
Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children? [pdf] - luu
http://www.kangleelab.com/articles/Psychological%20Science%202014.kang.pdf
======
wwweston
Years ago, I read study about reducing corruption/abuse in police departments.
It suggested that programs designed to promote a professional identity was
more effective than more weight/manpower behind internal affairs.

Maybe for most humans a positive ideal to strive for is better than the threat
of punishment.

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waps
Given that the human mind is essentially a behaviour-copy machine this is very
likely true.

But keep in mind : the purpose of punishment is to remove examples of bad
behaviour. Without effective punishment, bad behaviour will quickly crowd out
any good examples you may set.

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wslh
You can read the full paper here:
[http://www.kangleelab.com/articles/Psychological%20Science%2...](http://www.kangleelab.com/articles/Psychological%20Science%202014.kang.pdf)
(thanks Google Scholar!)

~~~
dang
Thanks! We've changed the url to this from
[http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/06/11/095679761453...](http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/06/11/0956797614536401),
which just had the abstract (which is found at the start of the paper).

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jedunnigan
>During the game, children were left alone for 1 min and told not to cheat by
peeking at the toy. Because of the highly tempting nature of the situation,
most children were expected to cheat (e.g., Talwar & Lee, 2002). Before
confronting them with the question of whether they had cheated, an
experimenter read one of three moral stories or a control story to each child.

It would have been interesting if they had another group where they primed the
children with the story before walking out of the room. Test to see how the
various stories effect the decision to cheat, not just the honesty after the
fact.

~~~
thret
Why would they have expected children to cheat? My family played games of all
kinds regularly from a very early age, cheating was unthinkable. There's no
game without honesty.

~~~
rcthompson
Judging from the fact that they have a citation right after that phrase, I
assume that their expectation is based on a previous study that showed exactly
that.

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j7531
It has been long known that punishment and reward are ineffective for
interpersonal influence (e.g., see French and Raven's "The bases of social
power" from 1959). Fear is a big factor in children lying. And the nasty side
effect of fear is that it leads to repressions of natural inclinations, and
eventually a part of the true self becomes suppressed, and a false self
becomes a big part of the character. You can see this in the endemic existence
of narcissistic character traits in our society.

While studying these topics, the most surprising realization for me was that
moral indoctrination teaches children sadistic and masochistic behavior, which
then manifests in adulthood as vectors of moral indoctrination towards their
children (besides other undesirable behavior in society), and the cycle
continues.

Accepting a child for who they are, and not trying to influence them into what
the parent wants them to be, goes a long way towards making an honest child.

------
pling
Probably a rather geeky thing to say but Star Trek TNG promoted honesty,
morality and a strong sense of ethics to me.

That IMHO is no different to classic moral stories as the basic premise is the
same in some episodes.

~~~
rayiner
This is a wonderful point. Star Trek, particularly TNG, has always had some
very strongly moral characters. Picard, obviously, but also Sisko in DS9.

~~~
thret
Why did you elevate Picard and Sisko morally over Kirk or Janeway?

Actually all officers on Star Trek seem to be of high moral character, I can't
think of one who isn't.

~~~
webwielder
Both Kirk and Janeway were much less by-the-book. They had no compunction
against violating the prime directive, making unscrupulous alliances, seducing
young ensigns, or reading the Constitution to a planet of Nazis (or something
like that) if they felt it furthered their (usually noble if misguided) goals.

~~~
thret
I don't want to start a Trek debate on HN :) Alliances wrt Janeway are
certainly questionable, but for both where they did deviate from the book it
was always as you say for noble reasons. Breaking an unjust law is not morally
wrong. Snowden broke laws for noble reasons. Is he a moral character? I think
so.

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rayiner
As a parent, this is a really interesting issue for me. In particular, I have
been really disappointed and shocked with the extent to which cheating is
tolerated in undergraduate schools in the U.S. I'm not naïve enough to believe
that this is anything new ([http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/15/opinion/the-
long-legacy-of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/15/opinion/the-long-legacy-
of-cheating-at-harvard.html?_r=0) \- in 1957, 40% of Harvard students admitted
to cheating), but I think that the tools parents have at their disposal to
inculcate honesty in their children are fewer in number these days.

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beerglass
The boy who cried the wolf is not a good selection imho. In it the boy lies
just for fun, not to save his own skin, which is what the children in the
experiment were trying to do by lying. In contrast George Washington knows the
consequence of not lying (possible retribution from his father), yet chooses
to do the right thing by sticking to truth.

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BorisMelnik
IF anyone ever watched the office their was an episode where Dwight read
"cautionary tales..." (2.18) but he read from a book that I always thought was
fake.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter)

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prestadige
Your child will, as ever, learn your true values. If you try to manipulate him
into being honest then you are implicitly asserting that honesty is bad.
Correct this by understanding that honesty is its own reward. The world is a
beautiful and a dangerous place and honesty helps you to see it correctly.

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yottah
It would be better to promote Machiavellianism in children so they are better
equipped for harsh realities of life.

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swayvil
Morality is not an intellectual product. It is a mode of perception, like
esthetics. It can be fostered and cultivated through art-appreciation,
meditation, low-stress environments and stuff like that.

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sogen
tl;dr: Stories focusing on the positive aspects: Good. --> i.e. _George
Washington and the Cherry Tree_

Stories focusing on the negative consequences: BAD. ( _Pinocchio_ , _The Boy
Who Cried Wolf_ )

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k-mcgrady
Strange. I find the boy who cried wolf to be a really good one. It's still
something I think of from time to time. I doesn't stop me telling the odd lie
but if/when I consider a big lie I definitely consider the consequences based
on that story.

~~~
bryanlarsen
I suspect that the age of the children has a big impact on the results. The
study was of 3-7 year olds. If you remember it well then you were at the upper
end of that range, if not older.

~~~
aimhb
Yes. The Boy Who Cried Wolf has other issues, as well, though; I remember
thinking (as a child) that it was as much the villagers' fault for not
believing the kid as it was the kid's fault for lying before.

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Kliment
Actual paper is unfortunately paywalled, which certainly does not promote
academic honesty.

