Core Studies: Lee

• What did it study?

  Contemporary study of evaluations of lying and truthtelling.
• Background part 1?

  1. Piaget theorised that young children's' moral judgements on lying and truthtelling was what would be punished, as kids don't understand intentions behind lies until they are 11 years old
  2. Wimmer disagreed and said that even pre-school children can distinguish between lying and behavioural misdeeds.
• Background part 2?

  3. Sweetser furthered this by saying children's evaluations may be influenced by the cultural norms and values they're socialised into

  4. pre research done on Western children so Lee wanted to expand on this by using children from China and comparing their moral evaluations to children from Canada
• Lee's aim?


  1. To investigate cross-cultural differences in children's understanding and moral evaluations of lying and truth telling
  2. compare the responses of Chinese and Canadian ps to stories that involve lying/truthtelling and pro/anti social situations
• What research method was used?


  Lab experiment but cross cultural and cross sectional method, with independent measures.
• Describe the sample

  120 Chinese children, 108 Canadian children, ages 7, 9, 11 from medium sized cities
• Describe the procedure


  Kids read 4 stories, in 1 of 2 orders determined with a randomisation table. With illustrations, in their own language, tested individually. In it character would would lie or tell the truth in an anti or pro social situation. They were instructed about the meanings of words, and of symbols on 7 point chart e.g. very good/two stars. Social, actions affected people Physical, actions affected objects. Stories familiar to both cultures. Deed in story rated on scale ranges very very good to very very naughty.
• How were the kids assigned?

  56 Canadian kids randomly assigned to social story, 52 to physical story. 60 Chinese kids randomly to social story, 60 to physical conditions.
• What were the findings?


  Pro social/truth telling- similar positive rating but Chinese became less positive with age.

  Pro social/lie telling- both rated negatively at young age, Canadian became more negative with age while Chinese became positive.

  Anti social/truth telling- both rated positively

  Anti social/lie telling- both initially negative but became more negative with age (for Chinese in physical and Canadian in social)
• What were the conclusions?

  Similarities:

  similar moral evaluations of lying and truth telling related to anti social behaviour

  moral reasoning can be influenced by our culture and the society we live in

  the influence of socio-economic factors become stronger as we age

  Differences:

  Chinese rate truth telling in pro social situations less positively and lie telling less negatively than Canadian children

  emphasis on self-effacement and modesty in Chinese culture impacts moral judgements