Children's Conceptions of Lying: East-West Comparisons

一个国际研究小组将合作调查北美和东亚儿童如何获得说谎的概念和相关的道德价值观。与大多数主要涉及西方儿童的研究不同，我们的实验策略是从美国，加拿大，中国和美国的学龄儿童中抽取样本。中国和日本。这种比较的方法使我们能够确定跨文化的相似性和差异，在儿童的道德理解的不诚实，并确定在何种程度上，这种理解是由儿童独特的文化经验。我们将检验一个基本假设，即由于北美和东亚文化强调不同的个人主义和集体主义，儿童的诚实和不诚实的道德观念将在这些文化中是不同的。三个实验系列将系统地研究北美和东亚儿童是否将不真实的陈述归类为谎言，并在陈述被告知（a）要谦虚，（B）要有礼貌，或（c）有利于另一个人或集体时给予积极或消极的评级。第四个实验系列将比较在北美出生和长大的东亚儿童、在东亚长大的东亚儿童和在北美长大的非东亚儿童对说谎和说真话的道德观念。本研究比较了宏观（学校）和微观（家庭）文化环境对儿童说谎道德观的相对影响。我们的项目的理论意义是提供一个跨文化的角度对目前的研究，关于发展的真理和说谎，描绘的文化因素有助于形成的道德价值观在言语交际领域，并最终形成一个完整的，跨文化的帐户的发展诚实和不诚实的儿童。在实践中，有关儿童说谎的道德观念的正常发展的知识可以为心理健康专业人员提供有用的信息，用于评估和治疗来自不同文化背景的具有行为障碍的非典型儿童，其中不诚实是主要症状之一。此外，这项研究将提供教育工作者急需的信息，关于文化敏感的战略，教孩子诚实和撒谎。在法律的领域，我们的研究结果可以帮助法律的从业人员制定文化敏感的程序，以评估儿童证人的能力和信誉在法庭上的法律。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): An international team of researchers will collaborate to investigate how North American and Eastern Asian children acquire the concepts of lying and the associated moral values. In contrast to most studies that mainly involve Western children, our experimental strategy is to sample school-aged children from US, Canada, P.R. China, and Japan. This comparative approach allows us to identify cross-cultural similarities and differences in children's moral understanding of dishonesty, and to determine the extent to which such understanding is shaped by children's unique cultural experiences. We will test a basic hypothesis that because the North American and Eastern Asian cultures emphasize differentially individualism and collectivism, children's moral conception of honesty and dishonesty will be different in these cultures. Three experimental series will systematically examine whether North American and East Asian children categorize untruthful statements as lies and give positive or negative ratings to them when the statements are told (a) to be modest, (b) to be polite, or (c) to benefit another individual or a collective. A fourth experimental series will compare the moral conceptions of lying and truth-telling in East Asian children born and raised in North America, East Asian children raised in East Asia, and Non-East Asian children raised in North America. This comparison examines the relative influence of the macro (school) - and micro- (home) cultural environments on children's moral conceptions of lying. The theoretical significance of our project is to provide a cross-cultural perspective on current research regarding the development of truth- and lie-telling, to delineate cultural factors contributing to the formation of moral values in the domain of verbal communication, and ultimately to form an integrated, cross-cultural account of the development of honesty and dishonesty in children. Practically, knowledge about the normal development of children's moral conceptions of lying can provide mental health professionals with useful information for assessing and treating atypical children from different cultural backgrounds who have conduct disorders, of which dishonesty is one major symptom. Also, this research will offer educators much needed information regarding culturally sensitive strategies to teach children about honesty and lying. In the legal domain, our findings can assist legal practitioners in developing culturally sensitive procedures to assess child witnesses' competence and credibility in courts of law.