Development of moral reasoning in situational and cultural contexts

ABSTRACT

This article examines relationships between children and youths’ judgments and their justifications of truth telling and verbal deception, in situational and cultural contexts. Han Chinese, Euro-Canadians and Chinese-Canadians, seven- to 17-years of age were presented competitive scenarios in which protagonists told either lies to protect, or truths to harm, various levels of collectivity. Participants evaluated protagonists’ statements, using a 7-point scale, and justified their judgments. Cultural variations in moral evaluations emerged among the three groups of participants. Older Chinese participants reflected significant collective cultural values in their judgements; by contrast, Euro-Canadians identified more individualistically; and Chinese-Canadians demonstrated notable variability between these perspectives in their judgments. The article enhances understanding of situational and cultural sources in the development of moral reasoning within a sociocultural framework.

KEYWORDS:

• cross-cultural
• developmental
• values
• verbal deception

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant 438-2014-0238

Notes on contributors

Jesse Ho-Yin Lo

Jesse Ho-Yin Lo is a master's degree graduate from the University of British Columbia, examining the cross-cultural differences of moral evaluations among Chinese, Canadian and Chinese-Canadian children and adolescents.

Genyue Fu

Genyue Fu is a psychology professor at the University of Zhejiang Normal University, investigating the cross-cultural differences of moral judgment and social cognition between Chinese and North Americans. He studies the process of face perception by using eye-tracking technology and functional near-infrared spectroscopy.

Kang Lee

Kang Lee is a psychology professor at the University of Toronto whose research focuses on the moral development of children, particularly related to verbal deception and deception detection, from the neurological and social perspective. He uses psychophysical methods to investigate the face-processing in children and adults.

Catherine Ann Cameron

Catherine Ann Cameron is honorary professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, and emerita professor at the University New Brunswick. She investigates notational systems and media influences on early literacy development, cross-cultural differences in moral development; and relational psychosocial transactions in adolescence.  She uses visual methods to conduct cultural research into thriving in early childhood and resilience in adolescence and older adulthood.