A Research Of Primary School Children's Understanding And Moral Evaluation Of Lies

This research investigated the understanding and moral evaluation of lies and truth-telling of the children at the age of 8,10,12 through compiling the different types of white lies, self-regard lies and trick lies in three setting conditions.The results are as following:(l)Primary school children mainly relied on factuality to determine whether a statement was a lie.(2) There are differences in the extent to which the children evaluate the different types of lies. Difference appears in different setting conditions of trick lies .(3) In general, children's moral evaluation of the white lies is higher than trick lies and self-regard lies; the moral evaluation of direct truth-telling is lower than positive truth-telling and factual truth-telling. In the children of primary school, the older the participants were, the more consideration of communicative motivation or setting factors on the moral evaluation on different kinds of lies and truth-telling.(4) Primary school children's internal evaluative reactions to white lies are mostly positive evaluative reactions, to self-regard lies are mostly negative evaluative reactions, and there are differences in the setting conditions to trick lies; Primary school children's internal evaluative reactions to direct truth-telling and positive truth-telling are mostly negative evaluative reactions, to factual truth-telling are mostly positive evaluative reactions.