The classic moral stories have been used extensively to teach children about the consequences of lying and the virtue of honesty. Despite their widespread use, there is no evidence whether these stories actually promote honesty in children. This study compared the effectiveness of four classic moral stories in promoting honesty in 3- to 7-year-olds. Surprisingly, the stories of "Pinocchio" and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" failed to reduce lying in children. In contrast, the apocryphal story of "George Washington and the Cherry Tree" significantly increased truth telling. Further results suggest that the reason for the difference in honesty-promoting effectiveness between the "George Washington" story and the other stories was that the former emphasizes the positive consequences of honesty, whereas the latter focus on the negative consequences of dishonesty. When the "George Washington" story was altered to focus on the negative consequences of dishonesty, it too failed to promote honesty in children.

The authors measured the eye gaze displays of Canadian, Trinidadian, and Japanese participants as they answered questions for which they either knew, or had to derive, the answers. When they knew the answers, Trinidadians maintained the most eye contact, whereas Japanese maintained the least. When thinking about the answers to questions, Canadians and Trinidadians looked up, whereas Japanese looked down. Thus, for humans, gaze displays while thinking are at least in part culturally determined.Keywords eye gaze; communication; cross-cultural; gaze display; thinking Eye gaze displays play an important role in social interaction. People use others' eye movements to regulate conversation (e.g., turn-taking), to make character judgments (e.g., honesty, shyness), and to gain insight into their internal mental processes (e.g., thinking). Extensive research has established that individuals engaged in thinking tend to avert eye gaze. To date, researchers generally agree that eye gaze aversion during thinking is triggered by endogenous brain activities.The present study examined an alternative hypothesis that culture may also play a role in eye gaze display during thinking. This hypothesis is derived from the existing cross-cultural literature on eye gaze display. Societies have various eye-related norms regarding where and for how long one should look at a person during social interaction (Knapp & Hall, 2002).Correspondence to: ANJANIE McCARTHY.Correspondence should be addressed to Anjanie McCarthy; e-mail: amccarthy@oise.utoronto.ca.. Anjanie McCarthy, PhD, is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto. She studies nonverbal behaviors in adults and children during interpersonal interaction. Her current research interests include the development of eye gaze displays in different social contexts and sociocultural and cognitive factors that affect eye gaze displays and other nonverbal behaviors. Kang Lee, PhD, is a professor and the director of the Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto. He studies the development of social cognition and social behavior. His current research interests include children's moral understanding of lying, their actual lying behavior, and the sociocultural, cognitive, and neurophysiological factors that influence the development of lying. Shoji Itakura, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology, Kyoto University. His research focuses on human and primate development. His current research interests include early social cognition, theory of mind, development of lying, and android and robotic sciences. Darwin W. Muir, PhD, is a professor emeritus, Department of Psychology, Queen's University. He studies infant social cognition and behavior. His current research interests include infant auditory localization, fetal-infant sensitivity to vibroacoustic stimulation, and infant affect and attentional responses to changes in adult vocal and facial expressions of emotions during social interactions. NIH Public Access

The way children evaluate the reporting of peers' transgressions to authority figures was investigated. Participants, ages 6 -11 years (N = 60), were presented with a series of vignettes, each of which depicted a child who committed either a minor transgression (such as not finishing the vegetables at lunch) or a more serious transgression (such as stealing from a classmate). Participants were asked to evaluate the decision of a child observer who either did or did not report the transgression to a teacher. Younger children considered reporting to be appropriate for both types of transgressions, but older children considered reporting to be appropriate for major transgressions only. Results are interpreted with reference to (a) a changing peer culture in which the social cost of reporting transgressions increases and (b) a developmental change in children's cognitive capabilities. Keywordstattling; truth-telling; moral evaluation; honesty From an early age, children are taught that it is important to tell the truth (Bussey, 1992). However, telling the truth sometimes comes into conflict with other social values, such as protecting people's feelings (Bussey, 1999;Ma, Xu, Heyman, & Lee, 2011). The present research focuses on another context in which truth-telling can conflict with other social values: when reporting the transgressions of peers to authority figures. student who helps to enforce rules that promote fairness, or they might consider such reporting to be disloyal. Reporting on transgressions also has broader societal implications, such as in promoting efforts for harm prevention (Brank et al., 2007;Syvertsen, Flanagan, & Stout, 2009).Children engage in tattling behavior-defined as the reporting of another person's violation of a normative expectation to a third party-starting as early as 18 months of age (Dunn & Munn, 1985). In preschool and early primary school-age children, tattling is prevalent and does not generally carry negative consequences (den Bak & Ross, 1996;Ingram & Bering, 2010;Ross & den Bak-Lammers, 1998). In contrast, in adolescence there can be substantial negative consequences (Friman et al., 2004), such as being labeled as a "snitch" or "narc" (Syvertsen et al., 2009). Even without an objective increase in the social costs of tattling, older children may worry more about potential costs as they become increasingly aware of how they are likely to be perceived by others (Banerjee & Yuill, 1999;Bennett & Yeeles, 1990;Gee & Heyman, 2007;Heyman, Fu, & Lee, 2007;Juvonen & Murdock, 1995;Vasey, Crnic, & Carter, 1994).Evaluations of the reporting of transgressions may depend upon the type of transgression involved (Nucci, 1981(Nucci, , 2001Smetana, 2006;Turiel, 2008). For example, children as young as 3 years of age tend to view violations of moral rules, such as treating someone unfairly, as more serious and more generally wrong than violations of social conventions, such as using inappropriate table manners (Smetana & Braeges, 1990;Smetana, Schlagman, & Adams, 1993). Furthermore, eve...

In three experiments, the roles of culture and social factors in individual's eye gaze displays when thinking were examined. Canadian and Japanese participants answered questions requiring thinking to derive the answers in social and nonsocial contexts. Canadian participants looked up when thinking but only when they were aware of being observed. They looked down when they knew they could not be seen. In contrast, Japanese participants looked down when thinking even when they knew they were being observed. These results are inconsistent with the view that eye movement patterns when thinking are driven solely by endogenous brain activities and consistent with the view that thinking-related gaze behaviors are modulated by cultural display rules and social contexts.

Eye gaze plays a pivotal role during communication. When interacting deceptively, it is commonly believed that the deceiver will break eye contact and look downward. We examined whether children’s gaze behavior when lying is consistent with this belief. In our study, 7- to 15-year-olds and adults answered questions truthfully (Truth questions) or untruthfully (Lie questions) or answered questions that required thinking (Think questions). Younger participants (7- and 9-year-olds) broke eye contact significantly more when lying compared with other conditions. Also, their averted gaze when lying differed significantly from their gaze display in other conditions. In contrast, older participants did not differ in their durations of eye contact or averted gaze across conditions. Participants’ knowledge about eye gaze and deception increased with age. This knowledge significantly predicted their actual gaze behavior when lying. These findings suggest that with increased age, participants became increasingly sophisticated in their use of display rule knowledge to conceal their deception.