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Ding XP, Tay C, Chua YJ, Cheng JKT. Can classic moral stories with anthropomorphized animal characters promote children's honesty? JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.appdev.2022.101498] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
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Default settings affect children's decisions about whether to be honest. Cognition 2023; 235:105390. [PMID: 36764049 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105390] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2022] [Revised: 01/25/2023] [Accepted: 01/31/2023] [Indexed: 02/11/2023]
Abstract
Behavioral economics research has revealed that our decision-making can be biased by default settings. That is, all other things being equal, adults tend to choose default options even when the effort involved in choosing other options is minimal. Extensive evidence shows that default settings can systematically influence adult decisions in a wide variety of domains (e.g., pension choices, organ donation), but little is known about their developmental origin. Of interest in the present research is whether default settings can influence young children's decisions about whether to be honest. We investigated this question in two studies of 5- and 6-year-old Chinese children (total N = 120; 60 girls; Mage = 5.81, SDage = 0.14). Each study used a specially designed device that allowed children to play a guessing game in either a Cheating Default condition in which they would cheat by doing nothing or in an Honesty Default condition in which they would be honest by doing nothing. In each condition, they had the option of taking a trivially easy action to override the default (pushing a button in Study 1 or moving a screen in Study 2). In both studies, children decided to cheat significantly more often in the Cheating Default condition than in the Honesty Default condition. Additionally, overall cheating rates were significantly higher in Study 2 than in Study 1 (55% vs. 25%), which suggests that even though the default setting effect generalized across different actions, the specific action in question can also affect the cheating rate. Taken together, these results indicate that default setting effects that have been observed in adults have origins in childhood, and they point toward new ways to use nudges to promote positive social development and moral decision-making.
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Dykstra VW, Lyon TD, Evans AD. Maltreated and non-maltreated children's truthful and dishonest reports: Linguistic and syntactic differences. Front Psychol 2022; 13:1025419. [PMID: 36591106 PMCID: PMC9797025 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1025419] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2022] [Accepted: 11/21/2022] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Introduction Adults are typically poor judges of the veracity of statements, requiring the need for alternative methods for detecting lies. One alternative method to human lie-detectors is using computer-based linguistic analysis which may present a more reliable method for detecting dishonesty. Moreover, while previous research has examined linguistic differences between typically developing children's and adults' truthful and dishonest reports, no study to date has examined whether maltreated children exhibit different linguistic cues to dishonesty. Thus, the current study examined maltreated and nonmaltreated children's linguistic and syntactic cues to children's truthful and dishonest reports. Methods Nine- to 12-year-olds, half of whom were maltreated, played a computer game with a confederate: half of the children experienced a transgression (i.e., playing a forbidden game and crashing the computer) and were coached to conceal it, and half of the children experienced no transgression (i.e., simply played a computer game). All children were then interviewed about the event. The current study utilized automated linguistic and syntactic analysis software to compare children's truthful reports (no transgression occurred) with dishonest reports. Results and Discussion Results indicated that maltreated and non-maltreated children did not differ in their indicators of dishonesty. Dishonest reporters used more first-person plural pronouns and cognitive mechanism terms and had less syntactically complex reports compared to truthful reporters. Finally, first-personal plural pronouns, cognitive mechanism terms, and syntactic complexity accurately classified (74.2%) the veracity of children's reports. The current findings present a new indicator of dishonesty (syntactic complexity) and suggest that indicators from typically developing populations may apply to maltreated children when coaching occurred.
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Affiliation(s)
- Victoria W. Dykstra
- Psychology Department, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada,*Correspondence: Victoria W. Dykstra,
| | - Thomas D. Lyon
- Gould School of Law, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States
| | - Angela D. Evans
- Psychology Department, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada
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Liu X, Zhao C, Zhang X, Compton BJ, Sai L, Heyman GD. Messaging about descriptive and injunctive norms can promote honesty in young children. Child Dev 2022; 93:e598-e606. [PMID: 35904139 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13830] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
This research examined the effectiveness of using norms to promote honesty. Participants were Han Chinese children (N = 568, 50.4% male, 3.24 to 6.00 years, collected 2020-2022). Relative to children in a control condition, children in Study 1 were more likely to confess to having cheated in a game after being presented with a descriptive norm indicating that confessions are typical, or an injunctive norm indicating that most other children approve of confessing. Study 2 showed that this finding was not due to a methodological artifact, and Study 3 replicated the effect in a context in which the norm information was conveyed by someone other than the experimenter. The findings suggest that messages about social norms can influence children's honesty.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xingchen Liu
- Department of Psychology, School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Changzhi Zhao
- Department of Psychology, School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.,Center for Cognition and Brain Disorders, The Affiliated Hospital of Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
| | | | - Brian J Compton
- Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
| | - Liyang Sai
- Department of Psychology, School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Gail D Heyman
- Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
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Liar, liar … sometimes: Understanding social-environmental influences on the development of lying. Curr Opin Psychol 2022; 47:101374. [PMID: 35751977 DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101374] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2022] [Revised: 05/20/2022] [Accepted: 05/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Lying is a behavior that, in theory, is discouraged and punished, except when it isn't. Perhaps as a result, many individuals lie at low levels somewhat regularly. While research has well documented the cognitive skills that support children's early lying, it does not explain how children learn when to lie versus tell a truth. The current article reviews the impact of social-environmental influences on the development of children's lie-telling knowledge, understanding and behavior, including the roles of parents, siblings, teachers and others. It is argued that holistic examinations of cognitive, social, environmental, cultural and child factors, interacting over time, is required to understand divergent trajectories of lying and truth-telling across development, particularly at the extremes.
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Luciano G, Yvonne D, Karen MP. How Do Children Socially Learn from Narrative Fiction: Getting the Lesson, Simulating Social Worlds, or Dialogic Inquiry? EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW 2022; 34:1445-1475. [PMID: 35965954 PMCID: PMC9365732 DOI: 10.1007/s10648-022-09667-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Educators read narrative fiction with children not only to promote their literacy skills, but also to support their sociomoral development. However, different approaches strongly diverge in their explanations and recommended instructional activities. Informed by theoretical understandings of reader-text transactions, this integrative review presents three different conceptions about how children learn socially from narrative fiction. The first approach explains sociomoral learning through narrative fiction by children’s extraction and internalization of the text’s moral message. The second approach refers to children’s training of mindreading and empathy as they become immersed in a fictional social world and imaginatively engage with the fictional characters’ perspectives. The third approach focuses on children’s social reasoning development through engagement in argumentative dialogues with peers about the complex sociomoral issues raised in narrative fiction. The article aims to theoretically position a wide range of literary programs to clarify their psychological foundations as well as critically discuss their strengths and limitations.
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The effects of collaboration and helping on prosocial lie-telling behaviour of children. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY 2021. [DOI: 10.1007/s12144-021-02245-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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Tong D, Talwar V. Understanding the development of honesty in children through the
domains‐of‐socialization
approach. INFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT 2021. [DOI: 10.1002/icd.2268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Donia Tong
- Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology McGill University Montreal Quebec Canada
| | - Victoria Talwar
- Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology McGill University Montreal Quebec Canada
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Magnusson M, Ernberg E, Landström S, Joleby M, Akehurst L. Can rapport building strategies, age, and question type influence preschoolers' disclosures of adult wrongdoing? Scand J Psychol 2020; 61:393-401. [PMID: 32052875 DOI: 10.1111/sjop.12626] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2019] [Accepted: 01/13/2020] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
In the present experiment, we examined preschoolers' disclosures of a secret as a function of rapport building strategies used in Scandinavian field settings (verbal rapport building vs. prop rapport building), age in months (33-75 months) and question type (open-ended free recall invitation vs. suggestive questions). Fifty-three preschoolers (M = 60.5 months old, SD = 11.4) witnessed a researcher break a toy and were asked to keep the toy breakage a secret. The children were thereafter interviewed about the incident. Overall, 18.9% of the children disclosed the secret after an open-ended free recall invitation. The disclosure rate rose to 83% after the final phase of the interviews when questions containing suggestive details were asked of the children. Notably, we did not observe any significant effects as a function of manipulating rapport building strategy. A linear regression model showed that child age (in months) significantly predicted the amount of reported details, with younger preschoolers reporting fewer details compared to older preschoolers. Age also predicted the amount of correct details, but not the amount of incorrect details. No age differences were found with regard to children's disclosure tendencies or proportion of central details about the secret. Methodological limitations and practical implications will be addressed.
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Evans AD, Lyon TD. The effects of the putative confession and evidence presentation on maltreated and non-maltreated 9- to 12-year-olds' disclosures of a minor transgression. J Exp Child Psychol 2019; 188:104674. [PMID: 31476614 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104674] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2018] [Revised: 07/23/2019] [Accepted: 07/23/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
The current study examined the influence of the putative confession (in which children are told that the suspect told them "everything that happened" and "wants [the child] to tell the truth") and evidence presentation on 9- to 12-year-old maltreated and non-maltreated children's disclosure (N = 321). Half of the children played a forbidden game with an adult confederate that resulted in a laptop computer breaking (no transgression occurred for the other half of the children), followed by coaching to conceal the forbidden game and to falsely disclose the sanctioned game. Children were then interviewed about the interaction with the confederate. Among the 9- and 10-year-olds, the putative confession led to a higher rate of breakage disclosure (62%) than the control condition (13%) and to a higher rate of leakage of incriminating details during recall (47% vs. 9%). Older children were more likely to disclose than younger children and to be uninfluenced by the putative confession. Among all ages, evidence presentation elicited disclosures from 63% of children who had not previously disclosed without eliciting any false disclosures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Angela D Evans
- Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario L2S 3A1, Canada.
| | - Thomas D Lyon
- Gould School of Law, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
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Evans AD, O'Connor AM, Bruer KC, Price HL. Children who disclose a minor transgression often neglect disclosing secrecy and coaching. JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2019. [DOI: 10.1016/j.appdev.2019.03.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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Ding XP, O'Connor AM, Weng M, Tang Q, Fu G, Evans AD. The effects of self‐ and other‐awareness on Chinese children's truth‐telling. BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2018; 37:323-335. [DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12275] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2018] [Revised: 11/26/2018] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Xiao Pan Ding
- Department of Psychology National University of Singapore Singapore
- Department of Psychology Hangzhou Normal University China
| | | | - Mengxing Weng
- Department of Business and Management Meizhouwan Vocational Technology College Putian China
| | - Quan Tang
- Department of Preschool and Special Education Ganzhou Teachers College China
| | - Genyue Fu
- Department of Psychology Hangzhou Normal University China
| | - Angela D. Evans
- Department of Psychology Brock University St. Catharines Ontario Canada
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