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Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children? [pdf]

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Re: Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children? [pdf]

#21

Post by bane »

pling wrote: post #17

Probably a rather geeky thing to say but Star Trek TNG promoted honesty, morality and a strong sense of ethics to me. That IMHO is no different to classic moral stories as the basic premise is the same in some episodes.

What's also been interesting to me is the more recent sci-fi shows like Battlestar Galactica or Stargate:Universe that try and set up a Star Trek like moral dilemma, and you know exactly what a Star Trek TNG captain would do, and the writers will cause the Captain to take the opposite moral choice, often for good reasons.

It's a bit like the TNG ethics are being used as an ethical framework to bounce modern issues off of and continue the cause of sci-fi as social commentary, but in a sense the commentary is the upright TNG style morals and how desperate circumstances might make it difficult to uphold those values.

Re: Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children? [pdf]

#22

Post by naturalethic »

pling wrote: post #17

Probably a rather geeky thing to say but Star Trek TNG promoted honesty, morality and a strong sense of ethics to me. That IMHO is no different to classic moral stories as the basic premise is the same in some episodes.

Ultima IV started my moral trek.

Re: Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children? [pdf]

#23

Post by naturalethic »

sogen wrote: post #3

tl;dr: Stories focusing on the positive aspects: Good. --> i.e. George Washington and the Cherry Tree Stories focusing on the negative consequences: BAD. ( Pinocchio , The Boy Who Cried Wolf )

Gotta love it when morality tales are crossed with government worship. It's a twofer.

Re: Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children? [pdf]

#24

Post by watwut »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #8
k-mcgrady wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange. I find the boy who cried wolf to be a really good one. It's still something I think of from time to time. I doesn't stop me telling the odd lie but if/when I consider a big lie I definitely consider the consequences based on that story.

I suspect that the age of the children has a big impact on the results. The study was of 3-7 year olds. If you remember it well then you were at the upper end of that range, if not older.

Why was this downvoted?

Re: Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children? [pdf]

#25

Post by aimhb »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #8
k-mcgrady wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange. I find the boy who cried wolf to be a really good one. It's still something I think of from time to time. I doesn't stop me telling the odd lie but if/when I consider a big lie I definitely consider the consequences based on that story.

I suspect that the age of the children has a big impact on the results. The study was of 3-7 year olds. If you remember it well then you were at the upper end of that range, if not older.

Yes. The Boy Who Cried Wolf has other issues, as well, though; I remember thinking (as a child) that it was as much the villagers' fault for not believing the kid as it was the kid's fault for lying before.

Re: Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children? [pdf]

#28

Post by thret »

jedunnigan wrote: post #11

>During the game, children were left alone for 1 min and told not to cheat by peeking at the toy. Because of the highly tempting nature of the situation, most children were expected to cheat (e.g., Talwar & Lee, 2002). Before confronting them with the question of whether they had cheated, an experimenter read one of three moral stories or a control story to each child. It would have been interesting if they had anoth…

Why would they have expected children to cheat? My family played games of all kinds regularly from a very early age, cheating was unthinkable. There's no game without honesty.

Re: Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children? [pdf]

#29

Post by thret »

rayiner wrote: post #19
pling wrote: post #17

Probably a rather geeky thing to say but Star Trek TNG promoted honesty, morality and a strong sense of ethics to me. That IMHO is no different to classic moral stories as the basic premise is the same in some episodes.

This is a wonderful point. Star Trek, particularly TNG, has always had some very strongly moral characters. Picard, obviously, but also Sisko in DS9.

Why did you elevate Picard and Sisko morally over Kirk or Janeway?

Actually all officers on Star Trek seem to be of high moral character, I can't think of one who isn't.

Re: Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children? [pdf]

#30

Post by waps »

wwweston wrote: post #9

Years ago, I read study about reducing corruption/abuse in police departments. It suggested that programs designed to promote a professional identity was more effective than more weight/manpower behind internal affairs. Maybe for most humans a positive ideal to strive for is better than the threat of punishment.

Given that the human mind is essentially a behaviour-copy machine this is very likely true.

But keep in mind : the purpose of punishment is to remove examples of bad behaviour. Without effective punishment, bad behaviour will quickly crowd out any good examples you may set.

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