HONESTY REPUTATION REDUCES CHILDREN’S FLATTERY BEHAVIOR

Abstract

The present study examined the influence of reputation management on children’s flattery behaviors, specifically, if presenting children with honesty reputational verbal cues would reduce their flattery behaviors. A total of 50 children aged 4.5-6 years old rated drawings in the absence and presence of the experimenter who claimed authorship of the drawing in two conditions; Control and Honest condition. All children went through the Control condition first, a baseline measure for children’s flattery behaviors without any manipulation. Subsequently, in the Honest condition, children were presented with honesty reputational verbal cues (“I do not like children who tell lies”) from the experimenter who claimed authorship of the drawing to reduce flattery behaviors in children. Results suggest that children flattered to a lesser extent when the experimenter who claimed authorship of the drawing presented children with honesty reputational verbal cues, suggesting that reputation management does play a role in influencing flattery behaviors in children. Previously not explored, these results shed light on the underlying motivations behind flattery in children, in which children flatter others in order to maintain a good reputation of themselves.