Social Antecedents of Children's Trustworthiness

A total of 1329 children were tested twice across 1year (M=7years 5?months of age at Time 1 (T1)) in the Zurich Project on Social Development. The measures at T1 were corporal punishment, neighbourhood trustworthiness and children's trustworthiness (not lying/cheating and not stealing). At Time 2 (T2), children reported the promise keeping of their classmates, which, via social relations analyses, yielded evidence for individual differences in reliability trustworthiness. Structural equation modelling analyses confirmed that there was stability in children's trustworthiness as a latent variable. The structural equation modelling further yielded evidence that (1) corporal punishment at T1 was negatively associated with children's trustworthiness at T1 and negatively predicted changes in children's trustworthiness and (2) neighbourhood trustworthiness at T1 was positively associated with children's trustworthiness at T1 and positively predicted changes in children's trustworthiness. The findings yielded support for the hypotheses that corporal punishment negatively, and neighbourhood trustworthiness positively, contributes to the development of trustworthiness in children. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.