Lee et Al study (developmental psychology)

• What is the name of the study?

  • ‘Chinese and Canadians evaluations of lying and truth telling‘
• What is the first aim of the study?


  • to investigate cross-cultural differences in childrens understanding and moral valuation of lying
• What is the second aim of the study?


  • to see if Chinese and Canadian children would rate truth-telling differently in pro-social settings when someone did something good
• What is the third aim of the study?


  • to see if the behaviour of lie-telling in anti-social settings, when someone has done something bad, is the same for both cultures
• How many Chinese participants?


  • 120
  • 40 7 year olds
  • 40 9 year olds
  • 40 11 year olds
  • equal gender split
• Where did the participants come from?


  • they all came from urban places of good education
• How many Canadians?


  • 108
  • 36 7 year olds
  • 40 9 year olds
  • 32 11 year olds
  • non equal gender split: 58 boys, 50 girls
• What were the independent variables? (4)


  • age
  • ethnicity
  • type of story (physical/social)
  • type of setting (pro/anti-social)
• What is the dependent variable?


  • rating of good/naughty
• What is the difference between a social and physical story?


  • social = contains another person (Paul pushing Jimmy)
  • physical = individual (Ryan making paper aeroplanes from a book)
• What was the procedure?


  • children were randomly allocated to a social or physical story condition
  • each child was seen individually, and the rating was explained to them
  • each child listened to 4 social or 4 physical stories
  • the rating scale was then explained again, alternating wether it was explained in terms of degree of naughtiness or goodness (extraneous variable)
  • stories were counterbalanced
  • rating scale was turned into a qualitative score (higher the score = agreed with the action)
• What is an extraneous variable?


  • an extra thing that the researcher did
• Results of the Chinese children?


  • as they got older, they saw lie-telling in a positive way - occurred by 9 in a physical story and 11 in a social story
  • children rated the lie-telling as negative in bad deed situations
• Results of the Canadian children? 


  • all lie-telling is wrong
  • they gave similar ratings to truth-telling at each age in pro-social situations compared to Chinese children, who rated it negatively as age increased
  • they rated lie-telling negatively, however less negatively as age increased in pro-social situations
• Results similarities?


  • all children can identify good and bad deeds
  • both groups think that lying in a bad deed situation is bad
  • truth–telling in anti-social situations had no significant differences - rated positively
  • anti-social lie-telling social situations, were rated negatively, increasing with age, irrespective of culture
• Conclusions?


  • lying and truth telling is dependent on socio-cultural practices
  • social and cultural norms impact of moral development
  • moral judgement is modified by age and experience in each culture
  • all children show same moral evaluations of lie-telling and truth-telling to anti-social behaviour
  • self-effacement (humility) and modesty in Chinese culture, impacts on moral judgement - therefore moral development is affected by culture, and/or social environment, so it is not universal
• Method?

  • quasi design -can’t control age and ethnicity
  • cross-cultural - the differences and similarities were a combination of universal and culturally specific causes
  • appropriate and similar measures for each culture were used through illustrations, reading stories aloud in children’s own language, and uses a rating scale
• Snapshot?


  • Carried out in a short period of time of time
  • unlike Kohlberg’s longitudinal, to see if children of different ages gave different responses by making the study cross-sectional (by having children of different ages)
  • data was collected in one go, not throughout the children‘s lifetime
• Data collection?

  • qualitative and quantitative data
• Method?


  • cross-cultural study as the differences and similarities were a combination of universally and culturally specific causes
  • quasi - can’t control age and ethnicity
  • Appropriate and similar measures were used
• snapshot?


  • by making the cross-cultural study unlike kolhberg’s, data was collected in one go, not throughout lifetime
• ethics?


  • could be morally harmful as it involved truth and lie telling, content was age appropriate
• validity?


  • lacks ecological validity as the stories were different to real life situations
  • stories are easy for children to understand making it more valid
• reliability?


  • materials are used the same across all participants
  • replicable
• sampling?


  • large age range
  • equal numbers of male and female (roughly)
• ethnocentrism?


  • minimised due to cross sectional nature of study
  • maximised because Canada doesn’t represent North America and china doesnt represent Asia
• Hollism?


  • acknowledges the influence of society on behaviour
  • suggest how our moral development is not just a series of predetermined cognitive stages which we all pass through
• approach/perspective?


  • develops on kohlbergs ideas
  • shows how cultures are not ‘underdeveloped’ but instead have different morals
• determinism?


  • the children have been bought up in particular backgrounds and are influenced by this for their truth/lie telling
• situation?

  • children have grown up in different backgrounds, shows a split between moral. development.
• Similarities to kohlbergs ?


  • both studies used children
  • Both studies looked at stages of moral development
  • Both studies gained qualitative data
  • Both studies had cross-cultural aspects to them
  • Both studies collected data through self-report
  • both studies involved participants being presented with scenarios on which to comment
• differences to kolhbergs?


  • kolhbergs article explains how his research supports his theory, whereas Lee’s is more research-focaused
  • kolhberg explains the university of moral reasoning, whereas Lee shows cultural differences in moral rules
  • kolhberg focuses on male participants, whereas Lee has mixed gender samples
  • kolhberg’s research is longitudinal, whereas Lee’s is a snapshot study
  • Lee gained quantitative data which provided statistical analysis