“Second, research on socially sanctioned lying has focused almost exclusively on the role of the conventionality component. For example, the role of ToM understanding has hardly been taken into account in the study of children's telling of blue and white lies. Research must simultaneously assess children's ToM and socio-moral understanding to reveal how components of intentionality and conventionality interact to influence the development of prosocial lying. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay According to Lee, there are two fundamental driving forces behind why and how children lie: the intentional component and the conventionality component. The intentional component is applicable in situations where children lie to hide their transgressions, such as breaking a lamp and then lying and saying that a “ghost” broke the object for them. They intentionally lie to hide their actions, a behavior observed in children as young as 3 years old. The conventionality component includes all prosocial lies, i.e. blue and white lies, told by children as a means of creating positive social interactions. Social conventions say that sometimes it's better to tell a kind lie than a hard truth, and children as young as 5 have been found to tell these conventional lies. These lies are often found in situations where politeness is an important factor, and it has been found that older children are more likely to tell a white lie to be polite than their younger counterparts. In all these studies the two components were analyzed individually, with separate experiments conducted for both the intentionality and conventionality components. The quote I selected argues that we need to move beyond viewing these two factors as two separate entities, and instead conduct research to see how they influence each other. Theory of Mind (ToM) is “the notion that individuals have intentions, desires, and beliefs and will act accordingly” (Lee 91). This idea has been attributed exclusively to intentionality and its interactions with the conventionality component have remained completely unexplored. As Lee said, ToM was hardly taken into account in a child's telling of blue-and-white lies, although children certainly lie intentionally. All blue and white lies are not told accidentally, so it makes no sense that more research has not been conducted on a child's ToM when telling prosocial lies. Blue and white lies are told for the purpose of creating or maintaining positive change, such as lying and telling someone they look good when they actually don't as a means of being polite. So far, prosocial lying has been classified exclusively under the conventionality component, but I agree with Lee that we need to examine how the combination of the intentionality and conventionality components influences a child's development of prosocial lying...