Biases in adults’ truth and lie judgments of Black children’s statements: An examination of anti-Black attitudes and unawareness of racial inequalities

Abstract

A growing body of literature has sought to examine factors that impede adults’ abilities to detect children’s lies. The current study extends previous research that found that adults demonstrate a racial bias when evaluating statements made by children and that these judgements are related to their motivations to respond without prejudice. The goal of the current study was to explore whether adults’ veracity judgments of Black and White children’s statements differ as a function of adults’ anti-Black attitudes and their unawareness of racial privilege, institutional discrimination, and racial issues within society. Participants reviewed fictitious transcripts of a child who denied committing a misbehaviour, judged whether they believed the child to be lying or telling the truth, and completed questionnaires assessing their prejudicial attitudes. Consistent with previous research, adults displayed a general truth bias when judging the veracity of children’s statements. The strength of this truth bias was dependent on the race of the child, such that Black children were more likely to be labelled as telling the truth compared to White children. After controlling for participants’ race and overall willingness to label a child as truthful, participants’ prejudicial attitudes predicted their deception scores for Black children, such that participants with lower prejudicial attitude scores rated Black children to be more honest compared to participants with higher prejudicial attitudes. The results of this study carry the potential to enhance our understanding of cross-race deception detection and may help identify factors that interfere with our ability to accurately detect children’s lies.