ARE ANTHROPOMORPHIZED ANIMAL MORAL STORIES EFFECTIVE IN PROMOTING HONEST BEHAVIOUR?

Abstract

Past research has found that positive moral stories promote honesty in children, which is an important virtue. The current study examined whether anthropomorphized animal moral stories would be as effective as human moral stories at promoting honesty. A modified Temptation Resistance Paradigm (TRP) was used to examine spontaneous honest behaviour in 3- to 6-year-old Singaporean children, after they were told a moral story. Results showed that for 3- to 4-year-olds, the elephant moral story was as effective as the human-positive story (Experiment 1), while the rat moral story was less effective than the human-positive story (Experiment 2). Variations in how much children liked the characters could explain the discrepancies between the two animal conditions. Additional analyses on emotions elicited during moral stories suggests a difference between animal and human moral stories, specifically sadness and contempt. The current study has implications for moral education, where not all anthropomorphized animal moral stories were effective - animal stories were effective only to the extent to which children like the character. In addition, positive moral stories were ineffective in promoting honesty for 5- to 6-year-olds regardless of characters used. This suggests an age difference in effectiveness of moral stories in promoting honesty.