ERIC Number: EJ1089672
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Mar
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1363-755X
EISSN: N/A
Young Children with a Positive Reputation to Maintain Are Less Likely to Cheat
Fu, Genyue; Heyman, Gail D.; Qian, Miao; Guo, Tengfei; Lee, Kang
Developmental Science, v19 n2 p275-283 Mar 2016
The present study examined whether having a positive reputation to maintain makes young children less likely to cheat. Cheating was assessed through a temptation resistance paradigm in which participants were instructed not to cheat in a guessing game. Across three studies (total N = 361), preschool-aged participants were randomly assigned to either a reputation condition, in which an experimenter told them that she had learned of their positive reputation from classmates, or to a control condition in which they received no such information. By age 5, children in the reputation condition cheated less often than those in the control condition even though nobody was watching and choosing not to cheat conflicted with their personal interest. These findings are the first to show that informing children that they have a positive reputation to maintain can influence their moral behavior.
Descriptors: Cheating, Ethics, Preschool Children, Comparative Analysis, Experimental Groups, Control Groups, Reputation, Influences, Moral Values
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A