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People are sometimes tempted to lie for their own benefit if it would not harm others. For adults, dishonesty is the default response in these circumstances. The developmental origins of this phenomenon were investigated between 2019 and 2021 among 6- to 11-year-old Han Chinese children from China (N = 548, 49% female). Children had an opportunity to win prizes in a behavioral economics game (Experiment 1) or a temptation resistance game adapted from developmental psychology (Experiment 2). In each experiment, the youngest children showed a default tendency of honesty and there was an overall age-related shift toward a default tendency of dishonesty. These findings provide direct evidence of developmental change in the automatic and controlled processes that underlie moral behavior.

This research examined the effects of overhearing an adult praise an unseen child for not needing to work hard on an academic task. Five-year-old Han Chinese children (total N = 270 across three studies; 135 boys, collected 2020-2021) who heard this low effort praise tended to devalue effort relative to a baseline condition in which the overheard conversation lacked evaluative content. In Study 3, low effort praise increased children's endorsement of essentialist beliefs about ability and their interest in becoming the kind of person who does not need to work hard to succeed. The findings show that overhearing evaluative comments about other people, a pervasive feature of daily life, can have a systematic effect on young children's beliefs about achievement.

This research examined the effectiveness of using norms to promote honesty. Participants were Han Chinese children (N = 568, 50.4% male, 3.24 to 6.00 years, collected 2020-2022). Relative to children in a control condition, children in Study 1 were more likely to confess to having cheated in a game after being presented with a descriptive norm indicating that confessions are typical, or an injunctive norm indicating that most other children approve of confessing. Study 2 showed that this finding was not due to a methodological artifact, and Study 3 replicated the effect in a context in which the norm information was conveyed by someone other than the experimenter. The findings suggest that messages about social norms can influence children's honesty.

In this preregistered field study, we examined preschool children’s selective trust in a real-life situation. We investigated whether 3- to 6-year-old children (total N = 240) could be lured to a new location within their school grounds by an unfamiliar adult confederate. In a between-subjects manipulation, the confederate established either a high or a low level of personal credibility by providing information that the child knew to be either true or false. In Experiment 1, in which the confederate was female, children showed sensitivity to informational accuracy by being less willing to leave with an uninformed confederate, and this effect increased with age. In Experiment 2, in which the confederate was male, children were reluctant to leave regardless of informational accuracy. These findings point to real-world implications of epistemic-trust research and provide the first evidence regarding the early development of selective trust in a high-stakes naturalistic context.

There has been extensive research on the causes of academic cheating, but little is known about its consequences. The current research sought to fill this gap in the literature by examining how cheating by middle school children (total N = 198) affects their learning outcomes. In a naturalistic paradigm, children scored a math test they had taken previously, which gave them an opportunity to cheat by falsely scoring incorrect answers to be correct. Results from this phase showed that 54 % of the children cheated on at least one question. One week later, the children took the same test again, but this time without being given an opportunity to cheat. Among children who cheated, items they had answered incorrectly on the first round showed significantly less improvement on the second round if they had dishonestly scored them as correct rather than honestly scoring them as incorrect. This finding provides the first experimental evidence that academic cheating can interfere with children's learning.

Using event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study tested whether state empathy for pain of experienced physicians could resist the influences of repeated exposure to depictions of people experiencing pain. We employed a three-phase paradigm which integrated a classical pain empathy measurement procedure and a multi-block free-view habituation procedure. In this paradigm, 18 experienced physicians with reduced empathy traits (clinical experience5 years) and 18 non-physician controls completed a pre-test phase of pain empathy, followed by a phase of repeated emotional exposure, and a post-test phase of pain empathy. Behavioral pain intensity rating and critical ERP components associated with pain empathy (i.e., N1, N2, and LPP) were measured and compared across participant groups, stimulus types, and experimental phases. Experienced physicians differed from controls in neural processes related to pain empathy, but their pain intensity ratings did not. Specifically, for early ERP components related to empathic arousal such as N1 and N2, we replicated and extended previous findings that physicians can inhibit these bottom-up processes of empathic arousal. In contrast, the P3 didn't reflect a distinctive empathy process for the physicians. For the later reappraisal-related LPP component, however, we found a significant three-way interaction among participant groups, stimulus types, and experimental phases. This interaction provided the first evidence that pain empathy of experienced physicians with low empathic traits can resist repeated exposure to pain. Based on this evidence, the characteristics of pain empathy for experienced physicians and the relative adaptability of pain empathy for human beings are discussed.

This research presents a nudge-based approach to promoting honest behavior. Specifically, we introduce the moral barrier hypothesis, which posits that moral violations can be inhibited by the introduction of spatial boundaries, including ones that do not physically impede the act of transgressing. We found that, as compared to a no barrier condition, children cheated significantly less often when a barrier was strategically placed to divide the space where children were seated from a place that was associated with cheating. This effect was seen both when the barrier took a physical form and when it was purely symbolic. However, the mere presence of a barrier did not reduce cheating: if it failed to separate children from a space that was associated with cheating, children cheated as much as when there was no barrier at all. Taken together, these findings support the moral barrier hypothesis and show that even seemingly unremarkable features of children’s environments can nudge them to act honestly.

Previous studies have found that using software to pitch shift people's voices can boost their perceived attractiveness to opposite-sex adults: men prefer women's voices when pitch-shifted up, and women prefer men's voices when pitch-shifted down. In this study, we sought to determine whether speakers could affect their perceived vocal attractiveness by voluntarily shifting their own voices to reach specific target pitches (+20 Hz or −20 Hz, a pitch increment that is based on prior research). Two sets of Chinese college students participated in the research: 115 who served as speakers whose voices were recorded, and 167 who served as raters who evaluated the speakers' voices. We found that when female speakers increased their pitch they were judged as more attractive to both opposite-sex and same-sex raters. An additional unexpected finding was that male speakers tended to rate other males who shifted their voice up in pitch as more attractive. These findings suggest that voluntary pitch shifts can affect attractiveness, but that they do not fully match the patterns observed when pitch shifting is done digitally.

Cheating is a common human behavior but few studies have examined its emergence during early childhood. In three preregistered studies, a challenging math test was administered to 5- to 6-year-old children (total N = 500; 255 girls). An answer key was present as children completed the test, but they were instructed to not peek at it. In Study 1, many children cheated, but manipulations that reduced the answer key's accessibility in terms of proximity and visibility led to less cheating. Two follow-up studies showed that the answer key's visibility played a more significant role than its proximity. These findings suggest that subtle and seemingly insignificant alterations of the physical environment can effectively nudge young children away from acting dishonestly.

Academic cheating is a serious worldwide problem that begins during childhood. However, to date there has been little research on academic cheating with children before high school age. The current study used a naturalistic experimental paradigm to evaluate the possibility that systematically manipulating messages about the difficulty of a test can affect whether middle school children (N = 201) would cheat by reporting a falsely inflated test score. We found that test difficulty messaging significantly affected children's cheating behavior. Specifically, telling children that a test was either easy or hard produced higher rates of cheating than telling them that the difficulty level was on par with their current skills. In addition, among the children who chose to cheat, telling them that the test was easy led to a greater degree of cheating. These findings are consistent with theories of academic cheating that point to the importance of approach and avoidance motives in achievement motivation. The findings also suggest that simple messaging can have a significant impact on children's moral behavior and that seemingly innocuous messages such as describing the difficulty of a test can influence children's decisions about whether and how much to cheat.

Previous research on nudges conducted with adults suggests that the accessibility of behavioral options can influence people's decisions. The present study examined whether accessibility can be used to reduce academic cheating among young children. We gave children a challenging math test in the presence of an answer key they were instructed not to peek at, and manipulated the accessibility of the answer key by placing various familiar objects on top of it. In Study 1, we used an opaque sheet of paper as a two-dimensional occluder, and found that it significantly reduced cheating compared to a transparent plastic sheet. In Study 2, we used a three-dimensional occluder in the form of a tissue box to make the answer key appear even less accessible, and found it was significantly more effective in reducing cheating than the opaque paper. In Study 3, we used two symbolic representations of the tissue box: a realistic color photo and a line drawing. Both representations were effective in reducing cheating, but the realistic photo was more effective than the drawing. These findings demonstrate that manipulating accessibility can be an effective strategy to nudge children away from cheating in an academic context. They further suggest that different types of everyday objects and their symbolic representations can differentially impact children's moral behavior.

Morality-based interventions designed to promote academic integrity are being used by educational institutions around the world. Although many such approaches have a strong theoretical foundation and are supported by laboratory-based evidence, they often have not been subjected to rigorous empirical evaluation in real-world contexts. In a naturalistic field study ( N = 296), we evaluated a recent research-inspired classroom innovation in which students are told, just prior to taking an unproctored exam, that they are trusted to act with integrity. Four university classes were assigned to a proctored exam or one of three types of unproctored exam. Students who took unproctored exams cheated significantly more, which suggests that it may be premature to implement this approach in college classrooms. These findings point to the importance of conducting ecologically valid and well-controlled field studies that translate psychological theory into practice when introducing large-scale educational reforms.

Understanding the factors that promote the development of generosity has both theoretical and practical importance. This study examines one potential influence: overheard conversations that contain evaluative statements about the behavior of others that were described as widely shared opinions. In Study 1 (N = 120), younger (mean age 4.1 years old) and older (mean age 5.9 years old) participants overheard two adults discuss a target child's act of generosity, and in a between-subjects manipulation, the conversation included either praise for the target child, or criticism. Participants in the older group were more likely to behave generously on a distribution task if the overheard conversation involved praise rather than criticism, but the participants in the younger group showed no such effect. Study 2 (N = 150) and Study 3 (N = 60) were preregistered follow-up studies that included older children only (a 5-year-old group). Study 2 showed that children were again more likely to share after overhearing a conversation in which an individual who behaved generously was described in favorable terms, and the same effect was seen when the overheard conversation involved criticism of an individual who did not share. The procedure of Study 3 matched that of Study 1, except the distributions were made in private, and the overheard conversation effect was seen once again. These findings suggest that by age 5, children can use information they hear about individuals who are not present to guide their own behavior, and that overheard evaluative comments can promote generosity.

Although delay-of-gratification tasks have long been used as measures of self-control, recent evidence suggests that performance on these tasks is also driven by rational decision processes. The present research examined whether the effects of rational decision processes extend beyond costs and benefits embedded in the task itself to include anticipated consequences for the child’s reputation. Across two studies, 3- and 4-year-olds from China ( N = 273) were assigned to a standard delay-of-gratification condition or to a reputation condition in which they were told that their teacher or a peer would find out how long they had waited. Children waited longer in the reputation conditions and longer in the teacher condition than in the peer condition. This is the first evidence that children’s performance on a delay-of-gratification task is sensitive to reputational concerns and to the identity of potential evaluators of their behavior.

Although there is widespread acknowledgment that children acquire social and moral values during development via socialization processes, few plausible mechanisms have been systematically evaluated. In the present research, we examine the effectiveness of 1 potential mechanism: overheard conversations about the moral behavior of others. We examine this issue with reference to the important social value of honesty. Across 3 preregistered studies, preschool-age children in China (total N = 276) were presented with a version of the temptation resistance paradigm in which they were first given an opportunity to cheat by peeking at the answer in a guessing game and were then asked whether they had cheated. Study 1 included both 3- and 5-year-olds, and Studies 2 and 3 included 5-year-olds only. In Study 1 children were more likely to truthfully confess to peeking if they had previously overheard 2 adults say that another child's confession made them happy. An increase in truthful confessions was also seen in Study 2, even though this time the adult who asked about peeking had not been present for the overheard conversation. In Study 3, children were presented with an overheard conversation that lacked any emotion-related language, and the effect was seen once again. Taken together, these findings suggest that overheard conversations can be used to promote truth telling. More broadly, the findings suggest that children realize the attitudes adults express about others can have implications for their own behavior and can identify these attitudes, even when they are not the target of the communication. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Research on moral socialization has largely focused on the role of direct communication and has almost completely ignored a potentially rich source of social influence: evaluative comments that children overhear. We examined for the first time whether overheard comments can shape children's moral behavior. Three- and 5-year-old children (N = 200) participated in a guessing game in which they were instructed not to cheat by peeking. We randomly assigned children to a condition in which they overheard an experimenter tell another adult that a classmate who was no longer present is smart, or to a control condition in which the overheard conversation consisted of non-social information. We found that 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, cheated significantly more often if they overheard the classmate praised for being smart. These findings show that the effects of ability praise can spread far beyond the intended recipient to influence the behavior of children who are mere observers, and they suggest that overheard evaluative comments can be an important force in shaping moral development.

The observational learning approach, developed more than a half century ago, suggests that it is possible to promote desirable social behaviors through peer observation. However, this idea has yet to be put to a rigorous empirical test. The current research sought to fill this gap by examining whether honesty can be promoted in children by allowing them to observe a peer's display of honest behavior. The dependent measure was whether 5-year-old children who had cheated by peeking in a guessing game would confess to it. Study 1 showed that simply observing a classmate confess to peeking did not promote honesty. However, children who observed a classmate confess to peeking and receive praise and a small prize from an experimenter did became more honest. Study 2 replicated the effect with a weaker manipulation that involved praise for the confessing peer but no prize, which suggests that verbal feedback alone was a sufficient benefit. These findings point to new strategies for promoting honesty in young children and demonstrate that young children's observations of the social consequences of others' sociomoral behavior can help them to guide their own behavior.

Starting in early childhood, children are socialized to be honest. However, they are also expected to avoid telling the truth in sensitive situations if doing so could be seen as inappropriate or impolite. Across two studies (total N = 358), the reasoning of 3- to 5-year-old children in such a scenario was investigated by manipulating whether the information in question would be helpful to the recipient. The studies used a reverse rouge paradigm, in which a confederate with a highly salient red mark on her nose asked children whether she looked okay prior to having her picture taken. In Study 1, children tended to tell the truth only if they were able to observe that the mark was temporary and the confederate did not know it was there. In Study 2, children tended to tell the truth only if they were able to observe that the mark could be concealed with makeup. These findings show that for children as young as age 3, decisions about whether to tell the truth are influenced by the likelihood that the information would be helpful to the recipient.

Although there has been extensive research on how children distribute resources with respect to quantity, little is known about how these decisions are affected by resource quality. The current research addressed this question by conducting two preregistered studies in which 3-, 5-, and 7-year-old children (total N = 360) made anonymous distributions of high-quality and low-quality items. Quantitative fairness entailed distributing an equal number of items irrespective of quality, and qualitative fairness entailed distributing equal numbers of high-quality and low-quality items. In Study 1, a majority of 7-year-olds distributed resources equally between themselves and another child in terms of both quality and quantity, whereas a majority of 3- and 5-year-olds did so only in terms of quantity while giving themselves a qualitative advantage. In Study 2, a majority of children in all three age groups distributed resources equally between two other children in terms of both quality and quantity. Together with prior findings, these results suggest that children selectively ignore the dimension of quality when it serves their own interests. The results also show, for the first time, that by 7 years of age children consider quality even at the expense of their own interests and that children as young as 3 years have the capacity to take into account resource quality when making distributions.

Dishonest behavior brings lasting social costs by undermining personal relationships as well as trust in larger social institutions. However, individuals who learn how to deceive skillfully and strategically will find that they can use this ability to manipulate the beliefs of other people and shape social interactions. This chapter describes how research conducted from a developmental psychology perspective can inform our understanding of how and why individuals engage in dishonesty, and how the social costs can be mitigated.

This study investigated how children reason about true or false statements that are meant to damage or enhance the reputation of a third party. Six- to 12-year-old participants in South Korea (total N = 89) responded to a series of four scenarios in which one child, the evaluator, describes seeing a public performance that featured a second child who is new to the classroom. The scenarios were a factorial combination of the actual quality of the performance (good, bad) by the evaluator’s public assessment of it (good, bad). The evaluator who offered a false but positive performance assessment was rated by participants as trustworthy and likeable, and judged to have made the morally correct choice. In contrast, the evaluator who offered a truthful but negative performance assessment was rated negatively. The findings suggest that children tend to have a favorable view of efforts to promote the reputation of others, even if it involves telling a lie.

Children's sensitivity to context when making inferences about ability was investigated. In three studies, elementary school children (ages 5 to 10, total N = 332) were asked to reason about the relation between academic ability and the speed with which characters completed puzzle tasks. Participants were primed to interpret the characters' task completion rates with reference to either (1) the character's perceptions of the difficulty of the task, or (2) the character's level of effort on the task. Children who were primed to consider the perceived difficulty of the task were more likely to view ability as a static quality, a pattern of reasoning that included a tendency to associate task completion rates with ability, and to agree that not all individuals are capable of achieving high levels of success. These results provide evidence that even early elementary school children are sensitive to subtle contextual cues when making inferences about ability, and are consistent with the possibility that children make use of implicit cues available to them in their social environment to derive meaning from achievement situations.

Two memory-based theories of automaticity were compared. The mixture model and the race model both describe automatization as a transition from algorithmic processing to memory retrieval. The mixture model predicts that, with training, the variability of reaction time will initially increase, and later decrease in a concave downward manner, whereas the race model predicts the variability will decrease only in a concave upward manner. The mixture model predicts that using both algorithm and retrieval on a single trial will be slower than using the algorithm alone, whereas the race model predicts the reverse. The experiments used an alphabet arithmetic task, in which subjects verified equations of the form H + 3 = K and made subjective reports of their strategies on individual trials. Both the variability of reaction times and the pattern of reaction times associated with the strategy reports supported the race model.

The reliability of subjects’ judgments of the groups present in dot patterns and the sensitivity of those judgments to stimulus transformation were assessed. The subjects indicated the groups that they saw within random dot patterns, and each judgment was compared with those of other subjects and with their own judgments for related presentations. Within subjects, each pattern appeared in an initial presentation, an identical repetition, and a transformed state (a rotation or a change in scale). Witfiin-subjects judgments were more reliable than between-subjects judgments. An interpretation of within-subjects results was made in relation to predictions made by a formal algorithm of grouping by proximity (the CODE algorithm), which assumes that grouping by proximity is invariant over transformations such as rotations or changes in scale. A slight cost to transforming the patterns was found. The implications for CODE and for using grouping judgments as data are discussed.

A formal approach to the phenomenon of perceptual grouping by proximity was investigated. Grouping judgments of random dot patterns were made by the CODE algorithm (van Oeffelen & Vos, 1982) and several related algorithms, and these judgments were compared with subjects’ grouping judgments for the same stimuli. Each algorithm predicted significantly more subject judgments than would be expected by chance. The more subjects agreed on how a given dot pattern should be grouped, the more successful was the algorithms’ ability to match the judgments for that pattern. CODE predicted significantly fewer subject judgments than did some of the other algorithms, largely because of its overemphasis on the extent of interactivity among dots as they are being grouped.