Children's ability to deceive was examined in order to determine whether they are able to hide their emotional expression intentionally. Three-year-oids were instructed not to peek at a toy while the experimenter left the room. When asked, the great majority either denied that they peeked or would not answer the question. Facial and bodily activity did not differentiate the deceivers from the truth tellers. Boys were more likely than girls to admit their transgression. These results indicate that very young children have begun to learn how to mask their emotional expressions and support the role of socialization in this process. Deception is a frequent activity in the life of individuals. It may take the simple form of agreeing with someone with whose opinion, in fact, we do not agree (e.g., saying we like the color of a tie when we do not) or other forms such as lying about a serious transgression. Deception can be directed toward the self as well, as in the case where we deny that we have a certain feeling when, in fact, we do feel this way (Lewis, in press). Moreover, cultures may have display rules that encourage masking negative emotion (Ekman, Friesen, & Ellsworth, 1972; Izard, 1977). Deception can be observed in all age groups, but the questions of how old a child must be in order to be able to deceive and how well a child can succeed in the deception are largely unexplored. Anecdotal evidence suggests that very young children may practice deception, for example, young children who deny that they have eaten a cookie when there are signs of the cookie on their mouths. Many other examples of deception exist as well. For example, the 20-month-old child who cries when she scrapes her hand, but only when her mother is present, or the 24-month-old child who knows his name, but when asked what it is playfully responds, "Mommy." In all these examples, the children may respond with verbal or facial-vocal behaviors (or both) that do not reflect what they know to be true. Could these examples reflect the beginning of the ability to deceive? In order to answer this question, it is necessary to be able to infer that there is a known correct response and that the child's behavior is an attempt to hide or avoid that response. Given that many examples of deception-like behavior appear in the young child, it is surprising that there is very little systematic research on this topic, both in terms of the development of deception and of the individual differences in its use. There are This research was supported in part by a grant from the W. T. Grant Foundation. Special appreciation is given to Andree-Maryse Duvalsaint and Phillip Barone for data collection and to John Jaskir for data analysis. Correspondence (Feldman, Jenkins, & Popoola, 1979; Feldman & White, 1980) , however, most of this work has involved children who are 6 years or older. Moreover, little work exists regarding children's ability to hide or mask their emotions or to be deceptive in more naturalistic situations at any age (Saarni, 1984) . It has been assumed that both socialization factors and increased cognitive capacity enable children to alter their facial expressions and verbal and nonverbal behaviors in order to mask their underlying emotional state (Ekman et at., 1972; Lewis & Michalson, 1985; Saarni, 1979) . The study of deception bears on the development of these capacities. Saarni (1984) attempted to observe directly developmental differences in children's abilities to use deception in a life-like situation. First, third and fifth graders were placed in a situation where their expectations for a desirable toy were not met. After receiving a desirable gift and the promise of another such gift, the children were given an undesirable gift. The children's facial expression and nonverbal behavior were coded. With increasing age, children demonstrated an increased ability to mask their internal states, and girls showed this ability earlier and to a greater extent than boys. These findings are difficult to interpret, however, because the regulation and disassociation of expressive behavior from the internal state must be inferred. That is, it is unknown whether the children, in fact, were disappointed in not receiving the promised gift and, therefore, used deception to mask their disappointment. Although the study of children's use of deception is important for our understanding of the socialization of emotion and the relationship between internal states and extern~ expressions, there are few studies on this topic. Those few that exist provide us with limited information, because the children in them were required to play act, and, thus, were not studied directly in terms of the use of deception in more natural situations. The present study represents an attempt to observe young children engaging in deception under the condition that it is they who chose to deceive. In order to create a natural situation that might induce children to deceive, 3-year-old children were placed in a situation where they were prohibited from looking at a toy. On violating the prohibition, they were asked about 439
In one study, REF studied 3-year-olds and measured behavioral cues, such as facial expression and nervous body movement, before and after the elicitation of a lie.
Deception in 3-year-olds.