Children's Conceptions of Lying: East-West Comparisons

描述(由申请者提供)：一个国际研究小组将合作调查北美和东亚儿童如何获得撒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，我们的实验策略是以美国、加拿大、中华人民共和国中国和日本的学龄儿童为样本。这种比较方法使我们能够确定儿童对不诚实的道德理解的跨文化相似性和差异性，并确定这种理解在多大程度上是由儿童独特的文化经历塑造的。我们将检验一个基本假设，即由于北美和东亚文化不同地强调个人主义和集体主义，儿童对诚实和不诚实的道德观念在这两种文化中会有所不同。三个实验系列将系统地考察北美和东亚的儿童是否将不诚实的声明归类为谎言，并在被告知(A)谦虚、(B)礼貌或(C)有利于另一个人或集体时，给他们正面或负面的评分。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撒谎和说真话的道德观念。这种比较考察了宏观(学校)和微观(家庭)文化环境对儿童撒谎道德观念的相对影响。本项目的理论意义在于提供一个跨文化视角，对当前关于诚实和撒谎发展的研究提供一个跨文化的视角，勾勒出促成言语交流领域道德价值观形成的文化因素，并最终形成一个完整的、跨文化的关于儿童诚实和不诚实发展的描述。在实践中，了解儿童说谎道德观念的正常发展可以为心理健康专业人员提供有用的信息，以评估和治疗来自不同文化背景的非典型儿童的行为障碍，而不诚实是行为障碍的主要症状之一。此外，这项研究还将为教育工作者提供有关教育儿童诚实和撒谎的文化敏感策略方面亟需的信息。在法律领域，我们的调查结果可以帮助法律从业人员制定对文化敏感的程序，以评估儿童证人在法庭上的能力和可信度。

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.