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The primary purpose of the present investigation is to study the relation between maternal communication and the child's resistance to temptation during an experimental task, among Italian and Canadian families. The nature of maternal communication was assessed by analyzing the verbal behavior of the mother while in discussion with her child. A series of mother-child pairs were given three experimental tasks which required that mother and child reach a concensus. The tasks were designed so as to stimulate discussion between mother and child, as well as to provide the mother with an opportunity to exercise her authority over her child. The discussions between mother and child were analyzed according to a schema based on the assumption that there are four basic functions of human speech: to teach, to please, to demand, and to defend oneself. An additional purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between the nature of maternal and paternal control and the child's resistance to temptation. The extent and nature of familial control was assessed by means of a questionnaire which was filled out by the child. Positive control is defined as the encouragement of the child to feel some responsibility toward some positively defined goal. Negative control is defined as a barrier, limitation, or restriction imposed by the parent on the child's activities. (Author/JM)

This study examines the extent to which the younger (8 years old) and preadolescent (12 years old) child engage in altruistic lying for a peer who is dependent on the child for help in the form of lying behavior. Subjects were 56 Canadian, white, middle class boys. An ostensible peer gave half of the subjects help in winning a prize. The other 28 boys were refused help. One-half of the subjects in both help and refused-help conditions were 8 years old; the other half were age 12. The peer informed each subject individually that he had committed an accidental transgression and asked the subject not to tell the experimenter about it. When questioned about the accident, 12-year-olds who had received help from the peer were more willing to lie and thereby deny any knowledge of the accident than were 8-year-olds who had also received help. No differences in lying behavior were found between 8-year-olds and 12-year-olds after they had been refused help by the peer. (Author/MK)

Relationship between maternal communication with child and ethnicity of the mother was examined in a study of 89 mother-child pairs. Italian immigrant mothers tended to rely on direct imperatives and requests, Canadian mothers relied on more indirect forms of control, and second-generation Italian mothers employed justifications. (Author)

Results supported the hypothesis that 12 year olds are more willing to lie for a peer who previously helped them than are 8 year old. (Author)