"The migrant workers of this generation are so different from earlier generations, " says Li Guorui, a psychology professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai.

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"Most psychology is focused on trying to make abnormal people normal, " he says.

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The study found no clear difference between the lies used by mothers and fathers, according to researchers, who were from psychology departments at the University of California San Diego in the US, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua in China and the University of Toronto, Canada.

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Research by University College London psychology professor Adrian Furnham shows that children as young as three are able to distinguish advertising from normal television programming.

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