Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Seeds of Adult Dishonesty are Sown in Youth

People who cheated on exams in high school are considerably more likely to be dishonest later in life, according to a report by the Josephson Institute of Ethics.

The study, which surveyed nearly 7,000 people in various age groups nationwide, offers a sobering assessment of today's youth as cynics who are aware that their behavior crosses boundaries but believe it is necessary to succeed.

And the findings suggest that habits formed in childhood persist: Those who cheated in high school are more likely as adults to lie to a customer, inflate an insurance or expense claim, cheat on taxes and lie to their spouses.

"When you see that teens are five times more likely than adults to think it's OK to cheat to get ahead, we have a problem," said Rich Jarc, executive director of the Los Angeles-based institute. "Just think if five times the number of people in business, politics and banking hold those beliefs. That's alarming."

The institute issues biennial reports on the ethics of American high school students that have charted a steady increase in those admitting to cheating, lying and stealing. The new study is the first to connect teen behavior to dishonest activities in adulthood.

Among the findings: Teens 17 and younger are five times more likely than those older than 50 to believe that lying and cheating are necessary to succeed (51% vs. 10%), those in the 17 and younger group are nearly four times as likely to deceive their boss (31% vs. 8%) and three times more likely to keep change mistakenly given to them (49% vs. 15%).

More young adults ages 18 to 24 reported lying to a spouse or partner than did the 41- to 50-year-old members of their parents' generation (48% vs. 22%), more made an unauthorized copy of music or a video (69% vs. 27%) and they were more likely to have misrepresented or omitted a fact in a job interview (14% vs. 4%).

Source: Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dishonest29-2009oct29,0,25349.story

Lying To Kids Isn't So Rare

I doubt many will be surprised to find the result of a new study indicates that parents often lie to their kids. It's a good reminder that parents hold primary influence when it comes to the development of morals and values in their kids' lives. And so, the saying is often true: "The nut doesn't fall far from the tree."

Mom and Dad may say honesty is the best policy, but it is not a policy they always follow, according to a study in The Journal of Moral Education.

Parents strongly discourage their children from lying, but they often lie to influence the behavior and emotions of their kids, write authors Gail Heyman and Diem Luu of the University of California-San Diego and Kan Lee of the University of Toronto.

The researchers surveyed undergraduate students and parents of children age 2 or older. Both groups were presented with different scenarios in which a mother tells a child something she does not believe, like the police will come if he cries in the grocery store or that a rainbow appeared just for the child. The students then reported on a scale of 1 (definitely no) to 7 (definitely yes) if they had been told a similar lie as children, and the parents reported if they had told a similar lie to their kids.

Though 88% of students answered 5 or higher for at least one of the lies, 79% reported being taught that lying is unacceptable; 74% of parents reported teaching lying is unacceptable, while 75% answered 5 or higher to one or more scenarios.

Parents often lie to control behavior, avoid upsetting the child or make the child happy. "There are a lot of situations where a simple lie could get the child to behave and make your life a lot easier or make your child happy," Heyman says.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-10-12-lying-parents_N.htm