Evaluations of children and parents on parental lies

Piaget (2015) stated that the evaluation and justification of children's lying behavior in moral terms change according to cognitive developmental stages. Studies conducted on the paradigm of disappointing gift, a white lie area, have observed that it is found more acceptable compared to other areas of lies (Aydın, 2021; Warneken & Orlins, 2015; Gingo, Roded, & Turiel, 2019). The aim of this research is to investigate how children and parents evaluate and justify the lies told by parents. Participants were presented with seven different stories as data collection tools, and they were asked to assess and justify these stories. The participants in the first study were 35 children in the 5-6 age group and 35 children in the 10-11 age group. The participants in the second study were 68 parents with children aged 5-12. The results of the research revealed, in line with previous studies, that the most acceptable lie category is the disappointing gift paradigm, which falls under the category of white lies.