Hearing about Another Child’s Negative Emotional Reaction to Dishonesty Causes Young Children to Cheat Less

• In Event: Development of Academic Cheating from Kindergarten to High School

Abstract

All parents expect their children to act honestly. Yet many children fail to live up to this expectation. There has been considerable research on how cheating develops in childhood, but little scientific effort has been devoted to discovering effective methods to reduce cheating in early childhood. The present preregistered research addressed this significant gap by examining whether telling young children about a story character’s emotional reactions after having cheated could significantly reduce their tendency to cheat.

We recruited a total sample of 400 3- to 6-year-old children, with 200 in the younger group (mean age = 46.68 months, range = 39.65-51.88; 100 boys) and 200 in the older group (mean age = 64.13 months, range = 58.22-71.77; 99 boys). Children participated in a peeking paradigm which involved an experimenter giving a six-trial math task to children individually, and asked them to correctly guess the number on a series of six cards placed behind a barrier. Children were promised a prize if they guessed correctly on three out of six trials. When children were just one guess short of winning, the experimenter made an excuse and left the room. Before leaving, the experimenter asked children not to cheat by peeking at the card number and told a story about another child who had completed a similar task with specific emotional consequences. Cheating was defined as occurring if children peeked at the card number in the experimenter’s absence and was video-recorded by a hidden camera.

Within each age group, children were randomly assigned to each of five conditions which differed only in the story that the experimenter told prior to her departure. In the Rule-Violation-Sad condition, the story involved a character who cheated on a task and received a prize after cheating but felt sad about violating the rules of the task. In the Rule-Adherence-Happy condition, the story involved a character who did not cheat on a task and did not receive a prize, but felt happy about not violating the rules of the task. In the Winning-Prize-Happy condition, the story involved a character who cheated on a task, received a prize, and felt happy about receiving the prize. In the Losing-Prize-Sad condition, the story involved a character who did not cheat on a task, did not receive a prize, and felt sad about not receiving a prize. Finally, in the Baseline condition, the experimenter did not tell any stories.

Results showed that telling older children about the story character’s negative emotional reaction towards rule violation significantly reduced cheating, but telling them about the positive emotional reaction towards rule adherence did not (see Figure 1). The findings suggest that children as young as age 5 are able to use information about another child’s emotional reaction to guide their own moral behavior. In particular, highlighting another child’s negative emotional reaction towards a moral transgression may be an effective way to reduce cheating in early childhood.

Authors

• Li Zhao, Hangzhou Normal University, P. R. China
  Presenting Author

• Yi Zheng, Hangzhou Normal University

• Paul Harris, Harvard University