Lee

Question 1

What are moral judgements of lying?

Answer 1

• how children make moral decisions, decisions whether a behaviour is good or bad

Question 2

What does western focus mean?

Answer 2

• research generally focussed on individualistic cultures, do collectivist cultures assess lying in different ways?
• chinese children taught honesty and modesty are important, taught to be truthful and report misdeeds, taught to lie when they have done something good (prosocial)

Question 3

What were the aims?

Answer 3

• To investigate and cross-culturally test the effect of culture on children’s moral evaluations of lying and truth-telling by comparing children from individualistic and collectivist cultures.
  1. to see if in prosocial there would be cultural differences. would chinese children rate truth-telling less positively and lie telling less negatively than canadian children?
  2. would this difference increase with age due to continued exposure to cultural norms?
  3. would there be no difference in anti-social situations?

Question 4

What was the sample?

Answer 4

China - 120 children, even gender split, ages 7, 9, 11, from the main culture and education capital
Canada - 108 children, ages 7, 9, 11, from a smaller province more known for industry

Question 5

What research methods were used?

Answer 5

• Self-report (rating scale)
• Experiment

Question 6

What were the IV’s?

Answer 6

1. social/physical story
2. prosocial/antisocial story
3. age 7, 9, 11
4. Canadian/Chinese

Question 7

What were the 4 types of story?

Answer 7

• social -> deed directly affected another child
• physical -> deed only involved physical object
• prosocial -> intentionally does a good deed
• antisocial -> intentionally does a bad deed
  —> lying/truth-telling - in story, either lies or tells the truth when questioned by the teacher

Question 8

What was the DV?

Answer 8

• rating given to story character’s deed and to what the character said using a 7-point rating scale (very, very good – very, very naughty)

Question 9

What happened in the procedure?

Answer 9

• participants randomly assigned to conditions and tested individually and rating system explained to them
• each child was then read 4 stories
• deed section was read and child was asked ‘is what the child did good or naughty?’. the child responded verbally/non-verbally or both
• second part of the story was read, ‘is what the child said to his teacher good or naughty?’

Question 10

What were the results in the prosocial/truth situations?

Answer 10

• no cultural differences -> children dealt with prosocial behaviour similarly and truth telling positively
• significant interaction with age -> chinese children ratings were less positive, canada had no age related changes

Question 11

What were the results in the prosocial/lie situations?

Answer 11

• significant interaction with age -> canadian children rated lie telling negatively, chinese ratings changed from negative to positive with age

Question 12

What were the results in the antisocial/truth situations?

Answer 12

• cross-cultural -> no significant difference, both cultures dealt with behaviour similarly, rated truth telling positively

Question 13

What were the results in the antisocial/lie situations?

Answer 13

• significant interaction with age -> rated lie telling negatively, negative ratings increased with age
• type of story -> significant difference between social and physical stories in 7-year-olds

Question 14

What were some results (qualitative comments)?

Answer 14

• in prosocial/truth-telling -> chinese have increased negative ratings, when asked why, the child was begging for the teacher’s praise
• in prosocial/lie-telling -> should not tell the teacher/leave name (after doing a good deed)

Question 15

What were some conclusions?

Answer 15

• moral development is culturally different
• children develop moral judgement from social norms of their culture and sociocultural practices

Question 16

What were some cultural similarities?

Answer 16

• both cultures gave negative ratings of lie-telling in antisocial situations
• both gave positive ratings of truth-telling in antisocial situations
• children can distinguish between lie-telling (the verbal statement) and the misconduct (the deed)

Question 17

What were some cultural differences?

Answer 17

• Chinese children rated truth-telling in prosocial situations less positively and lie telling in prosocial situations more positively than Canadian children
• age related changes with Chinese children whose ratings went from negative to positive in prosocial/lie -> cultural emphasis on modesty and honesty has an impact on moral judgements through socialisation at school