The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children’s Strategic Lie-telling

The overall goal of this procedure is to elicit children's naturalistic lie-telling behaviors in a deliberately designed laboratory setting. This method can help answer key questions in the field of children's social development, such as the emergence of children's lie-telling behavior or the relationship between lie-telling and children's mental state understanding. The main advantage of this technique is that it allows ecologically valid explorations of children's naturalistic lie-telling behaviors.

To begin, introduce the child and the parent to the laboratory environment and allow the child to sit at a child-sized table. After allowing the child to acclimate to the testing room, offer three attractive gifts for the child and instruct the child to select the most desirable one. Then inform the child that the selected gift is the prize for winning three rounds of the following guessing game.