Practice what you preach? Exploring parental attitudes, behaviors, and teaching about lying

Many parents lie to their children. Paradoxically, many also disapprove of lying to children, and teach that lying is unacceptable, suggesting discrepancies between parental lying attitudes, behaviors, and teaching. This study explored the alignment and discrepancies between parental attitudes, behaviors, and direct moral instruction across three lie types: other-oriented, self-oriented, and instrumental. Cross-sectional data were collected from parents in the Netherlands (N = 312, 79.8% mothers) and analyzed using correlational and latent profile analyses. Between-parent associations suggested general alignment between attitudes, behaviors, and direct moral instruction, with variations in strength depending on lie type. However, within-parent analyses showed many parents exhibited discrepancies between their lying attitudes, behaviors, and direct moral instruction. Prevalence and patterns of alignment and discrepancies differed by lie type. For instance, discrepant profiles were more prevalent for self-oriented and instrumental lying than for other-oriented lying. These findings suggest most parents do not fully practice what they believe or preach, nor consistently preach what they believe, reflecting internal moral conflicts within parents and inconsistencies in children’s moral socialization. This study expands understanding of parental alignment and discrepancies and proposes hypotheses about environmental, societal, and relational factors influencing how parents navigate moral beliefs, behaviors, and teaching in daily life.