EAPSI: Analyzing cultural differences about how children make moral judgments under social pressure

Kim Elizabeth B, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

Recent research has found that in the face of conflicting visual evidence, children as young as 4 years old conform to their inaccurate peers. Moreover, Asian American children conform at higher rates than Caucasian American children, suggesting that cultural differences in parenting style might account for some of these differences. The present study will explore how cultural norms impact children's ability to make visual, moral, and social-conventional judgments under social pressure. Understanding why Singaporean preschool children might be sensitive to their peers as a key social reference group can help us to prevent poor social learning and peer pressure issues in primary school. Singapore's unique educational emphasis and societal control over moral responsibility makes it an opportune culture for researchers to examine moral conformity. This research will be conducted in collaboration with Professor Catherine Wan, a noted Asian Social Psychology expert, at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Using modified versions of a classic conformity task, the structure of the study will include video clips followed by interviews. During the study, 3-5 year old children will be asked to perform basic perceptual tasks (i.e. determining line length), moral judgment tasks (i.e. determining whether it is acceptable to shove another child), and social-conventional tasks (i.e. determining whether it is acceptable to wear a bathing suit to school). The rate at which children either choose to go with their own judgment or agree with what the inaccurate groups in the videos say will be measured. Surveys will also be distributed to the parents to examine the influence of child's temperament and parenting styles on conformity. Examining how Singaporean children make decisions has larger implications for other collectivist societies and minority groups that share group-oriented tendencies. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the National Research Foundation of Singapore.