Promoting Honesty in Childhood: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis of Strategies to Reduce Cheating and Lying

Honesty plays a vital role in children’s moral development, social trust, and cooperation, making it important to identify effective ways to promote honest behavior. Although numerous strategies have been tested, findings have varied considerably across studies. It therefore remains unclear which strategies reliably reduce dishonesty, which are comparatively more effective, and what accounts for this heterogeneity. We systematically reviewed 82 experimental studies involving 11,283 children and conducted separate network meta-analyses of cheating and lying. To clarify heterogeneity across diverse strategies, we organized them by their primary proximal target into social-influence, physical-context, and internal-standard activation approaches. Six strategies reduced cheating: promises, environmental nudges, negative moral stories, moral reputation, approval-based strategies, and self-awareness. Nine reduced lying: direct observational learning, moral emotions, combined strategies, approval-based strategies, positive moral stories, self-awareness, injunctive norms, promises, and positive descriptive norms. Promise and environmental nudges ranked highest for cheating, whereas direct observational learning and moral emotions ranked highest for lying. Among five strategies examined in both networks, promises, approval-based strategies, and self-awareness reduced both forms of dishonesty, and positive moral stories were less effective for cheating than for lying. In contrast, negative moral stories significantly reduced cheating but not lying. Moderator analyses found no robust moderators for cheating, but lying-reduction effects were weaker in Western than Eastern samples. Overall, these findings suggest that children’s honesty can be shaped by targeted psychological strategies, and offers an integrative basis for understanding and refining honesty-promotion strategies in childhood.