The Effect Of Reputation Factor On Elementary Students’Lying Behavior

Individuals established the concept of reputation based on observed historical behavior and performance of others. Reputation is a kind of intangible assets which needs to be invested and maintained. Social psychology studies have shown that human beings,as instinctive social animals, will care about their own reputation and manipulate their behavior to manage their reputation. The presence of existing research has proven that reputation can not only promote cooperation between people, but also promote the development of the moral and social norms. How reputation factors impact primary school children’s lying behavior, this issue remains to be resolved. Therefore, this study will make an exploration about that.We used improved Panasiti’s experimental paradigm and conducted two experiments.In the experiment one,we employed lie times and the reaction indicators in different situations and tried to explore how the reputation factors influence primary children’s intentional lying on the basis of previous research. In the experiment two,we replace the adult opponent with peer opponent, to further explore how the peer’s reputation influence the children’s lying behavior of grade5. The results are showed as follows.(1)In a competitive game situations, whether there is reputational risk, or in the favorable condition, children said more truth than lies, but in the unfavorable condition, children behave differently. They told more lies than truth to their adult opponent, and told more truth than lies to their peer opponent.(2)Whether children are faced with adult opponent or peer opponent,the number of self-serving lies were significantly more than the number of altruistic lies. Along with the development of children, their sense of competition became stronger and stronger, more self-serving lie and less altruistic lie were found in fifth grade compared to first grade or third grade.(3)The effect of reputation risk on the lying behavior has been linked with the time the subject get along with the experimenter. Experimental sequence and reputation factors had an interactive impact on the number of lying. The earlier children felt reputation risk, the more self-gain lies they told; the later they felt, the more altruistic lies they told.(4)Reputation risk from different opponents influence children’s lying behavior, children tell less lies to peer opponents than to adults opponents in the reputational risk conditions.