Abstract This study investigated how children reason about true or false statements that are meant to damage or enhance the reputation of a third party. Six- to 12-year-old participants in South Korea (total N = 89) responded to a series of four scenarios in which one child, the evaluator, describes seeing a public performance that featured a second child who is new to the classroom. The scenarios were a factorial combination of the actual quality of the performance (good, bad) by the evaluator’s public assessment of it (good, bad). The evaluator who offered a false but positive performance assessment was rated by participants as trustworthy and likeable, and judged to have made the morally correct choice. In contrast, the evaluator who offered a truthful but negative performance assessment was rated negatively. The findings suggest that children tend to have a favorable view of efforts to promote the reputation of others, even if it involves telling a lie.

中文翻译：

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孩子们赞成说谎以谋取他人的声誉

摘要 本研究调查了儿童如何对旨在损害或提升第三方声誉的真实或虚假陈述进行推理。韩国 6 至 12 岁的参与者（总 N = 89）对一系列四种场景做出回应，其中一个孩子，即评估者，描述了观看公开表演，其中第二个孩子是新来的课堂。这些场景是评估者对其的公开评估（好、坏）的实际性能质量（好、坏）的因子组合。提供虚假但积极的绩效评估的评估者被参与者评为值得信赖和讨人喜欢的评价者，并判断其做出了道德上正确的选择。相比之下，提供真实但负面绩效评估的评估者被评为负面。