Lee et al on Truth Telling

Question 1

what is the background on this study

Answer 1

psychologists are interested in how childeren make moral decisions about naughty behaviour - children deciding whether a behaviour like lying is good or bad. This interest has relevance to children as eyewitness in court because we need to know if children understand the difference between lie telling and truth telling to trust their statements in court.
One important factor is intention - evidence suggests that young children find it hard to use intention when making moral judgements about naughtiness.
research has generally focused on individualist cultures. it might be that chilren from collectivist backgrounds assesses lie telling in a different way, e.g. chinease children are taught that modesty and honesty are important and they should not brag about helpful behaviour.

Question 2

what were the aims of this study

Answer 2

to see if culture affects children’s moral evaluatioons of lie telling and truth telling
to look at lie telling and truth telling in situations where intentions are prominently indicated.
to compare canadian children with children from china
to consider prosocial and antisocil actions.

Question 3

what is the design of this study

Answer 3

there were 4 designs with 4 ivs
1. independent measures design/ laboratory experiment - IV=social and physical atory
2. repeated measures design - iv= prosocial and antisocial story
3. cross-sectional/ quasi experiment - iv= age 7,9 or 11.
4. cross cultural/quasi experiment - iv=chinease and canadian children
The dependent variable was the rating given to the story character’s deed and rating given to what the character said. Both ratings were on a 7 point rating scale where 3 stars (+3) was very very good and 3 crosses (-3) was very very naughty

Question 4

what was the sample of this study

Answer 4

there were 2 groups of children and each group ws divided into 3 age groups and again divided into males and females.
120 chinease children, 20 males and 20 females in each of the 3 age groups.
108 canadian children the groups were not equal in size of gender composition.

Question 5

what were the materials of this study

Answer 5

there were 4 types of story telling
1. prosocial + truth telling
2. prosocial + lie telling
3. antisocial + truth telling
4. antisocial + lie telling
each story was accompanied by a picture
the order of the 4 stories was varied to control for order effects. The order of the words good and naughty was also varied.
In addition there was one version of the 4 stories related to a social situation and another version where the deed involved physical objects.

Question 6

what was the procedure of this study

Answer 6

1. pps were randomly allocated to the social or physical story condition.
2. each child was tested individually
3. before beginning the task, the 7 point rating scale was explained to each child. they werre told to use the words very very good or symbold e.g. 3 stars.
4. each child was read for 4 stories (social or physical)
5. the deed section was read to the child which contains if the deed was prosocial or antisocial
6. the child was asked question 1 - is what the child did good or naughty - this was a control question to see if children rated the deeds the same
7. the child either verbally or non verbally indicated an answer
8. the second story was read
9. the child was asked question 2 - is what the child said to his teacher naughty or good ?.
10. the child verbally or non verbally answered using the rating scale.

Question 7

what were the results from this study

Answer 7

1. there were no significant differences between males and females or for chnaging the order of the stories.
2. prosocial + truth telling: there was no significant differences in ratings for question 2. there was a significant interaction between age and culture. the chinese children’s ratings became less positive as they got older (1.83 down to 0.33).
3. posocial + lie telling: there was no significant differences in ratings for question 2. there was a significant interaction between age anc culture. The chinese childrens’ ratings became more positive as they got older (-0.60 to 0.98). the canadian children’s ratings also became more positive but didnt switch from negative to positive (-1.37 to -1.00).
4. antisocial + truth telling - all children rated truth telling positively
5. antisocial + lie telling - there was a significant interaction between age and culture. both groups of children gave increasingly negative ratings with age. there was a significant difference between the social and physical story condition for 7 year old children

Question 8

what were the conclusions of this study

Answer 8

As predicted, chinese children in prosocial situations rated truth telling less positively and rated lie telling more positively than canadian children.
There were age related changes, suggesting that continued exposure to the chinese cultural emphasis on modesty has an impact on moral development
This shows that although cognitive factors may be important, cultural factors also matter in moral development.

Question 9

evaluate the method

Answer 9

independent measures design lowers demand characteristics however increases participant variables.
repeated measures design allows for control of pv however increases demand characteristics and order effects.
Quasi experiment allows for study of Iv that’s difficult to control however we cannot estsblish a cause and effect relationship.

Question 10

evaluate the ethics

Answer 10

childrens parents provided informed consent.
debrief and right to withdraw were given.
raises concerns of loss of self esteem or confidence as pps may feel pressure to give the correct answer to please the experimenter.

Question 11

evaluate reliability

Answer 11

simple, standardised procedires allows for repeatability.
lab based has high control of extraneous variables.
the understanding of the rating sclaes was checked every time ensures repeatability.

Question 12

evaluate validity

Answer 12

controlled and standardised procedures allows for high internal validity.
the stories reflect real life dilemmas which allows for externa validity.
lab environment has low ecological validity

Question 13

evaluate sample and ethnocentrism

Answer 13

the sample is cross-cultural therefore there is no ethnocentrism, however only 2 cultures were used which means there is some ethnocentrism.
There is 120 chinese pps which is unrepresentitive of the 1 billion population.
canadian children were all middle class which is unrepresentitve.
little information on the sociocultural background or educational backgrounds.

Question 14

evaluate the data

Answer 14

mainly quantitative data using a rating scale which is objective, easy to analyse and make comparisons between ages and cultures.
However a 7 point rating scale does not show subtle differences, an 11 point rating scale might be better, but may confuse children.

Question 15

what debates does this study support?

Answer 15

nurture - cultural factors determine moral development.
situational
determinism