Studies were conducted in which children chose whether to keep a promise or tell the truth in three hypothetical dilemmas. Their initial choices were then counter-probed by adult interviewers to assess their suggestibility. In these studies, conducted in Recife (Brazil) and New York City, younger children (6 to 8) were more suggestible on some of the dilemmas than older children (10-12), and shifting was more frequent from promise to truth than from truth to promise. There was significantly greater suggestibility evidenced by the U.S. than the Brazilian children, particularly on two of the dilemmas. Replication studies in the U.S. and Brazil confirm this difference, which may be explained, in part, by different authority relationships observed in schools in the two cultures. Findings are discussed in terms of heteronomy, the significant features of the dilemmas, and authority relations within culture.
Suggestibility; moral reasoning; dilemmas
