Emotion matters in early polite lies: Preschoolers’ polite lie‐telling in relation to cognitive and emotion‐related abilities

Most prior studies on children's polite lie‐telling have focused on cognitive correlates but neglected emotional correlates. This study examined 115 preschoolers’ polite lie‐telling in relation to both cognitive (inhibitory control (IC), false‐belief understanding) and emotion‐related abilities (emotional theory of mind (ToM), affective empathy). After receiving a disappointing gift, 53 (46.1%) preschoolers lied. Preschoolers’ polite lie‐telling was positively related to their emotional ToM but not to IC, false‐belief understanding, or affective empathy. These findings demonstrate the importance of emotion‐related abilities in early polite lie‐telling. Unexpectedly, we found that preschoolers’ polite lie‐telling decreased with age, which might be explained by the development of moral evaluations of polite lie‐telling.