Context/Background
1 aspect of moral thinking is honesty and in some situations, honesty can conflict with other moral values, which can vary in cultures
Collectivist culture = emphasis on family and group goals
"Unsung hero" - a concept in some cultures such as China where people lie to cover up their good deeds
Kids' morals about truth telling can rely primarily on the extent to which a verbal statement differs from factuality and whether the lie is punished or not
Children are capable of distinguishing lying from misdeeds and making moral judgements in a similar way to adults
Understanding of children's development of lying is still restricted
Aim
The study was conducted to bridge the gap of cultures on kids' lying morals, and to compare moral judgements of canadian children with chinese children
Method
Lab experiment, independent measures
IV=
a. chinese/canadian
b. age of p, 7, 9 or 11
c. whether p heard social (saying something nice or lying) or physical (stealing or violence) story
d. whether p heard prosocial (someone doing something good) or antisocial (someone doing something bad) involving bad deeds viewed negatively in both cultures = 4 conditions
Dv=
a. rating given to character's deeds (physical)
b. rating given to what character said (social) using a likert scale
Procedure
-120 chinese children, 40=9, 40=11, 40=7, recruited from schools
-108 canadian children, 36=7, 40=9, 42=11, recruited from schools (middle class)
-1/2 of the chinese kids participated in the social story condition, the other 1/2 in the physical story condition
-19 of the seven year olds, 20 of the 9 year olds and 17 of the 11 year olds from the canadian kids participated in the social story condition, the rest in physical
p's were read the 4 scenarios with illustrations, and tested individually
They were instructed about the meanings of the words and symbols for rating the deeds, and they gave verbal statements on a 7 point chart, the options were very very good, very good, good, neither good nor bad, bad, very bad, very very bad.
To control order effects, the 2 orders of the 4 stories were determined randomly
There was then a post experimental discussion
An example of a prosocial story- Here is Alex. Alex’s class had to stay inside at recess time because of bad weather, so Alex decided to tidy up the classroom for his teacher.
Question 1: Is what Alex did good or naughty?
So Alex cleaned the classroom, and when the teacher returned after recess, she said to her students, “Oh, I see that someone has cleaned the classroom for me.” The teacher then asked Alex, “Do you know who cleaned the classroom?” Alex said to his teacher, “I did not do it.”
Question 2: Is what Alex did good or naughty?
Findings
1. Prosocial behaviour (truth)
-2 cultures, 2 conditions and 3 ages analysis (2x2x3) of covariance with ratings of deeds was conducted, children of both cultures rated it similarly, chinese ratings were less positive as age increased
2. Prosocial behaviour (lies)
-2x2x3 analysis of covariance with ratings of deeds was conducted, and kids from both cultures rated the behaviours differently both in different age groups and in the 2 conditions. overall, canadians rated lie-telling negatively, as age increased their ratings became less negative
3. Antisocial behaviour (truth)
-2x2x3 analysis of covariance with ratings of deeds was conducted, both cultures rated truth telling very positively
4. Antisocial behaviour (lies)
-2x2x3 analysis of covariance with ratings of deeds was conducted, both cultures rated antisocial behaviour differently in different age groups and both cultures dated lie telling negatively, these ratings increased with age
Conclusions
-Cultural and social norms have an impact on kids developing moral judgements = modified by age and experience in cultures
-Moral development = highly contextual and affected by culture and society
Evaluation
Sample- ethnocentrism minimised bc cross-cultural research
Reliability- standardised procedure = easy replications, no extraneous variable
Validity- counterbalancing order effects and randomly allocations p's to groups = reduces confounding variables = more internal validity
Ethics- were debriefed in the discussions at the end