儿童面对不同对象的欺骗表现及其相关的社会性特点

Children’s Deceptive Behavior and Related Social Characteristics

为进一步探讨儿童欺骗行为的表现及其影响因素,在研究一中,分别引入陌生的成年女性、成年男性、同龄女孩、同龄男孩等四种游戏对手,探讨159名幼儿园大班的儿童在面对不同对象的情况下外显欺骗行为是否发生变化?结果表明,被试性别、对手年龄和对手性别三因素之间交互作用显著,儿童更倾向于欺骗成年女性以及和自己性别不同的同伴。研究二采用儿童社会化量表进一步考察儿童欺骗行为和其它社会性特点的关联。结果表明隐蔽的动作欺骗和意志维度显著相关,外显的动作欺骗和好胜心维度显著相关,说谎和自我概念维度显著相关。

Introduction Previous research by the authors （Shi ＆ Su, 2006） suggests that children＇ s deceptive behavior not only is related to their executive function as indicated in the studies of Carlson （1989） and Hala （2001）, it may also be related to the magnitude of the situational intimidation felt by the children when they are deceiving or going to deceive others. Extending this argument, in this study we examined children＇s deceptive behavior as functions of felt intimidation. Method and Results In Study 1, different interactive partners were involved in an overt deceptive situation where children had to deceive directly in the face of their partner. When facing different partners, children would have different degree of intimidation and thus different patterns of deceptive behavior would be seen. In particular, this experiment focused on 6 - year - olds＇ deceptive/honest behavior when facing a male adult, a female adult, a same - age boy or a same - age girl as their competitive target in overt situations. The results showed that children ＇s gender, target＇s gender and age had an interaction effect on children＇s deceptive/honest behavior. Children tended to cheat the amiable female adult but were honest to the stricter male. To some extent, this result supports our hypothesis and underlies the interaction effect between gender and age of the deceivers and the people being deceived. Boys tend to cheat other same - age boys just as girls tend to cheat other same - age girls. Combining the results of our previous research and Study 1 of this research, we found that children＇s deceptive behavior was in fact so complicated that it was correlated with various factors including situational intimidation and children＇s theory of mind. Similarly, other studies （Shapiro, 2005; Ostrov, 2006） have shown that such variables as children＇s relational aggression and temperament are also associated with children＇s deceptive behavior. In order to systematically understand the possible antecedents leading to children＇s deceptive behavior （which might predict children＇s future internalizing and externalizing problematic behavior）, in Study 2 we explored whether children＇s other social characteristics were involved in children＇s deceptive behavior in various situations. We adopted the social development scale for 4 - to 7 - year - olds to measure multiple dimensions of children＇s social developmental characteristics. The results showed that children＇s deception in covert situation was significantly correlated with children＇s will. On the other hand, children＇s behavioral overt deception was significantly correlated with emulative anxiety, while lying behavior was significantly correlated with their sellconcept. Conclusion These results demonstrate that, if the deceptive action is relatively difficult to perform so that children have to perform it covertly, children＇s will power may affect their deceptive behavior. But if the deceptive action is easy to carry out overtly, then children＇s degree of emulative anxiety is very strongly associated with this deceptive behavior. As for lying, children who have a higher self- concept are more likely to lie. These and other results remind us of the fact that deception is related to various social characteristics of the children in different deceptive situations. When we study children＇s deceptive behavior in general and want to determine whether we need to intervene children＇s deceptive behavior, we need to take all these factors into consideration.