Lee

• Background

  • Children's moral judgement about lying and truth telling primarily rely on the extent to which a verbal statement differs from factuality and whether or not the lie is punished
  • Piaget has shown that it is not until the age of 11 that children begin to use the protagonist's intention as a key factor of moral judgement
• Aim

  To see if Chinese and Canadian children would rate truth-telling and lie-telling differently in pro-social settings and anti-social settings
• Method

  • Laboratory experiment
  • IV 1 = whether the participant heard the social story or the physical story
  • IV 2 = Whether the story was about a child being a good deed or a bad deed
  • DV = How they rated the behaviour in the story
• Sample

  • 120 chinese children, equal amount of 7.9 and 11 year olds, equal gender split, from Hangzhou
  • 108 canadian children, unbalanced group sizes, unbalanced gender split, from Fredericton
• Prosocial (good deed) results

  Truth telling

  • Children from both cultures rated the prosocial behaviours similarly
  • Canadian children at each age gave similar ratings to truth-telling
  • Chinese children's ratings became less positive as age increased

  Lie telling

  • Canadian children rated lie telling negatively, these became less negative as age increased
  • Chinese children's ratings of lie telling changed from negative to positive as age increased
• Antisocial (bad deeds) results

  Truth telling

  • Children from both cultures rated the antisocial behaviours similarly
  • Both cultures rated truth telling in this situation very positively

  Lie telling

  • Both cultures rated negatively in this condition
  • Negative ratings increased with age, in both cultures
  • Chinese 7yo rated lie telling less negatively that other children in the physical condition
  • Canadian 7yo rated lie telling less negatively in the social story condition
• Conclusions

  • There is a close relationship between socio-cultural practices and moral judgements
  • Chinese children rate truth telling in prosocial situation negatively and lie telling positively in the same situation than Canadian children
  • All children showed similar moral judgements in truth/lie telling towards anti-social behaviour
  • Moral development is affected by the culture individuals are socialised in
• Link to key theme

  Moral development

  • Refers to principles that we hold that govern how we behave
  • How children form a system of beliefs on how to interact with other people and our environment
  • Lee investigated the changes in moral reasoning and how children rate the lie/truth telling in pro-social and anti-social settings
  • Results showed that culture can have an impact on moral development and can alter the speed at which people move through the stages, and whether they experience all stages
• Link to key area

  Developmental psychology

  • Looks at how behaviour changes throughout your life
  • Looks at what influences these changes (nature vs nurture)
  • Lee investigated how different cultures rated lie/truth telling behaviour in pro social and anti social settings
  • Results showed that culture can have an effect on the speed at which people move through the stages, and whether they experience all of the stages
  • This means that development is the same biologically, but can be altered by external influences