LEE ET AL

SAMPLING BIAS

+) large sample which covered a range of ages +) allowed cross cultural comparisons to be made +) likley to be comparable as similar male and female numbers used and recruited from city with similar demographics -) not much detail about chinese background ps

RESEARCH METHOD EVAL

+) measured moral reasoning appropriately through reading stories aloud in childrens own language and use of visual rating scale snapchot study - able to see if children of different ages gave different responses by making the study cross sectional quasi experiment - main independent variable of ethnicity was naturally occuring

Controls

- rating chart was explained to the children at first - the meaning of the symbols were repeated each time the question was asked - the good or naughty meanings were systematically alternated so the child wasnt just saying the first option each time - researchers used counterbalancing where the stories were read outloud in a pre arranged random order

SAMPLE

228 Chinese and canadian children aged 7, 9 or 11 took part 108 canadians 120 chinese recruited from elementary school in Hangzhou recruited from elementary school in new brunswik - were of middle class socio economic status

SIMILARITIES WITH KOHLBERG

Both studies use children as their partcipants looks at stages of moral development gained qualitative data cross cultural aspects to the studies data collected through self report ( interviews ) presented with scenarios on which to comment not ethnocentric replicable sampling bias

DESIGN & RESEARCH METHOD

INDEPENDENT MEASURES DESIGN CROSS CULTURAL METHOD USED BUT CROSS SECTIONAL RESERACH DESIGN ADOPTED children were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions: physical or social stories. - cross sectional design where children in the different conditions were of different ages. the story was either prosocial or antisocial and contained either truth telling or lying.

INSURED

Indv/Situ - suggests that situation or culture that a child is brought up in will significantly change their moral thinking, therefore challenges Kohlberg Deterministic - suggests that culture determines our moral thinking Holistic - acknowledges the influence of society on our behavior and the social cognitions we develop as a result

VALIDITY

LACKS ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY - judging behavior is different to forming moral judgements in real life. However, stories made to be familiar to children - face validity +) randomise order of stories and questions reduced the chance of leading the children towards specific answers or creating an order effect +) random allocation reduced bias in which students had which stories +) counterbalancing avoided response bias

DEVELOPMENTAL AREA

Looks at changes childrens in moral development and how it relates to age and culture

CONCLUSION

Moral reasoning can be influenced by our culture and the society in which we live the influence of socio cultural factors becomes stronger as we age some aspects of moral reasoning such as judging antisocial lying as bad may be universal there are age related changes in moral thinking within cultures cultural context not only change the context of thinking, but also the fundamental moral rules

AIM

To test the effect of culture on childrens moral evaluations of lying and truthtelling in pro and anti social situations by comparing the moral judgments of chinese and canadian children.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATION

age appropriate unlikely that any suffered from stress

Explain the rating chart used

children were shown a seven point rating chart which contained the following ratings - very, very good ( three stars ) - very good ( two stars ) - good ( one red star ) - neither good nor naughty ( blue circle ) - naughty ( one black cross ) - very naughty ( two black crosses ) - very very naught ( three black crosses ) when child were asked question, they could respond verbally, non verbally or both using the rating scale

PRACTICAL APPLICATION & USEFULNESS

enables us to see the impact of social settings on the development of our thought processes highlights the difficulties with conducting cross cultural psychological research and the pitfalls of mistakenly viewing other culturs as under developed like kohlberg did shows how moral development is not simply determined by age or level of cognitive development

PROCEDURE & METHOD

for each cultural group, the ps were randomly assigned to a social story condition, and the other half to a physical story condition they were seen individually and the rating chart was explained to them - when the child aswered questions they could use to words, symbols or both each child listened to all four social or all four physical stories which were written to be familiar to schoolchildren in both cultures the prosocial story involved a child intentionally carrying out a good deed - tidying up the classroom, or money in wallet the antisocial story involved a child intentionally carrying out a bad deed. - takes pages out of a book, or pushes somone to the ground > at the end of the four stories, the child was asked by the teacher whether what the character in the story did was good or naughty using a rating chart vv good to vv naughty, - in the truth-telling stories, the character admitted while in the lie tell stories the character lied. - stories were read in the ps own language and presented alongside illustrations.

Stories presented to the children

in the antisocial stories, the child character takes pages out of books or pushed a boy to the ground - ( no social issue, just the physical act) in the prosocial stories, the child character tidies up the classroom, or puts money is someones wallet the children are first asked if the act was right or wrong ( good or naughty ) and then after the lie or the truth is told, the children are asked again if the act ( truth telling or lying ) is good or naughty.

DIFFERENCES WITH KHOLBERG

kohlberg- universality of moral reasoning lee - cultural differences in moral reasoning kohlberg - andro centric lee - mixed gender sample kohlberg - longitudinal lee - snapchot study kohlberg - qualitative - reductionist lee - quantitative for statistical analysis - holistic

ETHNOCENTRISM

not ethnocentric

DATA COLLECTION

quantitive as responses to the stories were coverted into quantitaive scores +) allowed direct comparison between cultural groups on a number of stories and factors +) qual data about underlying reasons -) demand characteristic and social desirability bias

RELIABILITY

same measurements used to assess moral judgments of lying and truth telling standardised rating scale - internal reliability, test retest highly replicable +) large sample used

SOCIAL AREA

social situations and the people around us influences our behaviour

how was the independent variable measured

the childrens responses were converted into quantitativepoint scores ( 3 very very good --> 0 neither good nor naughty --> very very naughty) - higher the more approved the lower the more disapproved

quantitative data collected in the study

the childrens responses were converted into quantitativepoint scores ( 3 very very good --> 0 neither good nor naughty --> very very naughty) - higher the more approved the lower the more disapproved

RESULTS

the childrens responses were converted into quantitativepoint scores ( 3 very very good --> 0 neither good nor naughty --> very very naughty) - higher the more approved the lower the more disapproved mainly similar negative ratings of lying in antisocial situations and their positive ratings of truth telling in antisocial situations HOWEVER... chinese ps tended to rate truth telling less positive than canadians, especially in prosocial situations chinese ps tended approve of lying in prosocial situations ( cleaning up the class room ) more positively than canadians older children increasingly rated lying in prosocial situations positively. e.g. 70% of chinese 11 year olds rated lying positively compared to just 25% of chinese 7 year olds Lee suggests that chinese children are taught taught the values of self effacement and modesty which impacts their moral reasoning. ( socialised so moral judgments grow closer to societies expectations ) for example, truth telling in prosocial situations was seen as begging for praise from techer which is normally discouraged in chinese school children.

LINK TO THEME OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT

there are age related changes in moral thinking within cultures cultural context not only change the context of thinking, but also the fundamental moral rules

COGNITIVE AREA

there is changes in an aspect of childrens thinking ( thought processes )