Running Head: Children and Secret Telling

Children and Secret-Telling: How they spill the beans
Chloe Johnson
Thompson Rivers University
Undergraduate Research Experience Award Program

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Abstract
Knowing who children share secrets with can aid in the understanding of what factors
influence the transmission of secrets by children. The present study examines who and how
children tell when they have seen a transgression committed by an adult. Specifically, do
children tell a peer or an unfamiliar interviewer? Children aged 2-12 years attended a science
event with half the group seeing a show that included an adult transgression and the other half
viewing a show with no transgression event. Child then discussed the science shows with a peer
and then with an unfamiliar adult. Of the seventy-eight participants, only three disclosed that
there was a transgression to any recipient. Understanding this low level of disclosure is crucial
for cases where a child has experienced a harmful event and is not disclosing information that
could help them.
Secret-telling and Children: How they spill the beans
Secrets
Understanding how children share secrets between each other is important. Secrets foster
loyalty and belonging within a group (Misch, Over, & Carpenter, 2016) and are a common way
for children to develop social networks. Secrets are often well-kept when telling may have
consequences for acceptance within a group. In one study, children aged five years old were put
into a group of green or yellow denoted by their scarf colour (Misch et al., 2016). They were
shown the secret book of their group and then a stranger who was not wearing a scarf came in
and asked where the secret thing was. Even when young children were bribed with stickers to tell
the group secret they did not tell the outgroup member (Misch et al., 2016). This demonstration
of loyalty to their group is seen even among very young children.

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Peers are the most likely recipients of secret-sharing, and this can be important if the
secret is about something bad that has happened to a child (e.g., abuse or neglect). Peers can be a
highly persuasive source of information. Research by Principe, Cherson, Depuppo, and
Schindewolf (2012) addressed rumour spreading in children aged 3-6 years old. They found that
rumours spread by adults did not foster as deep and extensive rumour mongering as rumours
spread by the children’s peers. In this study, they showed children a magic show where the
magician was supposed to pull a rabbit out of his hat but failed to. Later, the children either
overheard that the rabbit was loose in the school or were classmates of other children who had
overheard. Children’s memory of the rumour was tested one week and then four weeks after the
event and the responses of what had happened were mostly incorrect, the rumoured occurrence
was reported instead of the actual occurrence. This demonstrates that rumours can be more
damaging when gleaned from peers than when overheard by adults.
How do children know that information is confidential? A study by Anagnostaki, Wright,
and Papathanasiou (2013) asked 5-6 year olds who they predicted a puppet would disclose
information to after being given verbal cues that made it seem like the information contained a
secret or no such verbal cues on the nature of the information. They found that children would
only share secrets with the puppet’s friend instead of the other children (non-friend). They did
not discriminate between friends and non-friends when sharing non-secret information. This may
be an indication of children’s emotional maturity and the development of relational closeness
(Anagnostaki et al., 2013). This differs from research by Price et al. (2017) that found that in
some cases children are more likely to share information with an adult. Depending on the secret
and the level of confidentiality, children may find it more appropriate to tell an adult rather than
their friend or vice versa.

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Do children really understand what a lie and a secret are? Do they understand that lying
has the potential to be damaging? Lavoie, Nagar, and Talwar (2017) interviewed children aged
8-15 about the definition of secrets and lies and discussions and judgements on who tells lies and
their own secrets and lies. Younger children defined secrets and lies much differently than older
children, lies being doing or saying something wrong and not telling your parents and secrets
being something you tell a good friend and no one else, something mean and meant to be kept.
Older children defined lies as the opposite of reality and secrets as information that is not meant
to be shared. As children get older, why they tell lies and why they keep secrets changes, as well
as their perceptions of these things (Lavoie et al., 2017). Where in this spectrum a child is at can
influence who they share confidential information with, the way they share it, and why they
share it.
Lying
Secret telling, and the decision to keep secrets, could be related to lying. Research by
Popliger, Talwar, and Crossman (2011) explored prosocial lie-telling in second and fourth
graders. Groups of children either lost a good gift in exchange for disappointing gift or just
received a disappointing gift. They evaluated the children’s reactions to the gifts (e.g., lying by
saying they liked it) and discovered that there was no age difference in lying when children were
not expecting a good gift, both young and older children lied the same amount. However,
younger children were less likely to lie in the first condition, when they had lost a good gift for a
more disappointing one. This tells us that younger children are more motivated to lie by selforiented reasons or to avoid negative outcomes whereas older children may lie for other-oriented
reasons, such as to be polite. Children also seemed to evaluate the feelings of the person they
were lying to when deciding whether or not to lie. The prosocial behaviour of children in both

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conditions could have the same underlying motivation as secret-keeping. Children might think
about how the person who they are telling the secret about might feel.
Children tell lies depending on what they think that others know (Fu, Evans, Xu, & Lee,
2012). When presented with the opportunity to commit a transgression, if they have been seen
and know or think that the interviewer knows they have committed the transgression then they
will be more truthful. But if the child thinks that the interviewer does not know about the
transgression then they are more likely to outright lie if asked if they committed the
transgression. Children can strategize about what to tell others (truth or lie) when the recipient’s
knowledge is unknown (Fu et al., 2012). Even when it is clear that a child has committed a
transgression, they will tell a strategic lie to relieve blame from themselves (Evans, Xu, & Lee,
2011). In a study conducted in China, children were asked not to peek under a cup, if they did
then the contents of the cup would spill and there would be physical evidence that the child had
peeked. The older a child was, the more likely they were to tell a strategic lie excusing
themselves from blame for the incident. In this case, a strategic lie would be a false statement
consistent with the physical evidence, such as “Other children came in and knocked over the cup
but you did not see”. Evans et al. (2011) also tested children for different factors that could
influence lying behaviour such as theory of mind understanding and executive functioning. They
found a link between executive functioning and lie-telling. Interestingly, there was no correlation
between children’s planning skills and lie telling, though the researchers impart that this may be
because they did not give them enough time to plan a lie (Evans et al., 2011). Secret-keeping and
secret-telling may be linked to executive functioning in much the same way that lie-telling is.
Transgressions by Others

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Who children are talking to and how their conversation partners reacts to them may
predict whether they disclose a secret. If children talk with an unsupportive parent, they tend to
recant their disclosure of negative events while those with supportive parents stand by their
disclosure (Malloy & Mugno, 2016). In a recent study, children witnessed an adult wrongdoing
and were then interviewed by a researcher so that they did not forget the transgression event
(Malloy & Mugno, 2016). They then talked to either a supportive or unsupportive mother about
an adult breaking a puppet. After receiving support or no support from their mother, the children
talked to another interviewer who asked the same questions as the first interviewer. If the child’s
mother was unsupportive and the child recanted the disclosure while with their mother, they
continue to recant it in the second interview.
Similar to the present research, a study by Price, Evans, and Bruer (2017) explored how
children disclose transgressions to peers and adults. Children who heard about a transgression
from another child but did not witness it themselves were likely to transmit that information to an
unfamiliar adult. Admissions by children who witnessed the event were more rare, which is
understandable given that those children were asked by the person who committed the
transgression not to tell anyone. Children who simply heard about the event are not held to the
same social contract as the children who witnessed. Interestingly, children disclosed the
transgression more often overall to adults than peers, perhaps because adults are seen as more
trustworthy than their peers (Price et al., 2017).
Disclosures
The way that children are asked questions may also affect how or if they disclose to the
questioner. Research by Evans and Lyon (2012) explored children’s understanding of the
questions asked of them in court. It was found that children do experience some

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misunderstanding based on question-type, with the most errors in “Do you know” questions
about truth and lies (Evans & Lyon, 2012). How a question is asked can greatly affect the
answer, as shown by Malloy and Mugno’s (2016) and Evans and Lyon’s (2012) research. If an
interviewer is harsh and contrary, it is unlikely that a child will feel like they can trust them.
Likewise, if an interviewer or other surrounding adults are caring and supportive then it is
possible that the child would be more likely to disclose information that they feel is confidential.
The present study will explore how younger children share secrets with one another and
with adults. This is important for the understanding of how children interact and the role of that
interaction on their social groups and psychosocial development. This study will also further the
understanding of who children disclose negative information to. Children are asked to discuss
science shows that they have watched to each other and then to an adult interviewer. The way
that children explain negative events, if they even do, will be recorded when they discuss with
peers as well as with adults.
Method
Participants and Design
Children (N = 78; n = 44 females) aged 2-12 years (Mean age = 5.33, SD = 1.95) were
recruited from local child care facilities. There were 29 children between two and four years old,
32 between five and six years old, and 17 between seven and twelve years old. Parents signed a
consent form and children gave verbal assent before the experiment began. Children were quasirandomly assigned into a condition in a 2 (transgression, no transgression) group design.
Materials and Procedure
The children were randomly assigned to one of two groups, one group viewed an
environmentally-themed science demonstration and the other group viewed an ocean-themed

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science demonstration (see Appendix A for demonstration scripts). In one of the demonstrations
(counterbalanced across participants), there was a transgression event. Both demonstrations
were performed by an undergraduate researcher.
The Event
In each demonstration, children participated in three activities. In the environmentally
themed science demonstration, children first learned how to make a rain cloud in a jar. They then
were shown how to make a water filter in a pop bottle. The final demonstration was learning how
to make a tornado in a jar. If the transgression was during this demonstration, the lid popped off
of the jar and water accidentally spilt onto a cell phone that was sitting nearby that belonged to
another confederate. The demonstrator picked up the phone and tried to make it work, when it
would not the demonstrator asked the children not to tell anybody that she had made a mistake.
In the ocean themed demonstration, children first learned how to make the layers of the
ocean in a jar. They then learned how fish breathe, using a cup and coffee filter. The final
demonstration was learning about the different density of salt water versus fresh water. If the
transgression event was during this demonstration, the demonstrator accidentally knocked over
the cup of fresh water onto a cell phone that was sitting nearby that belonged to another
confederate. The demonstrator picked up the phone and tried to make it work, when it would not
the demonstrator asked the children not to tell anybody that she had made a mistake.
After the science demonstrations, each child from the transgression event group was
paired with a child from the no transgression event group and the children were asked to describe
the respective science shows to each other. Children were paired up quasi-randomly, with the
restriction of an attempt to age and gender match pairs as closely as possible. Children were told
that their conversation would be recorded and a recording device (turned on and off by a

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researcher) was placed near them. After discussing with their peer, each child was interviewed
individually by an adult researcher (an undergraduate student) and asked to describe what they
learned at the science show.
Interviews
After viewing the science demonstrations, the children were given instructions to
describe what they saw in the demonstrations to a peer who viewed the other demonstration.
After the peer interviews, each child was interviewed by an adult, an undergraduate researcher.
The researcher knew which demonstration the child witnessed but was blind to which
demonstration had the transgression event. The interview started with the researcher asking open
ended questions to the child starting with “A little while ago, you got to watch my friend do a
science show for you. I wasn’t here for the show so I don’t know what happened, but I really
want to learn all about it. Tell me everything you can about what happened when my friend
showed you the science stuff.” The child was prompted with general prompts (“What else can
you tell me?”) until their memory appeared to be exhausted. The interviewer then moved onto
the cued recall portion of the interview (See Appendix B; e.g., “The first experiment was about
clouds. What materials did she use to show you the cloud experiment?”)
In both interviews, the cued recall portion was followed by open-ended questions about
the event that they heard about from the other child that they had talked to. The interviewer said
“After you saw the show, you talked with another kid who saw a different show. I wasn’t there
for that show either and I’m really interested in learning about the other show too. I know you
didn’t see it yourself, but please still tell me everything you can about what happened in the
show you didn’t see.” The child was prompted about what they heard until they had nothing else
to say. The children were then administered a relationship questionnaire (See Appendix C).

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After the interviews, the interviewer thanked the child for his/her help and offered a gift
for participating in the study. Once all children were interviewed, the researcher gathered all the
children and thanked them for participating and said “I know that something happened to a
phone, but it’s still working so don’t worry!”
Results
A primary original aim of this study was to measure the frequency of children’s
disclosures to peers and to adults. However, very few children disclosed the event Of the 78
children, only three disclosed (Two children disclosed to both peers and adults, one child
disclosed to only an adult.) Because of this, different aspects of the data were examined.
We anticipated that the duration of the interview might differ as a function of whether or
not children witnessed the transgression. The children were split into different age groups as
research has shown that lying increases as cognitive skills increase, as it does with age (Evans &
Kang, 21013). We ran an F-test that split kids into a 2 x 2 between subjects factorial design, with
children divided by age and by condition (having seen the transgression or not). There was an
interaction between age and disclosure, F (1,47)=3.318, p=.075, η2p = .07. The differences were
examined and it was discovered that there was a difference in interview duration for older
children, but not younger children. It was found that children aged 7-12 years old who witnessed
the event, untruthful non-disclosers (M=411.45 seconds, SD=80.81), had longer interviews than
children aged 7-12 years old who did not witness the event, truthful non-disclosers (M=356.50,
SD=103.89). This was in contrast to children aged 5-6, where those who witnessed the event,
untruthful non-disclosers (M=302.13, SD=128.57) had shorter interviews than those who did not
witness the event (M=375.73, SD=119.36). These results were also not significant. Children

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aged 2-4 years old were left out of the data set because their data was unreliable, most interviews
could not stay on topic and there were a significant amount of outliers.

Mean Interview Length
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0

Untruthful Non-disclosers
5-6 Years

Truthful Non-disclosers
7-12 Years

Discussion
The present study aimed to explore disclosure rates in children aged 2-12 years who
witnessed a transgression event. Since there were so few disclosures, this could not be explored.
Other aspects of the data were analyzed instead, with age relating to interview length being the
main focus. With only three of seventy-eight children disclosing, children must have had some
reasons for not disclosing. They may have established a relationship with the demonstrator and
felt a loyalty to them, such as in the research by Misch et al. (2016) where children did not
disclose to people that were not in their group, children could have felt that the demonstrators
were in their ingroup and the interviewers were in an outgroup. Children may not have felt that
the transgression was serious enough to disclose, perhaps if the transgression were on a more
significant object, such as a laptop, as used in a study by Price at al. (2017), then the children
may have felt more inclined to disclose.

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Another possibility is that the nature of the transgression could have influenced whether
children disclosed or not. Research by Over, Vaish, and Tomasello (2016) found that children
felt significantly more guilt if a child in their ingroup committed a transgression (breaking a toy)
than if a member of an outgroup did. Conversely, children may respond differently to uphold
prosocial norms. Children in a study by Harvey, Davoodi, and Blake (2017) were approached by
another child and asked if they knew where to find a third child, they were told that the seeker
was looking for the child to either steal something from them or to give them cookies. When
children were told that the seeker was going to steal, older children lied and told misdirected the
seeker significantly more than when the seeker was going to give the child cookies. This is an
example of children disclosing to other children, the results of the study may have been altered if
there was an adult seeker.
Another study by Heyman, Loke, and Lee (2016) based on children policing adults
actions employed a method of comparing children’s reaction to a high stakes transgression
(ripping a page out of a library book and colouring on it) committed by an adult to children’s
reaction to a low stakes transgression (ripping a page out of an off-limits notebook and colouring
on it). The researchers found that having seen the high stakes transgression, older children
reported the transgression to another adult both spontaneously and when prompted much more
than when older children who saw the low stakes event (Heyman et al. 2016).
Children aged 7-12 years old that viewed the transgression event had a longer mean
interview length than those that did not view the transgression event while children aged 5-6
years old who viewed the transgression event had a shorter mean interview than those that did
not view the transgression. Older untruthful non-disclosers talked longer than older truthful nondisclosers, possibly rambling and talking around the transgression so that they did not disclose.

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Younger untruthful non-disclosers had shorter interviews, it’s possible that they wanted to get
the interview over with or talked faster because they were nervous about disclosing.
Limitations and Future Directions
This study was limited by sample size, with only 17 children between the ages of 7 and
12 years old, the study had low power. The study was also limited in that every daycare visited
was laid out differently with distractions abound. Children may have missed parts of the
demonstration or have been able to hear the demonstration in the other room. It is also possible
that children could hear their peers being interviewed by the adult interviewers.
It is recommended that future research obtains a measure of likability of the demonstrator
that is performing the science show and match that with the likability of the interviewer so that
the child does not feel a bias towards one or the other. It is also recommended that the
transgression event includes a higher stakes transgression, perhaps committed against something
of value to the children or the daycare or with the transgression being committed by a child.
Conclusion
Children aged 7-12 years who viewed a transgression committed by an adult spoke for a
longer time in interviews than children who did not view the transgression. Children aged 5-6
years who viewed the transgression spoke for a shorter amount of time than those who did not
view the transgression. Older children that were untruthful non-disclosers may have been talking
and rambling on to avoid discussing the transgression. However, there were very few disclosures
overall, which limited ability to analyze data relating to disclosure rates. This low rate of
disclosure demonstrates there are conditions under which children are very likely to keep a secret
– a finding that should be explored in future research.

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References

Anagnostaki, L., Wright, M. J., & Papathanasiou, A. (2013). Secrets and disclosures: how young
children handle secrets. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 174(3), 316-334.
doi:10.1080/00221325.2012.672350
Evans, A. D., & Lyon, T. D. (2012). Assessing children's competency to take the oath in court:
The influence of question type on children's accuracy. Law and Human Behavior, 36(3),
195-205
Evans, A. D., Xu, F., & Lee, K. (2011). When all signs point to you: Lies told in the face of
evidence. Developmental Psychology, 47(1), 39-49. doi:10.1037/a0020787
Fu, G., Evans, A. D., Xu, F., & Lee, K. (2012). Young children can tell strategic lies after
committing a transgression. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 113, 147-158.
doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2012.04.003
Harvey, T., Davoodi, T., & Blake, P. R. (2017). Young children will lie to prevent a moral
transgression. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.06.004
Heyman, G. D., Chiu Loke, I., & Lee, K. (2016). Children spontaneously police adults’
transgressions. Journal Of Experimental Child Psychology, 150, 155-164.
doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2016.05.012
Lavoie, J., Nagar, P. M., & Talwar, V. (2017). From Kantian to Machiavellian deceivers:
Development of children’s reasoning and self-reported use of secrets and lies. Childhood,
24(2), 197. doi:10.1177/0907568216671179
Malloy, L. C., & Mugno, A. P. (2016). Children’s recantation of adult wrongdoing: An
experimental investigation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 145, 11-21.
doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2015.12.003

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Misch, A., Over, H., & Carpenter, M. (2016). I won’t tell: Young children show loyalty to their
group by keeping group secrets. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 142, 96-106.
doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2015.09.016
Over, H., Vaish, A., & Tomasello, M. (2016). Do young children accept responsibility for the
negative actions of ingroup members? Cognitive Development, 40, 24-32.
doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2016.08.004
Principe, G. F., Cherson, M., DiPuppo, J., & Schindewolf, E. (2012). Children’s natural
conversations following exposure to a rumor: Linkages to later false reports. Journal of
Experimental Child Psychology, 113,383-400. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2012.06.006
Tishelman, A. C., & Fontes, L.A. (2016). Religion in child sexual abuse forensic interviews.
Child Abuse & Neglect, 63, 120-130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2016.11.025

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Appendix A: Science Show Demonstration Scripts
Science Show 1: Ocean Themed
Hello everyone! My name is _________ and today I will be teaching you about the ocean! I will
show you a few experiments and then we’ll have some discussions about what we
learned.
For our first experiment we are going to make the layers or zones of the ocean in a jar. Each zone
gets a different amount of light from the sun and the water in each zone is a different
thickness. The bottom zone is where the water is the thickest and no sunlight reaches this
zone because it is so deep. Only a little bit of sunlight reaches the middle zone and so that
means that only a few animals can live in this zone. The upper zone is where the most
sunlight reaches. This zone is where most of the plants and animals live, like fish, whales,
and sea turtles.
Here is how you make the layers!
For this experiment we are using: A clear jar, food coloring, corn syrup, oil, dish soap, water,
rubbing alcohol and funnels.
STEP 1: Add lots of blue and red and green food colouring to 3/4 cup of corn syrup and pour
into the bottom of your glass jar.
STEP 2: Mix blue food coloring into 3/4 cup of dish soap. Our dish soap is already blue, but
more blue food coloring will make it darker. Add it to the jar using a funnel.
STEP 3: Put blue food coloring in 3/4 cup of water and use a funnel to slowly and carefully layer
it on top of the dish soap.
STEP 4: Next, you’ll add your oil.

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STEP 5: Finally, you will add 3/4 cup of rubbing alcohol. You’ll want to use a dropper to slowly
add it to the top of the oil, making sure not to break the barrier between the oil and water.
There are our layers of the ocean!
Next, we will be learning about how fish breathe underwater. In the ocean, the oxygen that fish
need to breathe is mixed with water. So fish breathe water! And they have something
called gills, which help them do this. A fish opens its mouth and gulps water and the
water goes the gills. The gills help the fish to separate the air from the water so that they
can breathe. After the fish gets its air from the water, the water goes out through the gills
and then the fish takes another breath.
Let’s start our experiment!
For this experiment, we’ll use: A clear glass (or a plastic cup), coffee grounds, a coffee filter or a
piece of paper towel, an elastic band, and some water.
STEP 1: First mix the water and coffee grounds.
STEP 2: Then, put the filter over the cup and secure it with the elastic band.
STEP 3: Pour the water and coffee ground mixture over the filter and watch the water go through
the filter down into the glass. The coffee grounds will stay in the filter.
The filter represents the gills. The coffee grounds represent the air that the fish gets from the
water. The water that passed through the filter into the cup represents the water that the
fish pushes out through the gills once the air has been separated from it.
For our final experiment, we’ll be learning about the difference in density between fresh water
and salt water. Lakes and rivers are fresh water and the ocean is salt water! Very different
animals live in the ocean than what we can see in our lakes nearby. Do you guys know
what density is? It’s tricky, but really it means how thick the water is.

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All we need for this experiment is two cups, salt, water, eggs and some little plastic toys.
STEP 1: Put two tablespoons of salt into one of the cups of water and stir until it is dissolved.
STEP 2: Put water into the other cup.
STEP 3: Put the toys into the glasses and see which floats.
STEP 4: Put the eggs in the water and see which one of those floats.
When you add salt to water it makes the water more dense – or thicker. This means it gets
heavier. Many objects that sink in fresh water will float in salt water!
(If transgression event, reach over glasses to try to reach the package of toys and knock the glass
of plain water onto an old phone nearby. Try to wipe the water off the phone with your
hand and then try to turn it on. When it doesn’t turn on, ask the kids to promise not to tell
anybody and say that you will be in big trouble if anyone finds out you broke the phone.
END SHOW).

Science Show 2: Environmentally Themed
Hello everyone! My name is _________ and today I will be teaching you about the environment!
I will show you a few experiments and then we’ll have some discussions about what we
learned.
For this experiment we will need: A jar, blue food colouring, shaving cream, water, and a
dropper.
STEP 1: Fill the jar 3/4 of the way with water and then top with shaving cream. Allow a few
minutes for the shaving cream to fully settle on top of the water
For our first experiment, we will be making a rain cloud in a jar. Clouds are formed when little
drops of water rise into the air. When these little drops of water reach cold air, they turns

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back into big droplets of water. Those drops of water floating in the air collect and
“stick” together to form clouds. When clouds get so full of water that they can’t hold any
more, the water falls back to the ground as rain.
STEP2: In a bowl mix several drops of blue food coloring with a little bit of water.
STEP 3: Fill dropper with blue water and squeeze it onto the “cloud”.
Inserting the tip of the dropper into the cloud helps the cloud to fill. Squeeze more and more
blue water into the cloud.
Like I said, when the cloud gets so full of water that it can’t hold anymore, the cloud will start to
rain.
For our second experiment, we are going to make a water filter. We need clean water to drink,
right? So how do we turn dirty water into clean water? The way I’ll show you today is
how nature cleans water.
We need: gauze, a water bottle cut in half, dirt, sand, and dirty water.
STEP 1: Take a water bottle and cut it in half, inserting the top of the bottle upside down in the
bottom of the bottle without the lid on.
STEP 2: Place some cotton wool or gauze in the bottom (one piece stuffed in bottom, another
laid over top of the first piece) and then fill it with layers of coarse sand, fine sand and
dirt.
STEP 3: Then get some dirty water and tip it into the homemade water filter.
Can you see how the gauze stops the dirt from getting through? Now we have clean water that
we can drink!
For our last experiment, we’re going to make a tornado. A tornado forms when cold and hot air
mix and spin very quickly. What you are going to see in this experiment is how a tornado

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forms: the water will spins very quickly around the jar due to a special kind of force. This
force pushes things into the center of a circle.
For this experiment we will use: a jar with a lid and dishwashing liquid.
STEP 1: Fill the jar with water, nearly to the top. Leave about a 2cm gap for shaking room.
STEP 2: Squirt in a good amount of dishwashing liquid.
STEP 3: Shake the jar vigorously in a circular motion then set it down. You should see a cyclone
forming in the centre of the jar.
Inside the jar, the fluid on the outside starts spinning before the fluid at the centre. When you set
the jar down, you see the fluid on the outside slowing down as the fluid on the inside
continues to spin.
(In transgression event, accidentally tip over the cup you used to fill the jar (still with water in it)
onto the phone. Try to wipe the water off the phone with your hand and then try to turn it
on. When it doesn’t turn on, ask the kids to promise not to tell anybody and say that you
will be in big trouble if anyone finds out it was you. END SHOW).

Children and Secret-Telling
Appendix B: Cued Recall Interview Script
Ocean Themed Interview Script
Now I’m going to ask you some questions about particular things that happened.
I heard there were three experiments. Tell me what the three experiments were.
The first experiment was about layers of the ocean. What materials did she use to make the
layers in the ocean?
What else did she use?
The second experiment was about fish breathing under water. What materials did she use to
show you about fish breathing?
What else did she use?
The last experiment was about water density or water thickness. What materials did she use to
show you stuff about water density?
What else did she use?
Did something else happen?
Environmentally Themed Interview Script
Now I’m going to ask you some questions about particular things that happened.
I heard there were three experiments. Tell me what the three experiments were.
The first experiment was about clouds. What materials did she use to show you the cloud
experiment?
What else did she use?
The second experiment was about a water filter. What materials did she use to show you about
clean water?
What else did she use?

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Children and Secret-Telling
The last experiment was about tornados. What materials did she use to show you stuff about
tornados?
What else did she use?
Did something else happen?

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Children and Secret-Telling

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Appendix C: Relationship Questionnaire
Now I have a few questions for you about the kid you talked with a little while ago. I need to
know how well you know the other kid. You can be honest and I won’t tell the other kid what
you say.
How long have you known the kid you talked to?
How did you know this kid?
Do you “hang out”/play with this kid?

YES

NO

Would you like to “hang out”/play with this kid away from school/camp?
Is the kid you talked with your friend? YES

NO

YES

NO

Children and Secret-Telling

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