Moral Stories Can Promote Honesty in Chinese Young Children

Stories are widely used by parents or educators to teach children the virtue of honesty. However, the existing empirical findings on the effect of story-telling on children's honesty are limited and mixed. This study examined whether moral stories involving honesty can promote honesty in Chinese preschool children (N = 208). The Temptation Resistance Paradigm (TRP) was used to assess children's honesty. Study 1 showed that children in the positive moral story condition were more likely to tell the truth than those in the control condition, while negative moral story-telling did not have this effect. Study 2 further examined whether combining external appeals with positive moral story-telling could further promote children's honesty, and the results showed that the combination of the two techniques was equally as effective as moral story-telling alone. These findings have important implications for moral development and moral education.