Psychology - Core Studies - Lee et al (1997)

title?

“Chinese and Canadian children’s evaluation of lying and truth-telling”

aim?

• to investigate the cross-cultural differences in children’s understanding and moral valuation of lying,

• to see if Chinese and Canadian children would rate truth-telling differently in pro-social settings when someone had done something good,

• to see if the behaviour of lie-telling in anti-social settings when someone has done something bad would be perceived the same in both Chinese and Canadian children,

participants?

Chinese:

• 120 children - 40 7 year olds, 40 9 year olds, 40 11 year olds,

• equal gender split,

• from Hangzhou in Zhejiang province - educational and commercial centre,

Canadians:

• 108 children - 36 7 year olds, 40 9 year olds, 32 11 year olds,

• 58M + 50F,

• from Fredericton, New Brunswick - provincial capital,

design

IV - mixed design - 2×2×3×2:

• ethnicity (quasi),

• age (quasi),

• type of story (independent groups),

• type of setting (repeated measures),

DV - rating scales good/naughty,

• delivery changed throughout to avoid response bias,

• numerical value taken,

materials?

4 types of story given to each child:

• pro-social setting and truth-telling (physical or social stories),

• pro-social setting and lie-telling (physical or social stories),

• anti-social setting and truth-telling (physical/social),

• anti-social setting and lie-telling (physical/social),

procedure?

children randomly allocated to either 4 physical stories for 4 social stories,

seen individually, have rating scale explained,

listened to story then have rating scale re-explained in terms of either naughtiness or goodness,

rating quantified with higher equalling higher approval of action,

results?

every deed deemed good had a positive score and the bad a negative score,

Canadian children were disapproving of all lie-telling - pro-social lie = -1.106, anti-social lie = -2.31,

Chinese children saw lie-telling as positive for good deeds but still saw as negative for bad deeds - pro-social lie = 0.136, anti-social lie = -2.45

- this had occurred by age 9 for physical and 11 for social,

conclusions?

• lie-telling and truth-telling is dependant on socio-cultural practices,

• social and cultural norms have an impact on moral development, (disagrees with Kohlberg) - self-effacement and modesty in Chinese culture impacts upon moral judgements,

• moral judgement is modified by both age and experience of lie-telling and truth-telling to anti-social behaviours but different to pro-social,

validity?

Face → measure opinions of different cultures on lie-telling and truth-telling in different situations, avoided personalisation so limited SDR,

Construct → produced a quantified response from each culture as to opinions on truth/lie-telling, rating scale was explained so children understood what the scale meant and they were old enough to,

Concurrent → Only used one measure of opinion but did use different rating scales to avoid response bias and utilised both physical and social stories,

Ecological → used situations the children could have been exposed to in their everyday lives, such as interactions with teachers, used a range of ages and cultures allowing for higher generalisability,

Temporal → development of ideas around morality,

reliability?

internal → children asked to rate situations using different rating scales for each, those from the same culture producing similar results as to positivity/negativity of situation,

external → those of different ages produced similar results (from the same culture) although those younger in Chinese culture may not have rated pro-social lie-telling as positively as their older counterparts,

usefulness?

establish the likelihood of children lying, adapting environment to allow children to develop certain moral ideas, help establish psychological testing for police, military etc,