Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Two studies examined I92 maltreated young children's competence to take the oath.  Study I found that despite serious delays in receptive vocabulary, a majority of 5-year-olds correctly identified truthful statements and lies as such and recognized that lying is bad and would make authority figures mad. However, most participants up to 7 years of age could not define "truth" and "lie" or explain the difference between the terms. Four-year-olds were above chance in recognizing the immorality of lying but exhibited a tendency to identify all statements as the "truth. " Study 2 found that 4- and 5-year-olds performed above chance …