Developmental Study - Lee et al

Question 1

What is an individualistic culture?

Answer 1

Societies which emphasise the individual, their rights, attitudes and needs

Question 2

What is a collectivist culture?

Answer 2

Societies which emphasis the group, its decisions and needs and the duties of the individual to that group

Question 3

What is cross-cultural research?

Answer 3

Research which investigates psychological concepts in people from different cultures

Question 4

What is the aims?

Answer 4

To see if Chinese and Canadian children would differ in how they rate truth-telling in pro-social settings (where something has done something good) and anti-social settings (where someone has done something bad)

Question 5

Examples of physical story

Answer 5

Picking up litter in school yard, tidying up classroom during break, tearing pages from library book, scribbling on page from library book

Question 6

Examples of social story

Answer 6

Money for another child to buy lunch, only for another child to go on trip, pushing over a child because of a skipping rope, pushing over a new child they didn’t like

Question 7

What are the strengths of a cross-sectional study?

Answer 7

Variety, generalisable, quicker than longitudinal, less risk of people dropping out

Question 8

What are the weakness of a cross-sectional study?

Answer 8

Participant variables, individual differences/participant variables between age groups, snapshot of development, larger sample needed

Question 9

What were the IVs?

Answer 9

Nationality of the child, age of the child, how the character behaved in the story, what was affected by the behaviour of the child in the story

Question 10

What were the two nationalities used?

Answer 10

Chinese and Canadian

Question 11

What were the age categories?

Answer 11

7, 9, and 11

Question 12

What are the two ways that the character behaved in the story?

Answer 12

Prosocial and antisocial

Question 13

What was affected by the behaviour of the child in the story?

Answer 13

Physical or Social

Question 14

How many children were from China?

Answer 14

120 (20 in each group)

Question 15

How many children were from Canada?

Answer 15

108 (36 in 7, 40 in 9, 32 in 11)

Question 16

What city in China did they come from?

Answer 16

Hangzhou

Question 17

What city in Canada did they come from?

Answer 17

Fredericton

Question 18

How were the story conditions allocated?

Answer 18

Randomly

Question 19

How were they seen?

Answer 19

Individually

Question 20

What was explained to them first?

Answer 20

The rating scale

Question 21

What did the children use when answering the questions?

Answer 21

Words, symbols or both

Question 22

How many stories did they listen to?

Answer 22

4 of each physical or social story

Question 23

How was counterbalancing used?

Answer 23

Through randomly allocating stories to one of two orders and then giving about half of the children one order and the rest of the children the other order.

Question 24

What does the pro-social - truth telling mean?

Answer 24

Doing a good deed and telling the truth about it

Question 25

What does the pro-social - lie telling mean?

Answer 25

Doing a good deed and lying about it

Question 26

What does the anti-social - truth telling mean?

Answer 26

Doing a bad thing and telling the truth about it

Question 27

What does the anti-social - lie telling mean?

Answer 27

Doing a bad thing and lying about it

Question 28

What did the analysis of data focus on?

Answer 28

The culture the children came from, the children’s ages, and the particular story they were responding to

Question 29

What were the results of story one (pro-social behaviour/tell the truth about it)?

Answer 29

No significant difference, Canada consistent ratings over age groups, China viewed telling the truth less positively as age increased

Question 30

What were the results of story two (pro-social behaviour/tell a lie about it)?

Answer 30

Canada children viewed lie telling as negative but less negative as age increases, Chinese children aged 7 rated the lie negatively but age 11 rated it postively

Question 31

What were the results of story three (anti-social behaviour/tell the truth about it)?

Answer 31

No significant difference, all rated truth telling in an anti-social situation positive

Question 32

What were the results of story four (anti-social behaviour/tell a lie about it)?

Answer 32

Culture less important, negative ratings increase with age in both cultures

Question 33

What are some qualitative data?

Answer 33

Nearly 1/2 of Chinese children who had rated truth telling negatively for pro-social behaviour (story 1) as the person “wanting” praise
Around 1/3 of Chinese children believed the person shouldn’t leave their name when doing a good deed (this explains their positive rating for story 2)

Question 34

What is the key quantitative finding?

Answer 34

70% of Chinese 11-year-olds rated lying positively in prosocial stories compared to just 25% of Chinese 7-year-olds

Question 35

What are the conclusions?

Answer 35

Moral development differs in different cultures as a result of socio-cultural norms and practices - not just a result of cognitive development

Question 36

What ethical guidelines were upheld?

Answer 36

Consent (by parents and their schools), right to withdraw (we can assume), protection from harm (stories weren’t particularly upsetting)

Question 37

What ethical guidelines were broken?

Answer 37

May have been uncomfortable about being alone in the room with the researcher (or could have been upset if they did not understand the story or about the stories where a child was rushed to the ground)

Question 38

Internal Reliability points

Answer 38

Standardised procedure used with the same instructions given to all children and each read 4 stories

Question 39

External reliability points

Answer 39

Sample size for each group was fairly large so should represent a consistent effect

Question 40

Internal (construct) validity points

Answer 40

Demand characteristics may have been an issue as children may have worked out they were supposed to say telling the truth was good and lying was bad.
Also may have had an issue with translating the story might not have understood the story

Question 41

External (ecological) validity points

Answer 41

Fairly realistic situations that the children would be familiar with so ecological validity should be high. But what they say is right/wrong may not be what they would do in that sitation in real life

Question 42

Ethnocentrism points

Answer 42

Should not be because they compared two very different cultures - but could be cultural bias in the stones used which might make them biased towards Canadian children - only two countries compared

Question 43

How this study links to the nat/nur debate?

Answer 43

Suggests that morality can be taught and affected by the culture we grow up in

Question 44

How this study links to free/det debate?

Answer 44

Suggests our morality is determined by where we grow up

Question 45

How this study links to the red/hol debate?

Answer 45

Could be more holistic as it suggests age and culture both have an impact on our judgement of lying being right or wrong

Question 46

How this study links to the ind/sit debate?

Answer 46

Whilst age and stage of moral development is an individual factor, the culture we grow up in and also influences our morality is situational