Cultural Differences in Children’s White Lie-Telling Behaviour
This research explored cultural differences in children’s white lie-telling behaviour by comparing 4- to 5-year-old Anglo Canadian, Chinese Canadian, and Russian Canadian children. Two online experiments, a Reverse Rouge Task (Experiment 1) and an Art Rating Task (Experiment 2), put participants in politeness situations that prompted them to tell a white lie (or a blunt truth). Parental measures of collectivism and parenting style were also collected to explore children’s likelihood of white lie-telling in relation to these factors. The current data revealed that, contrary to our hypotheses, children’s likelihood of white lie-telling behaviour did not vary as a function of their cultural background or the presence/absence of a stated social consequence and was not predicted by parental collectivism or authoritarianism. Across both experiments, parental authoritativeness was positively associated with children’s likelihood of white lie-telling behaviour. These findings are discussed in relation to possible factors that might have accounted for the lack of cultural differences, and directions for future research are proposed.
History
Language
EnglishDegree
- Master of Arts
Program
- Psychology
Granting Institution
Ryerson UniversityLAC Thesis Type
- Thesis