The present study examined Chinese children’s moral evaluations of truths and lies about one’s own pro-social acts. Children ages 7, 9, and 11 were read vignettes in which a protagonist performs a good deed and is asked about it by a teacher, either in front of the class or in private. In response, the protagonist either tells a modest lie, which is highly valued by the Chinese culture, or tells an immodest truth, which violates the Chinese cultural norms about modesty. Children were asked to identify whether the protagonist’s statement was the truth or a lie, and to evaluate how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ the statement was. Chinese children rated modest lies more positively than immodest truths, with this effect becoming more pronounced with age. Rural Chinese children and those with at least one nonprofessional parent rated immodest truths less positively when they were told in public rather than in private. Furthermore, Chinese children of parents with high collectivism scores valued modest lies more than did children of parents with low collectivism scores. These findings suggest that both macro- and micro-cultural factors contribute significantly to children’s moral understanding of truth and lie telling.

As children can be victims or witnesses to crimes and may be required to testify about their experiences in court, the ability to differentiate between children’s true and fabricated accounts of victimization is an important issue. This study used automated linguistic analysis software to detect linguistic patterns in order to differentiate between children’s true and false stressful bullying reports and reports of non-stressful events. Results revealed that children displayed different linguistic patterns when reporting true and false stressful and non-stressful stories, with non-stressful stories being more accurately discriminated based on linguistic patterns. Results suggest that it is difficult to discriminate accurately and consistently between children’s true and false stories of victimization.

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As children are often called upon to provide testimony in court proceedings, determining the veracity of their statements is an important issue. In the course of investigation by police and social workers, children are often repeatedly interviewed about their experiences, though the impact of this repetition on children's true and false statements remains largely unexamined. The current study analysed semantic differences in children's truthful and fabricated statements about an event they had or had not participated in. Results revealed that children's truthful and fabricated reports differed in linguistic content, and that their language also varied with repetition. Discriminant analyses revealed that with repetition, children's true and false reports became increasingly difficult to differentiate using linguistic markers, though true reports were consistently classified correctly at higher rates than false reports. The implications of these findings for legal procedures concerning child witnesses are discussed. Keywords children; linguistic differences; repeated reports; veracity As the number of children appearing as witnesses in the court system has risen steadily in the past two decades, concerns regarding the process of interviewing children has become a focus of investigation in legal and psychological research. Extensive research has established that children are capable of producing highly accurate accounts of events that they have experienced or observed and can make competent witnesses (e.g., Bruck & Ceci, 1999;Quas, Goodman, Ghetti, & Redlich, 2000; see review in Fivush & Schwarzmueller, 1995). However, studies have also revealed that children can be coached to tell convincing © 2011 The Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law Correspondence: Angela Evans, Brock University, 500 Glenridge Ave., St. Catherines, ON, L2S 3A1. angela.evans@utoronto.ca; Kang Lee, University of Toronto, 45 Walmer Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5R 2X2. kang.lee@utoronto.ca. Publisher's Disclaimer: Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. (Lyon, Malloy, Quas, & Talwar, 2008;Orcutt, Goodman, Tobey, Batterman-Faunce, & Thomas, 2001;Pipe & Wilson, 1994;Talwar, Lee, Bala, & Lindsay, 2006;Tye, Amato, Honts, Devi...

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