![]() Firstly, it speaks to debates within linguistics and philosophy concerning the acceptability of lie-telling when motives are prosocial (see Bok, 1978). There are a number of reasons to investigate how children reason about lie-telling and truth-telling in politeness contexts. This situation presents a dilemma because a false claim to like the gift would be inconsistent with socialization messages about the importance of truth-telling, but an honest response may be inconsistent with norms of avoiding harm to others. In a typical white lie context ( Cole, 1986 Saarni, 1984), an individual is given an undesirable gift and is asked if he or she likes it. White lies have been defined as intentional distortions of the truth without malicious intent ( Bok, 1978) and usually involve preferences and social relations ( Bussey, 1999). Even early elementary school children sometimes find lying to be acceptable in politeness contexts, which occur when there is an opportunity to tell a ‘white lie’ in order to be polite (see Walper & Valtin, 1992). Other research suggests that younger children, like older children, do not view all lies as reprehensible and make distinctions among different types of lies. ![]() For example, they considered deception of parents as acceptable in response to parental directives that would restrict personal activities or involve moral transgressions. Perkins and Turiel (2007) found that although adolescents judged lying to be wrong ‘in general’ and perceived lying to cover up misdeeds to be clearly wrong, they judged lie-telling as acceptable under a number of circumstances. Children and adolescents also make distinctions between reasoning about the moral and social conventional domains and the personal domain, which involves actions that are of importance primarily to the individual who engages in them ( Nucci, 1981, 2001 see Turiel, 2002).Ĭhildren’s tendency to apply context-specific reasoning to social situations extends to judgments about lying and truth-telling. Children and adolescents tend to judge moral transgressions, but not social conventional transgressions, as wrong across social contexts, even in the absence of explicit rules ( Turiel, 2002). One key distinction is between moral transgressions, such as hurting others physically or psychologically, and social conventional transgressions, such as dressing inappropriately or using inappropriate table manners. This research provides strong evidence that across a range of ages, children tend to differentiate between moral reasoning (which involves issues of welfare, justice, and rights) and other kinds of social reasoning. More recently, research examining children’s moral reasoning has focused on the tendency to make distinctions between different types of rules and different social contexts ( Smetana, 1985 also see Smetana, 2006). For example, Piaget (1932/1965) argued that around the age of 10, children shift from a heteronomous morality stage in which they view rules as moral absolutes to an autonomous morality stage in which they appreciate that rules can sometimes be challenged or violated in order to benefit people, and that judgments of what is right or wrong should be focused more on intentions than on objective outcomes. Early work on moral development has focused on development with reference to invariant stages ( Kohlberg, 1964 Piaget, 1932/1965). ![]() The focus of this article is how children reason about situations in which the values of truth-telling and politeness come into conflict.Ĭhildren’s reasoning about whether lying is ever acceptable can be viewed within a general framework of moral development, given that honesty is an important topic in discussions about morality ( Perkins & Turiel, 2007). For example, if a child were to receive a gift that she does not want, to truthfully admit her feelings about it would risk hurting the feelings of the gift giver. ![]() One important challenge occurs when truth-telling comes into conflict with other values such as avoiding harm to others ( Lewis, 1993). However, children are likely to face challenges as they seek to apply this concept to specific social situations. Teaching children to distinguish between right and wrong is a major focus of socialization, and as part of this process, children are taught that truth-telling is good and lie-telling is bad ( Kohlberg, 1964 Piaget, 1932/1965). ![]()
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