The Word-Riddle Paradigm for Studying Cheating in Middle Childhood: Evidence from a Twin Study

While societal moral norms emphasize fairness and rule-following, cheating behaviour is surprisingly common among children. However, due to its social undesirability, cheating behaviour is difficult to study. The present preregistered paper introduces a novel word riddle paradigm to assess cheating behaviour in middle childhood. In a longitudinal twin cohort study, 428 8- to 10-year-olds were presented with unsolvable word riddles and left alone while an answer booklet was placed close by. Half of the children received the explicit instruction not to peek. Cheating tendency (whether children cheated) and cheating frequency (number of cheated words) were assessed. Results showed that 46% of children cheated on this task, and cheaters cheated on more than half of the words on average (54%). Reminding children not to peek decreased cheating frequency, but not cheating tendency. Age was negatively associated with cheating tendency, but not with cheating frequency. No cross-sectional or longitudinal associations were found between cheating behaviour and children’s callous-unemotional traits, empathy and effortful control. Finally, an ACE analysis indicated most of the variance (65%) in cheating behaviour was explained by unique environment of the child and/or measurement error, whereas genetic influences accounted for a smaller proportion of the variance (35%). No shared environmental effects were observed. Results are discussed in light of contextual factors that might shape cheating. Taken together, the findings demonstrate that this paradigm provides a simple yet sensitive tool to assess cheating in middle childhood and suggest that cheating is a frequent behaviour in middle childhood, even under explicit prohibitions.