Lee Flashcards
Aim
To investigate cross cultural differences in children’s understandings and moral evaluation of lying
Background
Children’s understanding and moral judgement of lying and truth telling was an early topic of investigation in developmental psychology eg Binet, 1896, Hall, 1891.
Since the early 1980s, developmental psychologists have showed renewed interest in children’s understanding and moral judgements of lying
and truth telling e.g. Wimmer, Gruber & Perner, 1984; Peterson, 1995.
Despite the advances of research in recent years, understanding of the development of children’s moral development of lying is still somewhat restricted. One of the limitations is that nearly all previous research was conducted with children in Western countries. These children were raised in industrialised environments that emphasise individualism, self-assertion/promotion and competition. It was therefore unclear whether the findings with these children could be generalised to children of other socio-cultural backgrounds.
This study was conducted to bridge the gap between this literature by directly testing the posited effect of culture on children’s moral evaluations of lying and truth telling.
This study compares the moral judgements of Canadian children and Chinese children from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in situations in
which pro- and antisocial actions were denied or acknowledged. The original study contains a detailed justification for why Chinese children in the PRC were compared with children from the Western culture of Canada
Method
This was a laboratory experiment which used an independent measures design.
The independent variables (Vs) were:
(1) whether the participant heard the social story or the physical story
(ii) whether the participant heard (prosocial) stories involving a child who intentionally carried out a good deed (a deed valued by adults in both countries) or (antisocial) stories involving a child who intentionally carried out a bad deed (a deed viewed negatively in both cultures)
There were therefore four conditions: Prosocial Behaviour/Truth-Telling stories, Prosocial Behaviour/Lie-Telling stories, Antisocial Behaviour Truth Telling stories, Antisocial Behaviour/Lie-Telling stories.
The dependent variables (DVs) were:
(1) the rating given to the story character’s deed (ranging between very, very good and very, very naughty)
()the rating given to what the character said (verbal statement) (ranging between very, very good and very, very naughty).
The fact that participants were read four scenarios (two prosocial and two antisocial) and asked to apply the same rating scale to both the character’s deed and its response in each story means the study had elements of a repeated measures design within it.
Sample
120 Chinese children: 40 7-year-olds (M age = 7.5 years, 20 male, 20 female), 40 9-year-olds (M age = 9.4 years, 20 male, 20 female), and 40 11-year-olds (M age = 11.3years, 20 male, 20 female). They were recruited from elementary schools in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, a medium-sized city (provincial capital) in the PRC.
108 Canadian children: 36 7-year-olds (M age = 7.4 years, 20 male, 16 female), 40 9-year-olds (M = 9.6 years, 24 male, 16 female), 32 11-year-olds (M age = 11.5 years, 14 male, 18 female). They were recruited from elementary schools in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Like Hangzhou, Fredericton is a provincial capital but its population is considerably smaller than Hangzhou.
Although the socio-economic status of the Chinese children was not known (no such categorisation exists in the PRC), most Canadian children were from middle-class families
Procedure
Participants were read four scenarios accompanied by illustrations, two prosocial, two antisocial. All 8 stories can be found in Appendix of the original article, however the Prosocial Behaviour/Lie-Telling story went as follows:
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?)
Each participant was tested individually.
Participants were first instructed about the meaning of the words and the symbols for rating the deeds and verbal statements on a 7-point rating chart. These were: very, very good (3 red stars), very good (2 red stars), good (1 red star), neither good not naughty (blue circle), naughty (1 black cross), very naughty (2 black crosses), very, very naughty (3 black crosses).
Participants were then read either the four social or four physical stories. The story’s ‘deed section was read first and then they would indicate their rating either verbally, non-verbally or both on the rating chart.
They were then read the second section of the story and would then indicate, in the same way, their rating for the character’s verbal statement. The meaning of each symbol was repeated every time a question was asked.
The words ‘good’ and ‘naughty’, in the two questions were altered within subjects.
To control for order effects, for each condition, two orders of the four stories were first determined using a randomisation table. About half of the participants in each condition were read the stories in one predetermined order, and the other half were read them in the other order.
Participants were then involved in post-experimental discussions.
Results
Prosocial Behaviour/Truth-Telling Situations:
A planned 2 (culture: Canadian and Chinese) x 2 (condition: physical and social stories) x 3 (age: 7, 9, 11 years) analysis of covariance with the ratings of deeds as covariates was conducted on participants’ ratings of truth telling. The covariate was not significant, t(1)=34 ns; indicating that children of both cultures rated the prosocial behaviours similarly. The age and culture main effects were significant with Canadian childrenat each age giving similar ratings to truth telling whereas Chinese children’s ratings became less positive as age increased. The condition main effect was not significant.
Prosocial behaviour/Lie-Telling Situations:
A planned 2x 2 x 3 analysis of covariance with the ratings of deeds as covariates was conducted on participants’ ratings of lie telling. The covariate was significant, t(1) = 2.88, p< .01, indicating that children from the two cultures rated the prosocial behaviours differently both in different age groups and in the two conditions. After partialing out the effect of, the age and culture main effects remained significant The condition main effect was not significant. Only the interaction between age and culture was therefore significant.
Overall, Canadian children rated lie telling in this situation negatively but as age increased their ratings became somewhat less negative. Overall, Chinese children’s ratings of lie telling in this situation changed from negative to positive as age increased.
Antisocial Behaviour/Truth-Telling Situations:
A planned 2 x 2 x 3 analysis of covariance with the ratings of deeds as covariates was conducted on participants’ ratings of truth telling The covariate was not significant, t(1)=-1.51, ns, indicating that children from both cultures rated the antisocial behaviours similarly. No main effect or interaction was significant.
Children from both cultures rated truth telling in this situation very positively.
Antisocial behaviour/Lie-Telling Situations:
A planned 2 x 2 x 3 analysis of covariance with the ratings of deeds as covariates was conducted on participants’ ratings of lie telling. The covariate was significant, t(1)= 4.96, p s .01, indicating that children of both cultures rated the antisocial behaviours differently in different age groups in the two conditions. After partialing out the effect of the covariates, the age main effect remained significant. The culture and conditions main effects were not significant. Only the interaction between age, culture and condition was significant.
Both Chinese and Canadian children rated lie telling negatively in this condition.
Overall, negative ratings increased with age, irrespective of culture.
Chinese 7-year-olds rated lie telling less negatively then older children in the physical story condition, whereas Canadian 7-year-olds rated lie telling less negatively than older children in the social story condition.
Conclusions
In the realm of lying and truth telling, a close relationship between socio-cultural practices and moral judgements exists. Specific social and cultural norms have an impact on children’s developing moral judgements, which in turn, are modified by age and experience in a particular culture.
Chinese children rate truth telling in prosocial situations less positively and lie telling in the same situations less negatively than Canadian children.
Both Chinese and Canadian children show similar moral evaluations of lie telling and truth telling related to antisocial behaviours.
The emphasis on self-effacement and modesty in Chinese culture increasingly exerts its impact on Chinese children’s moral judgements.
Moral development is a highly contextualised process and is affected by the culture and/or social environment in which individuals are socialised.
Method Evaltuation weakness
Because it was done in lab conditions it was artificial
This means that it has low ecological validity
The P’s were given hypothetical situations, this means that they might now answer like that in real life if it was really happening
Ethics - strength
This study was ethical
Consent was gained from parents
The stories were not upsetting to the children so protected them from harm
Confidentiality was maintained as no names were published
P’s had the right to withdraw throughout the study
Reliability
There were high levels of standardised procedures and controls
The study was easy to replicate, the 4 stories were the same but done in random orders for each P
Sampling Bias
We don’t know the socio-economic make up of the Chinese students
The Canadian students were mainly middle class
Ethnocentrism
However Canada is not necessarily representative of all western individualistic cultures and China is not representative of all collectivist cultures
The morals were westernised morals
Ethics weakness
The one-to-one situation may have been uncomfortable for the P’s as they were young -7, 9 and 11
Data strength
Quantitative data was collected
This allowed the different ages and cultures to be easily compared
The quantitative data showed differences- Chinese children differed from Canadian in their evaluations of truth telling and lying in prosocial situations
or
Qualitative data was also collected
This allowed Lee to ask the P’s why they answered the way that they did
The P’s explained that lie telling was rated positively in the pro-social situation because you shouldn’t own up to doing a good deed (modesty and self-effacement).
