ORCID
- Patricia Kanngiesser: 0000-0003-1068-3725
- Jan K. Woike: 0000-0002-6816-121X
Abstract
Cheating is harmful to others and society at large. Promises have been shown to increase honesty in children, but their effectiveness has not been compared between different cultural contexts. In a study (2019) with 7- to 12-year-olds (N = 406, 48% female, middle-class), voluntary promises reduced cheating in Indian, but not in German children. Children in both contexts cheated, but cheating rates were lower in Germany than in India. In both contexts, cheating decreased with age in the (no-promise) control condition and was unaffected by age in the promise condition. These findings suggest that there may exist a threshold beyond which cheating cannot be further reduced by promises. This opens new research avenues on how children navigate honesty and promise norms.
DOI Link
Publication Date
2024-01-01
Publication Title
Child Development
Volume
95
Issue
1
ISSN
0009-3920
Acceptance Date
2023-05-22
Deposit Date
2023-10-17
Embargo Period
2023-10-20
Funding
P.K. was supported by a Freigeist Fellowship from Volkswagen Foundation (grant no. 89611). Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
First Page
16
Last Page
23
Recommended Citation
Kanngiesser, P., Sunderarajan, J., & Woike, J. (2024) 'Cheating and the effect of promises in Indian and German children', Child Development, 95(1), pp. 16-23. Available at: 10.1111/cdev.13952
