Lee

• Children's moral judgement about lying and truth telling rely on verbal statements factuality + whether like id punished- until 11 use protagonist intention as factor of moral judgements- Piaget
• Wimmer- Pre-school and young school age children capable of distinguishing lying from behaviour + can make moral judgements similar to older children and adults
• Frued's psycho analytic theory + Skinner Behaviourist theory + Kholberg's cognitive theory
• Sweester- folkloristic model of lying- concept of lying not cognitive construct defined by factuality, intention or belief- also a socio-cultural construct

  • understanding of lying influenced by cultural norms + value- little evidence to support this
• Kholberg- cross cultural research- moral development not lying
• Binet + Hall- children's understanding of moral development is a topic of investigation in developmental psychology
• Interest in children's understanding of lying and truth telling- information limited
• previous studies done with western children- societies emphasise individualism- study designed to bridge gap

  AIM- testing cultural impact on moral evaluations
• Study compares Chinese + Canadian in situations which pro + antisocial actions are denied or acknowledged- original study details why canadian and Chinese selected
• Lab with independent measures design- some repeated measures due to each hearing 4 scenarios- 2 of each + asked to apply same rating scale
• IV- ppt heard social or physical story

  -whether child heard prosocial story- child who carried out a good deed- valued by adults in both countries

  - antisocial story- Child who intentionally carried out a bad deed- viewed negatively in both cultures
• DV- rating given to characters deed- very very good-> very very naughty
• Chinese- 120- from elementary schools in a medium city from People's republic of China

  40 - 7 yo - 20m/f

  40 - 9 yo - 20m/f

  40 - 11 yo - 20m/f
• Canadian- 108- from provincial capital but smaller population

  36- 7 yo - 20m / 16f

  40- 9 yo - 24m/ 16f

  32- 11 yo - 14m/ 18f
• Most canadian from m/c families- Chinese unknown
• Chinese- half of children social story condition- half physical story- assigned randomly

  Canadian- 19- 7 yo, 20- 9 yo, 17- 11 yo social story- rest assigned to physical story
• ppts read 4 scenarios accompanied by illustrations- two prosocial, two antisocial
• Prosocial story- Alex tidies classroom for teacher (good or naughty?) When teacher returned Alex denied doing it (good or naughty?)
• Each ppt was tested individually
• ppts were instructed of meaning of words and symbols: very very good (3 red stars) neither (blue circle) or very very naughty (3 black crosses)
• ppts read either 4 social or physical stories- stories 'deed' rating read first then rating would be indicated verbally or non- or both on the rating chart- then read second section and gave rating again
• Meaning of each symbol repeated whenever a question was asked
• Words 'good' and 'naughty' in two questions was altered
• To control for order effects- two orders of four stories determined using a randomisation table - half had predetermined order, others had the other way round
• ppts involved in post- experiment discussions
• First analysis of effects of order + gender showed no significant differences so data combined for subsequent analyses
• Prosocial/ truth- covariate not significant- children of both cultures rated behaviour similarly

  -Canadian children pf all ages gave similar ratings however Chinese became less positive as age increased
• prosocial/lie- covariant significant- children rated things differently in both age + conditions- age + culture significant

  -Canadian rated lie telling negatively- less negative with age- Chinese changed from negative to positive
• Antisocial/truth- Covariate not significant- children from both cultures rated behaviour similarly- positively
• Antiscocial/lie- covariate significant- children both rated differently- age + culture significant

  -both rated lie negatively in situation

  -overall negative ratings increased with age
• Concluded- in lying+ truth telling - close relationship between socio-cultural practices + moral judgements exists
• Concluded: Chinese rate truth in prosocial + lie telling in same situations more negatively than Canadian children
• Concluded: Both show similar moral evaluations of lie telling related to antisocial behaviours
• Concluded: emphasis on self-effacement modesty in Chinese culture increasingly has an impact on Chinese Children's moral judgement
• Concluded: moral development is contextualised+ affected by environment individual is socialised in