| Adolescence generally begins at the age of 10 and ends at the age of 18.This period is the acceleration and transition period of individual physical and mental development,as well as the key period of the formation of honest moral character.How to promote the generation and development of honest intention and honest behavior is the key to moral education.As a bridge of harmonious communication between people,interpersonal trust can positively promote social development and interpersonal relationship,and encourage individuals to produce more prosocial behaviors in social communication.So here comes a question: whether interpersonal trust will have an effect on adolescents’ honesty? Therefore,this study aims to explore the effect of interpersonal trust on the honesty of 10-,13-and 16-year-olds.At present,there is no research regarding the relationship between interpersonal trust and adolescents’ honesty.Different from previous studies,the subjects in this study are under a trusted condition.More specifically,we examine the effect of interpersonal trust on the subsequent behavior of the trustee.In the first study,the situational story method was used to investigate the effects of interpersonal trust on honest intention and moral evaluation of 10–16 years olds.The experimental design was a three-factor hybrid design of 2 trust(trust group,non trust group)× 2motivation(individual motivation,collective motivation)× age(10 years old,13 years old,16 years old),with trust and motivation as internal variables and age as inter-subject variables,and the dependent variables were honesty intention and moral evaluation of dishonesty.In the second study,the honesty situation test was applied to investigate the influence of interpersonal trust on adolescents’ honest behavior.The independent variables were interpersonal trust(trust group,control group)and age(10years old,13 years old,16 years old),and the dependent variable was the subjects’ honesty behavior.In the second study,social desirability,introduced as a moderating variable,was divided into high social desirability and low social desirability according to the subjects’ social desirability scores,which aims to further explore the kinds of adolescents who are more likely to be influenced by interpersonal trust and thus exhibit more honest behaviors.The following conclusions can be drawn from the above two studies:(1)Interpersonal trust can enhance the adolescents’ honesty intention which is stronger in the situation of being trusted;Interpersonal trust also has a significant impact on teenagers’ moral evaluation.Compared with being under the non trust condition,teenagers’ moral evaluation of dishonest behavior is more negative in the trusted condition.(2)Interpersonal trust can promote the generation of adolescents’ honest behaviors,which shows the strongest effect on 13-year-olds but a relatively weak one on 16-year-olds.(3)The promotion of interpersonal trust in adolescents’ honest behaviors is found to be moderated by social desirability level.Compared with adolescents with low social desirability levels,adolescents with high social desirability levels are more likely to be affected by interpersonal trust in terms of their performance of honest behaviors.In addition,this study also verifies predecessors’ conclusions about the development trend of adolescents’ honest morality,that is,adolescents’ honest intentions and honest behavior are significantly enhanced with age.In conclusion,interpersonal trust is an effective educational approach to promote honesty among adolescents,especially for younger adolescents and adolescents with high social desirability levels.The findings of this study have implications for guiding schools and families to carry out honesty moral education for teenagers in the future. |
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