Lee's Study

Question 1

What’s the background of Lee’s study?

Answer 1

Hofstede proposed;
Individualistic - people’s identities are defined by personal choice and achievements; self reliance and rights of individuals to do their own thing
Collectivist - people’s identities are defined by groups they see themselves as a part of; group goals take priority over individual goals and maintaining harmony is important

Question 2

What type of culture does China have?

Answer 2

Collectivist culture - 1.4 billion people

Question 3

What type of culture does Canada have?

Answer 3

Individualist culture - 38 million

Question 4

What are the core principles of the Chinese collectivist culture?

Answer 4

Honesty and Modesty
- Don’t show off or seek praise for achievements or brag about their achievements or seek the teacher’s praise.
- They are also taught the importance of being honest and are encouraged to report misdeeds by themselves or others.

Question 5

What are the core principles of the Canadian individualist culture?

Answer 5

Equality, Respect for other cultures and politeness
In western cultures such as Canada, ‘white lies’ are tolerated to avoid hurting someone’s feelings and children are not discouraged from promoting their achievements.

Question 6

What was the aim of Lee’s study?

Answer 6

• To see if Chinese and Canadian children would differ in how they rated truth-telling and lie-telling in pro-social settings, where someone has done something good.
• To see if Chinese and Canadian children would differ in how they rated truth-telling and lie-telling in anti-social settings, where someone has done something bad.

Question 7

What were the aims of the study?

Answer 7

Culture
- find out if the culture a child grows up (collectivist or individualist) in affects their views about truth-telling and lying
AGE
- to find out if views of children about truth-telling and lying change as they grow older

Question 8

What is a cross-sectional study?

Answer 8

Studies that compare different population groups (eg. different ages) at a single point in time

Question 9

What sample did Lee use?

Answer 9

CHINA
Aged 7 - 40 (20m/20f)
Aged 9 - 40 (20/20)
Aged 11 - 40 (20/20)

Canada
Aged 7 - 36 (20m/16f)
Aged 9 - 40 (24m/16f)
Aged 11 - 32 (14m/18f)

Question 10

What was Lee’s hypothesis?

Answer 10

Children from China would rate lie-telling in pro-social situations more positively than children from Canada.

Question 11

What were the independent variables of the study?

Answer 11

• Nationality (Chinese or Canadian)
• Age (7, 9 or 11 years old)
• Behaviour of the child in the story (pro-social or anti-social)
• Whether the behaviour in the story affected other people (social story) or physical objects (physical story).

Question 12

Describe Lee’s procedure?

Answer 12

Children were allocated on a random basis to either the social (affecting other children) story condition or the physical story condition (involved only physical objects).
They were seen individually.
First of all, the rating chart was explained to them.
When the children had to answer the questions, they could use the words, symbols, or sometimes both.
They questions asked included;
- Is what ___ did good or naughty
- Is what ___ said to their teacher good or naughty
Each child listened to all four social stories or all four physical stories.
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.

Question 13

What 4 stories did the children hear?

Answer 13

1. Pro-social truth
2. Pro-social lie
3. Anti-social truth
4. Anti-social lie

Question 14

What two questions were the children always asked after listening to the stories?

Answer 14

• Is what ___ did good or naughty
• Is what ___ said to their teacher good or naughty

Question 15

What sort of rating scale did Lee use?

Answer 15

A 7 point rating scale
very very good - neither - very very naughty

Question 16

What is a pro-social truth telling?

Answer 16

Doing something that is perceived as good then letting people know you did it

Question 17

What is a pro-social lie telling?

Answer 17

Doing something that is perceived as good but then denying you did it

Question 18

What is a anti-social truth telling?

Answer 18

Doing something that is perceived as wrong but then owning up to what you did it

Question 19

What is a anti-social lie telling?

Answer 19

Doing something that is perceived as wrong but then denying you did it

Question 20

What were Lee’s findings?

Answer 20

Children in collectivist China came to view telling the truth about something pro-social they have done as LESS POSITIVE AS THEY GOT OLDER

No significant difference in how each culture rated the good deed (both positively).
8% of 7 Year Olds, 43% of 9 Year Olds and 48% of 11 year Olds gave negative ratings for telling the truth amongst the Chinese children.
All Canadian children rated lying as negative.
Chinese children rating lying as more positive as age increased
25% of 7 year olds, 43% of 9 year olds and 70% of Chinese 11 year olds rated lying as positive.

Question 21

What was the major quantitative finding in Lee’s study?

Answer 21

70% of Chinese 11 year olds rated lying about a pro-social event positive

Question 22

What was the major qualitative finding in Lee’s study?

Answer 22

One should never leave one’s name after doing a good deed
54% quoted this

Question 23

What are two differences between Chinese and Canadian children in their results?

Answer 23

Chinese children rated lie telling negatively at age 7 but positively at age 11.

Chinese children rated lying as positive after committing a good deed (to hide their success)

Question 24

What is a similarity between Chinese and Canadian children in their results?

Answer 24

Both Chinese and Canadian children rated lie telling negatively.

Question 25

Explain why children are more likely to quote the phrase as they get older?

Answer 25

This comment is consistent with the Chinese cultural norms that are socialised into children through school, extra-curricular activities and the media.
The impact of this might get stronger over time as the older children were more likely to say that lying was positive compared to the younger children.

Question 26

What conclusion did Lee come to?

Answer 26

Moral development is different in different cultures as a result of socio-cultural norms and practices

Question 27

Evaluate the ethics of Lee’s study?

Answer 27

Parents and school provided informed consent
Some Canadian children withdrew
Protection from harm - had illustrations making them friendlier but could be upsetting to a 7 year old as they designed to be familiar situations
Confidentiality upheld
No deception and a debrief

Question 28

Evaluate the reliability of Lee’s study?

Answer 28

Followed a standardised procedure as each child had the same 8 stories read to them = replicable
Reasonably large sample to suggest a consistent effect

Question 29

Evaluate the validity of Lee’s study?

Answer 29

Risk of demand characteristics as all stories had same questions
Extraneous variables like age/participant variables were controlled
Stories were realistic but large amount of controls leads to low ecological validity

Question 30

Evaluate the ethnocentrism of the study?

Answer 30

Not ethnocentric as examined different cultures - chinese + canadian and by conducting cross-cultural research, ethnocentrism was certainly minimised as we are not applying our own behaviours, standards and norms to other cultures without them being researched.
Canada is not representative of all western cultures
China is not representative of non-Western cultures.

Question 31

Which side of the nature-nurture debate does this study relate to, and why?

Answer 31

Nurture - the way the Chinese Arte brought up leads them to behave I the way society wants them to behave
Nature - innate maturation of ages determined children’s answers

Question 32

Which side of the freewill-determinism debate does this study relate, and why

Answer 32

Freewill - choice of answers caused their responses
Determined - children’s age + culture determined their responses

Question 33

Why can this study be seen as an example of holism?

Answer 33

It used 4 different types of stories, as well as social/physical impacts, age and cultural influences
taking into account many different factors

Question 34

Which two studies should you use to compare ‘moral development’?

Answer 34

Kohlberg
Lee

Question 35

Give two similarity between Kohlberg and Lee’s study?

Answer 35

Both were cross-cultural
Both involved moral dilemmas/scenarios for children to comment on

Question 36

Give two differences between Kohlberg and Lee’s study?

Answer 36

Kohlberg = Longitudinal; Andocentric bias - just males
Lee = Snapshot; gender split

Question 37

How has Lee’s study changed our understanding about the core theme of ‘moral development’?

Answer 37

It has suggested that the Culture a child grows up in can have an effect on the development of their moral thinking

It isn’t talking about ‘levels’ or ‘stages’ of moral development

Question 38

How hasn’t Lee’s study changed our understanding about the core theme of ‘moral development’?

Answer 38

Both find that children’s moral thinking changes as they grow OLDER.

It doesn’t find anything to challenge the idea of moral thinking developing in a sequence

Question 39

How has/hasn’t Lee’s study changed our understanding of individual diversity?

Answer 39

Hasn’t
-Neither stay explores the reasons for any individual differences in moral thinking between children

Question 40

How has/hasn’t Lee’s study changed our understanding of social diversity?

Answer 40

Has
- It has informed us of Girls and Boys moral thinking
- It has told us about younger children (7,9,11) not just 10-28

Hasn’t
- The age a child is at will influence the way that they think about issues of morality

Question 41

How has/hasn’t Lee’s study changed our understanding of cultural diversity?

Answer 41

Has
- The culture a child grows up in Does affect their moral thinking

Hasn’t
- Canada was one of the countries data was collected from in both studies

Question 42

What are the strengths of cross-sectional research?

Answer 42

Cross-sectional studies are usually relatively inexpensive
Allow researchers to collect a great deal of information quite quickly.
Researchers can collect data on some different variables to see how differences (e.g. age) might correlate with moral development
While cross-sectional studies cannot be used to determine causal (cause + effect) relationships that can provide a useful springboard to further research.

Question 43

What are the weaknesses of cross-sectional research?>

Answer 43

While the design sounds relatively straightforward, finding participants who are very similar except in one specific variable can be difficult.
Cross-sectional studies generally require a large number of participants, so it is more likely that there will be small differences among participants. While such differences might seem minor, they can influence the study’s findings.