--------------------------------------------------------------- Habit formation: Very strong. Case 8. Lack of parental correction. Girl, age 17 years. Early experience with lying. Development of inner life: Imaginative and hidden. Delinquencies: Excessive lying and misrepresentation. False accusations. Forging. Mentality: Stealing. Good ability. --------------------------------------------------------------- CASE 9 Summary: A girl of 14 had been notoriously untruthful for years. She had created much trouble by her petty false accusations, and her lying stood often in the way of her own satisfactions and advantages. Analysis of the case shows the girl's dual moral and social experiences and tendencies, her inner conflicts about the same, and her remarkably vivid mental imagery-- all of which leads her to doubt sometimes concerning what is true and what is false. A strange admixture of races, of religion, and of social and moral tendencies was brought out in the study of Amanda R. and of her family conditions. We were much helped in the study of this case, which has long been a source of many social difficulties, by the intelligence of certain relatives who knew well the family facts, and also by the good mental capacities of the girl herself. Amanda is an orphan and has been living for years with relatives. She has caused them and others, even those who have tried to help her, extreme annoyance on account of her quite unnecessary lies, her accusations, and some other delinquent tendencies. The main trouble all concede to be her falsifications, which vary from direct denials to elaborate stories invented without any seeming reason whatever. Reports on her conduct have come from a number of different sources. Neighbors have complained that she has come to them and borrowed money with the statement that her family was hard up. At school she stated for a time that she had come unprovided with lunch because her people were so poor, but it was ascertained that she had thrown away her lunch each day. The lies which she told to the other school children were extraordinarily numerous and fertile; unfortunately they sometimes involved details about improper sex experiences. A long story was made up about one of her relatives having committed suicide and was told to the school teachers and others. She defamed the character of one of her aunts. To her pastor she told some outrageous falsehoods. A home for delinquent girls, where she was once placed on account of her general bad behavior, would not put up with her, so much trouble arose from her prevarications. She accused the very good people there of not treating her well because she was not of their race. All of the above is quite apart from the girl's own romantic stories which have been told in her family circle and have done no especial harm.