Lee

• background


  • kohlberg's six stages of moral development which he stated were not affected by culture
• aims


  • to find out if the culture a child grows up in (individualist vs collectivist) affects their views about truth-telling and lying
  • to find out if the views of children about truth-telling and lying change as they grow older
• sample


  • 120 children aged 7, 9, or 11 from China (collectivist culture)
  • 108 children aged 7, 9 or 11 from Canada (individualistic culture)
• procedure


  • children were individually tested and each read 4 different stories
  • pro-social truth: doing something good and telling the truth
  • pro-social lie: doing something good and lying about it
  • anti-social truth: doing something bad and then tell the truth
  • anti-social lie: doing something bad and lying about it
  • children answered the questions using a rating scale
  • samples were split into 2 groups- stories about how the actions affected another child and stories about how the character interacted with physical objects
• results


  • as they got older, children in collectivist china came to view pro-social lying as positive
  • both China and Canada rated anti-social truth as positive
  • both China and Canada rated anti-social lies as negative, and this increased as the children got older
  • when asked why they rated lie telling as positive in the pro-social situation, many Chinese children said that the child was 'wanting' praise
• conclusion


  • there are difference in moral development between different cultures, which is not just due to cognitive development
  • children's views of right and wrong change as they get older but allies because of social and cultural rules
• links to the area


  • suggests that cultural differences do impact moral reasoning and judgements about lying and truth telling as Chinese and Canadian children showed differences in how they judged lying and truth telling in pro-social situations