Lee Flashcards
key theme + area
key theme =
area = developmental
key terms
- prosocial behaviour = refers to voluntary actions that are intended to help or benefit another individual or group of individuals. This definition refers to consequences of a doer’s actions rather than the motivations behind those actions.
- anti-social behaviour = are actions that harm or lack consideration for the well-being of others, or cause distress to one or more persons.
aim
aimed to see if Chinese and Canadian children would rate truth-telling and lie-telling differently in pro-social setting when someone has done something good while the behaviour of telling lies in anti-social settings where someone has done something bad, would be perceived the same in both cultures
sample for 120 Chinese children
- 40 x 7 year olds
- 40 x 9 year olds
- 40 x 11 year olds
- Equal gender spilt
- Children divided equally between the physical story condition and the social story condition.
- They were all from Hangzhou, one of the main cultural, educational and commercial Centres in China
sample for 108 Canadian children
- 36 x 7 year olds
- 40 x 9 year olds
- 32 x 11 year olds
- Gender split: 58 boys and 50 girls
- Each group has a slightly unequal gender split
- They were all from a city called Fredericton, in New Brunswick. This was similar to Hangzhou because it was a centre for industry but its population was much smaller.
- 56 children were allocated randomly to the social story condition, and the others to the physical story condition.
4 conditions
- Prosocial Behaviour/Truth-Telling stories
- Prosocial Behaviour/Lie-Telling stories
- Antisocial Behaviour/Truth- Telling stories
- Antisocial Behaviour/Lie-Telling stories.
IV
- Whether the participant heard the social story or the physical story
- Whether the participant heard (prosocial) stories involving a child who intentionally carried out a good deed or (antisocial) stories involving a child who intentionally carried out a bad deed
design
This was a laboratory experiment which used an independent measures design.
DV
- The rating given to the story character’s deed
- 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
how DV was measured
- It was measured quantitatively by giving a 7-point semantic rating scale which was converted into quantitative data to give numerical raw data which could be analysed.
- Then also asked for qualitative data in forms of reasons why the ppts chose the options they did. Then they could establish if the choices made were due to cultural upbringing.
procedure overview
- children tested individually + were first told about the meaning and symbols on a 7-point rating chart. the children the read 4 physical + 4 social stories
- after each story the kids asked, ‘is what the child did good or naughty?’ they then rated either verbally or non-verbally on a rating chart
- as a control the meaning of each symbol was repeated every time a question was asked
- children then asked the second section of the story + asked was what the child did good or naughty and the child answered again
- another control was the words good or naughty were alternated within subjects
- to control order effects the stories were presented in random orders for each ppt
method
- randomly allocated to either the social story condition or the physical story condition
- seen individually, and first of all the rating chart was explained.
- Each child listened to all four social or all four physical stories. The meaning of the symbols on the chart was repeated each time the question was asked
- The good and naughty meanings were alternated so that the researchers knew the child wasn’t just saying the first option each time.
- The researchers also used counterbalancing by 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 second order.
study design
- quasi experiment as main variable is naturally occurring
- other conditions conformed to independent measures design
- cross cultural study as it was carried out in 2 different countries
- cross sectional as different age points
advantages of cross cultural studies
It increased the representativeness of the sample
Good for identifying whether a behaviour is something seen in all people, regardless of culture, or whether it is culturally dependent and therefore learned through interaction with society
disadvantages of cross cultural studies
The assumption of the researcher that their materials will be interpreted by all cultures in the same way
In some cultures, children may not be used to one-to-one interviews with adults and this could cause them to try and answer the way they thought they should rather than tell the truth.
- Ethnocentric bias- when the assumption is that one culture is seen as the normal culture and any other behaviour is seen as inferior because it is different from the ‘norm’.
