians aren't no.1.
My dentist and his wife, also a dentist are from an unnamed Asian country. They were arrested by the FBI and indicted in the fall in Federal court for insurance fraud to the tune of $100K. That's where cultures promoting lying can lead. I have to get my checkup this very afternoon and keep going back b/c they're excellent dentists. Too bad they'll have to each go "on sabbatical" for a while, separately, considering they have young children. Oh, guess they didn't care about them enough not to tell tall tales to the insurance companies.
Oh, and no Americans have ever been arrested for insurance fraud?
The Chinese people have had to employ deception and concealment in order to survive the totalitarian regime. It becomes a habit. America has had the good fortune of receiving the best from China over the past simply because only the most ambitious, independent and honorable individuals seek the freedom to live as such.
Another analogy? 'Bad China' with the lead in dangerous toys. That's lying. But, the wealthy U.S. company which sent those jobs there, are we to believe they really don't check their products upon return ? It's rather easy for them to blame China ('how do we know what we are selling?), but is that really just a lie? Which is worse?
Hey I'm all for science (I'm a scientist by nature, education, and profession as it happens) but let's be circumspect here - there's an opportunity and economic cost to any study like this. To your point, we don't have details for the charter of this study but as presented thus far it smells like intellectual (and almost certainly economic) waste. I've seen plenty of it in academia and to a bit lesser extent industry but the simple fact that it is de rigeur should not excuse it. There's opportunity cost for whatever minds/talents were behind this that could have focused on something more meaningful; there's economic costs to support the resources need to design, collect, and analyze the data; there's societal waste for the hundreds of thousands (if not millions if you count interested parties on both countries) of readers/viewers who (like us) got sucked in by the headline; etc..
My point is we can and should demand better in this and so many things we let slip by on a daily basis. If cyber media is killing traditional print journalism, it is this constant need to fill the 'dead air' in cyberspace with these intellectually bankrupt stories that will kill the efficacy of this medium for conveying new information to the masses (unless we count Tweets, FB updates, etc. as 'information'.) OK, I'm hopping off my soap box now and leaving for dinner.
Cheers!
I thought it was funny when the Chinese geeks were watching their computer screens and joking about the Bigger bang guys...
But back closer to topic, about what degree lies are acceptable in our culture, do you consider the tiny island nation of Cuba to be a threat to our way of life and security? Our State Dept. still does. Ask them why, or are you satisfied that we must stay enemies forever? Are you satisfied with the Warren Report's explanation for the death of (the popular) U.S. president JFK? I am not. Aren't those two very famous lies?
When I was in China, they showed the Peter O'Toole film "Man of La Mancha" only get this, the Chinese characters said "Foolish man fighting windmills." Chinese people would ask 'why do Americans cry so much about fighing an impossible dream.'? Is a sentimental lie better? Why?
All humans lie. People that tell you they never tell a lie, just told you a lie. That my friend is no lie. lol....
Lying is an art form, it takes a master liar to weave and craft the parts so they fit together and pull off the deception. Years of practice is what it takes to be a good one. A liar has to know three things if he/she wants to become an expert liar. 1. R&D. Why do you think the Golden Gate bridge, the Eiffel Tower, and the Empire State bldg. been successfully sold, because the perpetrators conducted extensive studies on how to find, to spot, and target credulous buyers. 2. Planning. A good plan should include, when trying to sell public landmarks, credible proof (not real of course), such as authentic looking documents to corroborate the seemingly legal transaction and presenting an accomplice to attest to it. For situations such as explaining your absence and whereabouts to your spouse, think of places and events that's hard to verify and of course a lot of good excuses. 3. Execution. This is where it gets tricky. It's human nature to be wary before one is parted with his/her money, so to overcome this, the liar has to convince the person (victim) that the act is important and would boost his/her social standing. For domestic situations, when coming off one nightstands take a good shower before going home because, the spouse waiting at home would be sniffing the the arriving spouse for distinctive odors, and rid clothing of tell tale signs, e.g. lipstick on your collar, unfamiliar scents, biological stains, etc. And so my fellow practitioners lie away just don't get caught, there could be unpleasant consequences, but remember with determination, diligence, and deliberate pursuit one could be a master liar.
When I was around 3-4 years old, my parents would tell me that I would turn black if I didn't finish my vegetables.
Even at that young age, I was dimly aware that in Africa most of the people were black, and many of them did not have enough food. Obviously however, my grasp of cause and effect was severely lacking.
I ate my vegetables.
Too bad people think a race change would be a bad thing.....shouldn't make any difference.
Having lived in various parts of the world as an expat, including China, my guess is that, in business, the Chinese have approximately the same tendency as Americans of being dishonest. This feels to most Americans like the Chinese are more dishonest simply because we overlook the prevalence of our own dishonesty. I generally find the English, Skandinavians, Australians and Canadians to dissemble a lot less than we do.
Any parent who says he or she has never lied to his or her kid is a liar!
Under handed, deceitful and liars are a few more words I have for the chinese.
They incorporate "imaginery figures" (Santa Claus & the Tooth Fairy). How can this possibly be a valuable tool in their study? How many children wake up on Christmas morning to a Christmas tree, stockings hung on the fireplace mantle, gifts under the tree?
This is like putting in a question about "what is your favorite steak?" then giving it to a group of vegans.
This study has absolutely no credibility. And look at the very small number of respondents in total.
In the U.S. you can present about any kind of proposal to a company about another company and that is it. No real authority to present it but it is simply used as a means for further discussions. In Japan, presenting anything like that would be considered fraud. Do Japanese lie, yes very rarely. The current problem with China is due to their years under a Communist dictatorship where even the smallest personal issue was mandated by a party official. No ethics were taught because everyone was watched. You do something dishonest and you get a couple of shots in the back of the head. Now, this is gone but nothing has replaced it. The Communists destroyed any religious basis for either morality or ethics and today you have a society with no moral or ethical base for its actions. Some Chinese have reverted to Buddhist and Confusius teachings but not enough. Japan on the other hand, even though a very secular state, still has basic Buddhist ethics as a basis for their society even with people who no longer consider themselves Buddhist. Chinese society must adopt some kind of ethical standards for its society if it wants to maintain a unified country or it will dissolve again like it has so many times in the past with rule by warlords.
I like it when George Costanza said, 'Remember, it's not lying if you believe it's true.!'
This isn't just a Chinese thing; as a mixed Asian both my parents have their versions of teaching me their ways. Both have included some sort of lies to get me to comply with them and only one told me straight up, "the truth". I never believed in stuff kids are told to believe, like Santa and the tooth fairy or whatever. This seemed to work best so when I have my own kids they will learn to help around the house, do their hw, respect their elders, semi strict tv/computer time and lots of family outings; but they will be the kids who need to believe in fact, not fiction. I'll even develop a curriculum so when school is not in session (summer) they will be home schooled on real life issues and world issues (this worked on me too even though I hated it lol).
Oh yes, I plan to be a good active parent and want to be in my child's life, with little less lying.