The Roles of Moral Stories and Anticipatory Emotions in Predicting Children’s Honest Behaviour

• In Event: 3-031 - Children's Honesty

Integrative Statement

Given that lying is a problematic behavior found to increase with age, it is crucial to find effective ways of reducing lie telling during childhood. Moral stories have historically been used to impart moral lessons to children in the form of succinct narratives. In spite of the widespread telling of classic moral stories, there are few empirical studies that examine the role of moral stories on children’s honesty; these studies have demonstrated that not all moral stories promote honesty in Canadian children (Lee et al., 2014; Talwar et al., 2016, 2017). As moral stories are vehicles through which cultural values are taught and children are socialized, they are subject to socio-cultural variation. The present study examines the role of moral stories on 3- to 6-year-old Singaporean children’s honesty by comparing the effectiveness of three moral stories (positive, negative, control condition) in reducing lying and promoting honesty. In addition, the present study explored whether the anticipatory emotion elicited by moral stories would predict children’s lie-telling behavior.

Children (N = 88) between three and six years of age participated in the study (M =55.0 months, SD = 12.0, range = 36.0 to 83.0 months). The children were predominantly Chinese (87.5%); 3.41% were Malay, 4.55% were Indian and 4 of them were multiracial (4.55%). Children participated in a modified temptation resistance paradigm (TRP), where children were asked not to peek at a forbidden toy in the experimenter’s absence. Once the experimenter returned to the room, children listened to one of three moral stories prior to being asked about whether they peeked the toy. The moral stories were adapted from the fable of George Washington and The Cherry Tree to create three conditions: positive (praised for being honesty), negative (punished for lying) or control (neutral). Each session was videotaped and emotional expressions were categorized using an automated computer-based program (FACET module on iMotions).

The behavioral results replicated the findings of Lee and his colleagues (2014) with Canadian children such that children from Singapore who were exposed to the positive moral story depicting an honest act and its resulting praise were around 3.98 times more likely to admit having committed the misdeed than the children from the other two groups (χ2 = 8.13, Nagelkerke R2 = .16, p = .017; Figure 1). The findings also shed light on how emotions elicited during moral story-telling serve as mechanisms for encouraging honesty. Specifically, the absence of contempt during the honest behavior portion of the story was a significant predictor of truth-telling in the positive condition (β= 2.86, Wald= 3.78, odds ratio = 17.5, p = .052). Contrary to previous speculations, the results suggest that it is the witnessing of an honest behaviour, and not its eventual consequence, that promotes honesty. Practical implications of these findings on the local moral education, as well as future directions for research will be discussed.

Authors

• Xiao Pan Ding, National University of Singapore
  Presenting Author

• Joey Cheng Kei Teng, National University of Singapore
  Non-Presenting Author