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…

American and Japanese children's evaluations of the reporting of peers' transgressions to authority figures were investigated. Seven-, 9-, and 11-year-old children (N = 160) and adults (N = 62) were presented with vignettes and were asked to evaluate the decisions of child observers who reported their friend's either major or relatively minor…

Prior research has documented that Japanese children's performance on the Dimensional Change Card Sorting (DCCS) task can be influenced by their observation of another person completing the task, which is referred to as social transmission of disinhibition. The current study explored whether Canadian children would also show a social transmission…

This cross-cultural study of the moral judgements of Mainland Han-Chinese, Chinese-Canadian, and Euro-Canadian children aged seven to 11 examined the evaluations of narrative protagonists' modest lies and self-promoting truthful statements in situations where they had done a good deed. The story characters had thus either lied or told the truth…

Children's reasoning about the appropriateness of accepting credit for one's own prosocial behavior was examined. Participants aged 7-11 years old in Japan and the USA (total N = 206) were presented with a series of stories in which a protagonist performs a good deed and is asked about it by another character. Across stories, the protagonist…

Children's reasoning about the credibility of positive and negative evaluations of academic performance was examined. Across 2 studies, 7- and 10-year-olds from the United States and China (N = 334) judged the credibility of academic evaluations that were directed toward an unfamiliar peer. In Study 1, participants from China responded that…

Children's reasoning about the willingness of peers to convey accurate positive and negative performance feedback to others was investigated among a total of 179 6- to 11-year-olds from the USA and China. In Study 1, which was conducted in the USA only, participants responded that peers would be more likely to provide positive feedback than…

The other-race effect in face processing develops within the first year of life in Caucasian infants. It is currently unknown whether the developmental trajectory observed in Caucasian infants can be extended to other cultures. This is an important issue to investigate because recent findings from cross-cultural psychology have suggested that…

Children's reasoning about individuals' willingness to disclose their successes and failures was investigated among 194 6- to 11-year-olds in the United States and China. In Study 1, participants showed a valence-matching effect, in which they predicted that individuals would be more likely to disclose their performance to an audience of friends…

This study examined cross-cultural differences and similarities in children's moral understanding of individual- or collective-oriented lies and truths. Seven-, 9-, and 11-year-old Canadian and Chinese children were read stories about story characters facing moral dilemmas about whether to lie or tell the truth to help a group but harm an…

The way in which children evaluate people's claims about their own psychological characteristics was examined. Among children ages 6-11 from the United States and China (total N = 243), there was an age-related increase in skepticism about self-report concerning the highly value-laden characteristics "honest", "smart", and…

Compared Chinese and Canadian 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds' moral evaluations of lie- and truth-telling in stories involving pro- and antisocial behavior. Found that Chinese children rated truth-telling less positively and lie-telling more positively in prosocial settings than Canadians. Both rated truth-telling positively and lie-telling negatively…