Author(s)

Ruofei Song

Corresponding Author

Ruofei Song

Abstract

In this study, 220 left-behind children aged 3-6 years were selected. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between left-behind children's theory of mind and lying behavior and the differences in the development of left-behind children's theory of mind and lying behavior by using disappointment gift task, unexpected place task and unexpected content task. The results show that most left-behind children aged 3-6 can't lie spontaneously for their own benefit. After the training of psychological theory, the left-behind children will lie earlier. The behavior of lying through the training of psychological theory is stable. There is a significant correlation between lying behavior and false belief scores of left-behind children. Whether left-behind children lie or not has nothing to do with the understanding of false belief, which shows that there is no significant difference between lying and non-lying groups in completing the task of false belief. To sum up, it can be concluded that children's theory of mind can predict the occurrence of children's lying behavior, and the better the development of children's theory of mind, the more prosocial motives appear. The development of left-behind children's theory of mind, lying behavior and lying behavior motivation is slower than that of non-left-behind children.

Keywords

Psychological theory; Children left behind; Lying behavior