High consistency of cheating and honesty in early childhood

Three preregistered studies examined whether 5-year-old children cheat consistently or remain honest across multiple math tests. We observed high consistency in both honesty and cheating. All children who cheated on the first test continued cheating on subsequent tests, with shorter cheating latencies over time. In contrast, 77% of initially honest children maintained honesty despite repeated failure to complete the tests successfully. A brief integrity intervention helped initially honest children remain honest but failed to dissuade initially cheating children from cheating. These findings demonstrate that cheating emerges early and persists strongly in young children, underscoring the importance of early prevention efforts. They also suggest that bolstering honesty from the start may be more effective than attempting to remedy cheating after it has occurred.

Research Highlights

• Our research examines whether 5-year-old children, once they have started cheating, will continue to do so consistently.
• We also investigate whether 5-year-old children who are initially honest will continue to be honest subsequently.
• We discovered high consistency in both honesty and cheating among 5-year-old children.
• Almost all the children who initially cheated continued this behavior, while those who were honest stayed honest.
• A brief integrity-boosting intervention successfully helped 5-year-old children maintain their honesty. However, the same intervention failed to deter cheaters from cheating again.
• These findings underscore the importance of implementing integrity intervention as early as possible, potentially before children have had their first experience of cheating.