title: Eliciting promises from children reduces cheating.
abstract: Widespread cheating can undermine rules that are necessary for maintaining social order. Preventing cheating can be a challenge, especially with regard to children, who as a result of their limited executive function skills may have particular difficulty with resisting temptation to cheat. We examined one approach designed to help children resist this temptation: eliciting a verbal commitment to not cheat. We tested 4- to 7-year-olds (total N = 330) and found that starting at 5 years of age, a verbal commitment to not cheat led to a substantial reduction in cheating. The results suggest that verbal commitments can be used to help children overcome temptations and comply with rules.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA; Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang 321004, China. Electronic address: gheyman@ucsd.edu.
authors.forename: Gail D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Heyman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang 321004, China.
authors.forename: Genyue
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.affiliation: Wuxi Institute of Technology, Wuxi, Jiangsu 214121, China.
authors.forename: Jianyan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang 321004, China.
authors.forename: Miao K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang 321004, China; Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6, Canada.
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D032763:Behavior Control / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D008192:Deception; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests
keywords: Cheating; Child behavior; Compliance; Moral development; Promising; Temptation resistance