The role of empathy in children's costly prosocial lie-telling behaviour

The aim of the present study was to examine the role of induced empathy and parent-reported empathy (i.e., affective and cognitive) as underlying motives for children's prosocial lie-telling tendencies. An experimental paradigm was used to elicit prosocial lies in children (N= 146, 7-11 years) in varying cost (low-cost/high-cost) and induction (empathy/neutral) conditions. Results indicate that induced empathy predicts prosocial lie likelihood and maintenance in low-cost conditions, and that cognitive empathy is a predictor of lie-likelihood. Post-hoc analyses revealed that a large portion of children chose to prosocially share with the distressed confederate, regardless of whether they lied for them. Individuals who shared were more likely to share in low-cost conditions, and also had higher cognitive empathy. Overall, this study provides unique insights into the role of empathy as an underlying cognitive process for children's prosocial decision-making. Highlights The role of empathy was examined in relation to children's prosocial lying and sharing behaviour in low- and high-cost conditions. Parent-reported cognitive empathy predicted both lying and sharing in an experimental paradigm; induced empathy only predicted lying in low-cost conditions. Overall, empathy proved to be an important underlying motive for children's prosocial decision-making.