lee

• children's views on lying and truth telling is based on how much the lie differs from the truth and the likelihood of being punished for telling the lie

  • at around 11, they begin using protagonist's intention as their main factor of moral judgements - Piaget
• can make consistently accurate moral judgements similarly to older children, when looking at falsifying a statement and deceiving - Wimmer et al
• sweetser - folklorisitc model of lying

  lying is not a simple cognitive construct that depends on the faculty of the statement, intention and whether it is believed

  socio-cultural construct - beliefs/understanding about lying is influenced by cultural norms and moral values where individuals are socialised
• Kohlberg conducted cross-cultural research to support his theory on moral development but did not focus on the art of lying
• communism vs the western world

  communist society promotes personal sacrifice for social good - schools promote honesty and modesty into curriculums, children encouraged to promote misdeeds committed by themselves or others, told not to brag about personal achievements and minimise their own good behaviour and grades

  western world - say white lies and deceptions to avoid embarrassment or hurt which are tolerated
• aim

  investigate cross-cultural differences in children's understanding and moral valuations of lying

  compare responses of chinese and canadian ppts to stories that involved lying and truth telling in prosocial and antisocial situations
• research method

  cross-cultural study

  cross sectional

  IV: whether ppts heard social story or physical story, age of children, ethnicity of children

  DV: rating given to story character's deed
• participants

  120 chinese participants

  • 7 years old - 40 (20 male and female)
  • 9 years old - 40
  • 11 years old - 40

  108 canadian participants

  • 7 years old - 36, 20 male, 16 female
  • 9 years old - 40, 24 male, 16 female
  • 11 years olds - 32, 14 male, 18 female
• participants 2

  chinese children - recruited from elementary schools in Hangzhou in the Zhejiang Province, no information of socio-economic status to categorise families

  canadian children - recruited from elementary schools in Fredericton in New Brunswick, most ppts from middle-class families
• assignment of participants

  half of chinese children participated in social story condition and the other were placed in the physical story condition, randomly assigned to each condition

  canadian sample: 9 7 year olds, 20 9 year olds, 17 11 year olds were randomly assigned to social story condition and the other children were assigned to the physical story condition
• social story - the actions of the main child character affected other people
• physical story (prosocial) - only involved physical objects
• procedure

  ppts were read 4 different stories specifically written to be familiar for children in both cultures

  • prosocial / lying
  • prosocial / truth-telling
  • antisocial / lying
  • antisocial / truth-telling

  children shown a 7 point rating scale which was explained, stories were read out in a random order (pre-assigned) in ppts' own language with illustrations.

  after first section was read the children were asked whether what the child did was good or naughty which was responded verbally or through the scale. The second part, lie or truth telling part, was read and same question was asked.
• interviewer systematically alternated the words "good" and "naughty" in the questions
• results

  both rated lying in antisocial situations negatively and truth-telling in stories positively

  chinese rated truth telling less positively

  chinese rated lying in prosocial significantly more positively as they grew up - chinese, age 11 = 70%, age 7 = 25%

  socialisation in school and through the media caused children's views of right and wrong to become more similar to society
• conclusions

  1. moral reasoning can be influenced by our culture and the society in which we live
  2. influence of socio-cultural factors becomes stronger as we age
  3. some aspects of moral reason, like judging antisocial lying as bad, may be universal
• research method - strength

  differences and similarities found point to a combination of universal and culturally specific causes

  tried to make measures appropriate and similar for both cultures, both through reading the stories aloud in the children's own language with illustrations and use of visual rating scale
• sample - strength

  sample size quite large and covered a range of ages, allowing cross-cultural comparisons to be made

  contained roughly equal numbers of males and females - generalise findings to both genders
• sample - weakness

  not much known about chinese ppts backgrounds - recruited from a city with similar demographics, likely comparable
• quantitative data - strength

  7 point rating scale was used and converted into a score for each story and ppt - allows direct comparison between different cultural groups on a number of stories and factors
• qualitative data - strengths

  researchers conducted limited post-test questioning about why children gave the good or naughty reasons - helped inform conclusions about the underlying reasons for differences in ratings within the prosocial situations
• qualitative data - weakness

  young children may not always express their reasoning - some moral judgements may seem so culturally normal that children may not see the need to explain them
• ethics - strength

  story content was age appropriate

  unlikely that children suffered harm or distress
• ethics - weakness

  potential to be morally harmful as it included lying and truth-telling
• reliability - strength

  materials used to measure moral judgement of lying and truth-telling were the same across all ppts

  instructions given to children were identical and used a standard rating scale - highly replicable and findings reliable
• validity - strength

  stories designed to be easy for children to understand and be familiar with the scenarios

  researchers were careful to alternate use of 'good' and 'naughty' during questioning and randomise the order of the 4 stories presented - reduces leading the children towards specific answers or order effect
• validity - weakness

  questionable ecological validity - main task of judging character's behaviour in a story is different to forming moral judgements in real life
• practical applications

  moral development not determined by age or level of cognitive development, also influenced by cultural norms of the society we live in - contradicts Kohlberg's findings about the university of moral development -> shows children's reasoning based on fundamental different values that strengthen and diverge over time