The Cognitive Development Of 7-to-11 Year Old Children Towards Lying For Another

Lying is the act of an individual who consciously conveys the wrong information through speech or nonverbal forms to make the recipient form a false belief.In addition to the common types of lying,such as black lies and white lies,there is a special lie: lying for another.Lying for another is a lie to disguise the behavior of others.Because of different motives of lying,lying for another is sometimes pro-social but between anti-social and pro-social in most cases.Previous studies have paid much attention to the age characteristics of lying for another,but it is not clear how children understand this type of lie.Therefore,this study investigated how 7-11 years old elementary school children understand lying or telling truth for another(classmate or good friend)under different motivations(violation and inadequate capability)through 4 different stories.This study mainly includes two parts.In the first part of the study,we investigated the characteristics of concept understanding and moral evaluation of 184 children aged 7,9 and 11 towards lying for classmate under different motivations(violation and inadequate capability).The results showed that there was no significant difference in age and motivation between elementary school children’s conceptual understanding and moral evaluation of lying to their classmate.Through the analysis of the reasons for children’s moral evaluation,we find that on the whole,most children make negative comments on lies and make positive comments on the truth according to the fact orientation,but compared with 7 and 9 years old children,there are more children in the age of 11 considered social interaction factors and consequences in conducting moral evaluation.In the second part of the study,we investigated the concept understanding and moral evaluation of 205 children aged 7,9 and 11 towards lying for good friend of under different motivations(violation and inadequate capability).The results showed that there was no significant difference in age and motivation between elementary school children’s conceptual understanding of lying to their good friend.But in the aspect of children’s moral evaluation,children’s positive evaluation of telling truth for good friend’s violation is significantly higher than that of telling truth for good friend’s incompetence;through the analysis of the reasons for children’s moral evaluation,we find that compared with 7 and 9 years old children,more and more 11 years old children consider the communication motivation and consequences of lying,and make relatively positive evaluation to good friend’s violation.Comprehensive analysis of elementary school children’s understanding of lie for classmate and good friend showed that although there are no significant differences in the concept of children’s understanding,compared with lying for the classmate,11 years old children tend to make more positive comments for their good friend based on the orientation of social communication in the aspect of children’s moral evaluation.In summary,we come to the conclusion: the majority of elementary school children can correctly judge telling a lie or truth for another under different motivations(violation and inadequate capability)and the concept of judgment is not affected by age,motivation and communication object;as for moral evaluation,compared with children in early age,11 years old children not only take into account the fact orientation but also incline to give more consideration to social orientation and result orientation and make the corresponding evaluation according to the different communication objects and motivations.