British Journal of Developmental Psychology (2000 ), 18, 499–517 Printed in Great Britain 499

# 2000 The British Psychological Society

The development of an understanding of

modesty

Robin Banerjee*
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, UK

Previous research has shown that children’s understanding of how others evaluate
them improves during primary school. Modesty reflects a complex form of this
understanding, since one must appreciate that a self-deprecating presentation of the
self can lead to enhanced social evaluation. The present research examines the
understanding of modesty in children aged between 6 and 10 years. In Expt 1, 179
children were asked to choose between modest and immodest responses to praise in
hypothetical situations, and then to justify their choices. Children from age 8
onwards not only showed a preference for the modest responses but also justified this
preference in terms of the negative impact of immodesty on social evaluation. In
Expt 2, 60 children judged modest and immodest responses, and also completed two
social cognition tasks tapping second-order mental-state reasoning. A teacher-
assessed measure of self-monitoring was also administered. As in the first
experiment, children from age 8 viewed modest responses more positively than
immodest responses. Furthermore, attitudes towards modesty were associated with
individual differences in self-monitoring and social cognition, such that children
with greater sensitivity to the interpersonal dynamics of social situations were more
likely than others to rate modest responses positively. Implications for under-
standing children’s social behaviour are discussed.

Leary (1996, p. 68) states that the ‘modesty norm puts impression managers in a bit of a
dilemma. On the one hand, we usually want other people to perceive us as positively as
possible but, on the other hand, self-presentational norms require that we not be too self-
aggrandizing.’ It is clear that for adults, immodesty can often lead to negative social
evaluation. Leary (1996) notes that those who violate the modesty norm risk social
rejection and labelling as braggarts or show-offs, and anecdotal evidence would suggest
that by the end of primary school being called a ‘show-off’ is most definitely not a
compliment. There is little empirical data, however, on how modesty norms develop
during this period of childhood.
One of the first pieces of experimental work on children’s self-presentational
behaviour was a study conducted in Japan (Yoshida, Kojo, & Kaku, 1982), using a
sample of 8- to 11-year-olds. This study consisted of several experiments, aimed at
* Requests for reprints should be addressed to Dr Robin Banerjee, School of Cognitive and Computing
Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK
(e-mail:robinb @ cogs.susx.ac.uk ).
500 Robin Banerjee
determining when children appreciate the positive effect of modesty on others’
evaluations of the self, and when they are able to translate that understanding into action
and use modest self-presentations themselves. Children from age 8 predicted that a story
character who describes himself immodestly after receiving praise would be negatively
evaluated by his peers. Modest responses, in contrast, were expected to lead to positive
peer evaluation. This pattern was most pronounced for the question, ‘How good [in
terms of overall character] a person will they think he is?’ (character evaluation ).
Interestingly, Yoshida et al. also asked children the question, ‘How good at [the skill for
which he was praised] will they think he is?’ (ability evaluation ). Here, the benefit of a
modest self-presentation was not recognized by the younger age groups. For example,
the 8-year-old girls predicted that a self-enhancing response would lead to higher ability
evaluations despite the more negative character evaluations. The only children who saw
modest self-presentations as leading to both higher character evaluations and higher
ability evaluations were the 11-year-old boys. It is clear from Yoshida et al.’s
experiments, however, that obtaining positive character evaluations was more important
for many of the children than obtaining positive ability evaluations. Thus, in the third
experiment of their study, where children chose from a list of self-descriptors either
alone or in view of their peers, even the 8-year-olds were less likely to be self-enhancing
in front of peers. To summarize, children from age 8 understood that modesty would
lead to social approval of one’s character and therefore were themselves more self-
deprecating when in front of an audience than when alone.
Since Yoshida et al.’s (1982) study, there has been no systematic study of modesty in
children, despite the fact that the emergence of a modesty norm would be expected to
have a significant impact on children’s social behaviour. However, a more recent study
gives some indirect support to the idea that modesty is valued positively at age 8.
Bennett and Yeeles (1990) showed that 8-year-olds, while easily able to identify the
characteristics of show-offs, often were at a loss to explain their behaviour or simply
branded the children as ‘naughty’ or as ‘think[ing] that they’re the best’ (p. 593). This is
compatible with the suggestion that 8-year-olds have a modesty norm. Indeed, one
might argue that the norm is generally held quite firmly at this age, since Bennett and
Yeeles observed that an insight into the interpersonal motives of those who violate this
norm did not appear to be present until age 11.
Although the evidence discussed above suggests that 8-year-olds evaluate modest
behaviour positively, little is known about children’s understanding of the motivations
underlying modesty. Even in Yoshida et al.’s study, the measures consisted of forced-
choice responses and ratings. In addition to such response options, open-ended
justifications are needed to determine exactly what children understand of the
motivations underlying modesty. In addition, there is as yet no understanding of the
development of the modesty norm. First, there is no knowledge of when the modesty
norm emerges, since even the youngest children in Yoshida et al.’s sample appeared to
favour modesty. How would children younger than age 8 respond to the presence of an
audience? Furthermore, the experiment was purely descriptive: no hypotheses about
specific factors responsible for the understanding of modesty were tested. The present
research investigates the development of modesty with reference to age, gender and
social cognition.
What does existing theory and research say about the likely pattern of development in
 Children’s understanding of modesty 501
modesty? First, an understanding of modesty may be taken to reflect an awareness of
self-presentational processes – attempts to shape others’ impressions of the self. Banerjee
and Yuill (1999a), in their examination of the development of emotional display rules,
have demonstrated that children as young as age 5 have the cognitive capability for
understanding such processes. However, it is not until age 8 that we see spontaneous
references to self-presentational motives (Banerjee & Yuill, 1999b) and to worries about
social evaluation (Vasey, Crnic, & Carter, 1994). Children of this age thus are able to see
why one might alter one’s behaviour to avoid making negative impressions. Parker and
Gottman (1989) have explicitly recognized this emergence of a motivational concern
with social evaluation. In their model of friendship formation, they argue that while 3-
to 7-year-olds have the goal of playful interaction with peers, 8- to 12-year-olds seek
peer acceptance by conforming to group norms. At this time, the use of social
comparison information for evaluation of the self and other becomes important (Ruble,
1985). The increased significance of positive social evaluation is reflected in the
‘negative gossip’ and teasing that is so evident at this age (e.g. Gottman, 1986). Given
this state of affairs, it seems to be in the interest of the 7- or 8-year-old to be concerned
about social evaluation, and to use strategies for shaping that evaluation. Modest self-
presentation is of special interest, however, because a less enhancing presentation of the
self is used to obtain favourable social evaluation. Coupling Yoshida et al.’s (1982)
finding of modesty in 8-year-olds with the above evidence regarding concerns about
social evaluation, it would be reasonable to expect children of this age not only to prefer
modest self-presentations, but also to appreciate the impact of such behaviour on the
way they are evaluated by others.
To summarize, the above argument portrays the development of self-presentation
(and specifically modesty) as a product of cognitive and motivational factors. In
particular, an appreciation of modesty requires first the cognitive capability for
understanding the second-order mental states involved (i.e. thinking about how one is
being represented by others). Importantly, additional motivational concerns must also
be present: unless children understand why one may be concerned about social
evaluation, they are unlikely to appreciate the concept of modest self-presentation. This
has important implications for one’s conceptualization of the forces driving the
development of self-presentation. As suggested above, motivational transitions in the
concern about social evaluation are likely to develop in line with changes in peer
interaction patterns. Furthermore, it is conceivable that other socialization forces (e.g.
parenting) have an impact on the use of self-presentational strategies such as modesty.
Just as authors have already argued that the use of certain emotional display rules is
explicitly encouraged in the socialization process (e.g. Gnepp & Hess, 1986), it seems
plausible to suggest that changing responses to children’s immodesty by parents and
other adults over the developmental course could have an impact on the children’s use
and understanding of self-presentational tactics. As a first step towards exploring the
factors involved in the development of modesty, the research reported here includes an
examination of how several cognitive and motivational variables are related to the
understanding of modesty.
Can one expect similar patterns of development for males and females? One may
stereotypically associate modesty with the feminine sex role, but evidence from the adult
literature on sex differences in this area is not clear. Some studies have found that
502 Robin Banerjee
females are indeed more likely than males to prefer modest self-presentations (e.g.
Brown, Uebelacker, & Heatherington, 1998; Heatherington et al., 1993). However, this
tendency appears only when the audience is perceived as low-achieving, suggesting that
modesty is only used to protect the audience’s self-esteem (e.g. Daubman,
Heatherington, & Ahn, 1992; Heatherington et al., 1993). The present study explored
the possibility of sex differences in the development of modesty during childhood.
Finally, culture is another variable that may be of interest here. Certainly there is
evidence that modesty is prized more highly in some cultures than in others. In
particular, bearing in mind that Yoshida et al.’s (1982) study was conducted in Japan,
there is plenty of evidence from studies of attribution that the typical self-serving biases
of Western adults are often replaced by a ‘self-effacing bias’ in Japanese and Chinese
adults (e.g. Chandler, Shama, Wolf, & Planchard, 1981; Kashima & Triandis, 1986;
Takata, 1987). It is particularly interesting to note that this reversal is stronger when
responses are given publicly than when they are anonymous (Wan & Bond, 1982). If
public self-deprecation is a stronger value in Japanese culture than in Western culture, it
is possible that English children see the evaluative benefits of modesty later than the
Japanese children in Yoshida et al.’s study.
An initial pilot study examined English children’s preference for modest rather than
immodest self-presentations in 88 children aged between 8 and 10. The children heard
two stories where a new pupil at school is praised in front of peers, and were then told
that the character could respond in either of two ways, one of which was modest and the
other immodest. Children were asked to choose the best response for the new pupil if he
wanted to make friends. It was found that in this age group, as with the corresponding
Japanese sample, there was a clear preference for modest self-descriptions, with
approximately 85% of the children choosing the modest response for each story.
Furthermore, approximately 75% of those children who chose the modest response were
able to justify their choice in terms of social evaluation concerns (e.g. ‘Otherwise they’d
think he was a boaster and wouldn’t like him’). Thus, the children not only looked more
favourably on modest responses at age 8 but were also able to justify this preference by
reference to the impact on social evaluation. The first experiment reported below uses
this methodology with a larger age range to test the hypothesis that this understanding
of modesty appears at age 8. The second experiment extends the research by directly
examining associations with measures of social cognition and motivation.

EXPERIMENT 1
This experiment elaborates on the pilot work reported above. Boys and girls aged
between 6 and 10 years were required to choose a modest or immodest self-description
for a new pupil at school who has been praised for some skill in front of classmates and
who wants to make friends. It was hypothesized that children aged 8 and above would
show a preference for the modest responses and would be able to explain this preference
in terms of social evaluation concerns. Younger children, for whom social evaluation
concerns are not likely to be as salient, were expected to show, if anything, a preference
for self-enhancing responses. Such a preference would follow from a bias towards positive
self-evaluation in this age group (e.g. Harter, 1988), and would not be expected to be
the result of a self-presentational desire to appear competent to others.
 Children’s understanding of modesty 503
Method
Participants
The sample included a total of 179 children, aged 6 (N = 60, 30 girls, mean age = 6;7, range = 6;1–
7;1), 8 (N = 60, 30 girls, mean age = 8;7, range = 8;1–9;3), and 10 (N = 59, 29 girls, mean
age = 10;7, range = 10;1–11;1), from three urban primary schools in mainly working-class
neighbourhoods.

Design and procedure

A male experimenter worked with each child individually in a quiet room. Children heard two cartoon-
illustrated stories where the protagonist, a new pupil in school who wants to make friends, is praised by a
teacher. They then heard two possible responses that the protagonist could make, one modest and one
immodest (given with appropriate intonation that highlighted the modest self-deprecation and boastful
self-enhancement). The children were required to decide which of the two options would be a better
response, and to justify their selection. One of the stories concerned a child who is praised for making a
good catch in PE class, while the other story concerned a child who is praised in class for performing well
on his maths work. In both cases, the immodest response involved exaggerated self-enhancement (‘Well,
that’s because I’m really good at basketball’ and ‘Well, that’s because I’m really clever at maths’ ), and the
modest response involved self-deprecation (‘Oh, I was just lucky’ and ‘Oh, I’m not usually so good at it’ ).
The order in which children heard the stories was counterbalanced, and the order in which response
options were presented was randomized. A sample story, with questions, is presented in Appendix A.1

Scoring
Children received a score out of 2 for the number of modest responses selected, with a score of 2
indicating that the modest response was selected in both stories. Also, children’s justifications for their
selections were categorized according to the coding scheme given below. The categorization is presented
hierarchically, with the highest level (‘social evaluation’ – a theoretically derived category ) presented
first. Note that where multiple classifications could be made, the justification was categorized at the
highest level. An independent rater coded a quarter of the responses from each age group, and inter-rater
agreement was 99% (k = .98 ). The categories are as follows:

Social evaluation. Reference to others’ evaluations, or reference to showing-off or boasting (e.g. ‘If he said
that, they would think ‘‘Oh, he thinks he’s really clever’’ ’; ‘Otherwise that would be boasting’; ‘Because
then they’ll think he’s really good’).

Social outcomes. Reference to overt social consequences (e.g. ‘Then they’ll let him play in their team’;
‘They won’t be friends with him if he can’t do it’). For justifications placed in this category, further
probes (e.g. ‘Why?’ ‘How?’ ) did not elicit references to social evaluation.

Others’ feelings. Reference to others’ feelings (e.g. ‘So that they won’t feel bad that they’re not as good’; ‘So
they won’t feel jealous’ ).

Truth. Reference to the ‘true’ state of affairs (e.g. ‘Because he is really good at it’; ‘Otherwise it would be
lying because he can’t be that good’ ).

1
Note that children responded to the stories following completion of a self-description questionnaire for
another study in which they were participating.
504 Robin Banerjee
Residual. Any other response, including ‘Don’t know’, nonsense justifications and, very occasionally,
sensible justifications that did not fall into the above categories (e.g. ‘Then they won’t cheat and copy his
maths work’).

Results
The first analysis examined the effects of age and sex on children’s choice of response. A
two-way analysis of variance on the modesty score, with Age and Sex as the between-
subjects variables, revealed only a significant effect of Age (F = (2,173) = 20.80,
p < .001). Helmert contrasts showed that the youngest children performed significantly
worse than the two older age groups (p < .00001; mean scores (SDs) = .77 (.75), 1.33
(.73) and 1.58 (.63), with ascending age), while there was a tendency for the oldest age
group to score higher than the middle age group (p = .06). To put this another way,
42% of the youngest children chose the self-enhancing option in both stories, with only
18% choosing the modest option in both stories. The corresponding figures for the
children in the two older age groups are 11% and 56%, respectively. There were no
significant effects of Sex (Fs < 1). Finally, descriptive analysis showed that a modest
response was more likely to be chosen for the ball story than for the maths story (71%
vs. 51%, respectively ), and this was true in each age group. Thus, children were
significantly more likely to choose the modest option for the ball story and not for the
maths story than the reverse (McNemar w2(1) = 19.44, p < .001).
Children’s justifications for their choices were next examined. Preliminary analysis
showed that the two stories did not elicit different patterns of justifications. However,
there were clear age trends in the types of justifications offered. Table 1 shows the
distribution of justifications given by the children in each age group. Severe violations
of homogeneity of variance prevented the use of multivariate analysis, but there is
evidently a steady decline with age in justifications that refer to the ‘true state of affairs’
and a steady increase with age in justifications that refer to social evaluation or to
showing-off/boasting. Orthogonal contrasts with separate variance estimates show that
these differences are significant: for both types of justification, the youngest group
scored significantly differently from the older groups, and the middle group scored
significantly differently from the oldest group (all ps < .005).

Table 1. Mean numbers of each type of justification across both modesty stories (out of
2), by age group (Expt 1). SDs in parentheses
Social Social
Age evaluation outcomes Others’ feelings Truth Residual
6 (N = 60) 0.02 (0.13) 0.23 (0.56) 0.05 (0.29) 1.27 (0.86) 0.43 (0.67)
8 (N = 60) 0.52 (0.79) 0.40 (0.69) 0.08 (0.38) 0.72 (0.78) 0.28 (0.56)
10 (N = 59) 1.31 (0.84) 0.20 (0.52) 0.03 (0.18) 0.31 (0.68) 0.15 (0.45)

Analysis also revealed slight sex differences. First, boys were more likely than girls to
make justifications that referred to social outcomes (mean number of justifications out of
two (SDs) = .38 (.70) vs. .18 (.47), respectively; contrast p < .03), and this was
 Children’s understanding of modesty 505
particularly true in the middle age group (means (SDs) = .67 (.84) vs. .13 (.35)). Also,
while ‘residual’ justifications remained at a low level for boys in all age groups (Ms
(SDs) = .23 (.43), .27 (.58) and .23 (.57), with ascending age), there was a steady
decrease with age in the use of these justifications among girls (Ms (SDs) = .63 (.81),
.30 (.54) and .07 (.26)).
Finally, the type of justification used is strongly associated with the choice of modest
or immodest responses: 91% of the ‘social evaluation’ justifications were given when a
modest response had been chosen, while 62% of the ‘truth’ justifications were given
when an immodest response had been chosen. A composite score was constructed by
combining the forced-choice and justification responses. Children received a score out of
2 for the number of stories for which they not only chose the modest response but also
justified this choice by reference to social evaluation. Again, there was a severe violation
of homogeneity of variance making an analysis of variance on these scores inappropriate.
Table 2 shows clearly that while just one out of the 60 youngest children (2%) obtained
a score over 0, 27% of the middle age group and 75% of the oldest children scored above
0 (w2(4) = 73.41, p < .00001). No association with sex was found (w2(2) = 2.35, n.s.).

Table 2. Numbers of children achieving composite score of 0, 1 and 2 on modesty task,

by age group (Expt 1)
Age Score = 0 Score = 1 Score = 2
6 (N = 60) 59 1 0
8 (N = 60) 44 7 9
10 (N = 59) 15 15 29

Note. Composite scores represent the numbers of stories for which the modest response was chosen along with a
justification referring to social evaluation.

Discussion
This experiment provides clear support for the hypothesis that preferences for modesty
increase with age, with a change at age 8. This is consistent with Yoshida et al.’s (1982)
results, and with the indications in the literature that social evaluation becomes a salient
concern at this age. This experiment also found that the ability to provide appropriate
justifications for choosing the modest responses also increases with age, although only a
quarter of the 8-year-olds succeeded on this measure. By age 10, most of the children
were able to articulate clearly the rationale for being modest.
As expected, any preference shown by the younger children was more likely to be for
immodest than for modest responses. Importantly, virtually no references to social
evaluation were made in the justifications by this age group, despite the fact that
children of this age are cognitively capable of making such references (Banerjee & Yuill,
1999a). In fact, the most common type of justification in this age group was a reference
to the presumed ‘true state of affairs’ (e.g. ‘Because he is good’). This shows a clear lack
of orientation towards self-presentation in this age group. In contrast, the older children
are increasingly concerned about managing public face, not only in terms of an increase
506 Robin Banerjee
in the consistent preference for modest responses, but also in terms of an increase in the
ability to justify their preference in terms of social evaluation concerns. It is notable,
however, that only 56% of the children in the two older age groups chose the modest
option on both stories. This could simply be an artifact of giving the children two
similar stories with similar response options (which could encourage response
alternation ), but it is also possible that the modesty norm is not yet fully established
in all domains. This idea is given support by the finding of story differences in the
choice of modest responses. Children may perceive a modesty norm in some situations,
but not in others. Further research into the self-presentational preferences of pre-
adolescents and adolescents may reveal further changes in modesty norms.
Interestingly, there were no effects of sex, beyond slight differences in the
distribution of justifications. This is compatible with findings from Yoshida et al.
(1982) of only minimal and inconsistent sex differences. As mentioned earlier,
Heatherington and her colleagues (e.g. Daubman et al., 1992; Heatherington et al.,
1993) found that a stronger modesty bias in females only occurs when there is a
perceived threat to the audience’s self-esteem. Of course, in the present story scenarios,
the audience’s feelings are not very salient and indeed only very few justifications made
reference to prosocial motives for being modest. In contrast, both boys and girls became
increasingly aware of the social evaluative function of using modest self-descriptions.
What factors are responsible for this age trend? The above results have been explained
in terms of a general tendency to become increasingly concerned about social evaluation,
but it is possible that more specific cognitive and motivational factors can be identified.
In particular, as mentioned earlier, the social evaluative function of modesty would seem
to involve second-order mental-state reasoning: one must be thinking about others’
representations of the self. However, such capabilities are present in children as young as
age 5 (Banerjee & Yuill, 1999a), and one might argue that the important change here is
in motivational concerns that are separate from any basic cognitive prerequisites. These
issues are addressed directly in Expt 2.

EXPERIMENT 2
This experiment considers links between second-order reasoning, self-monitoring and
modesty. The modesty measure used here is more extensive than the one used in Expt 1,
and requires children to rate both modest and immodest responses. As in Yoshida et al.’s
(1982) study, children hear stories where the protagonist, who has been praised in
public, gives either a modest or an immodest self-description. Children are asked to
make judgments about the audience’s evaluations of the protagonist, both in terms of
the ability for which he has been praised and in terms of his character (how ‘nice’ he is).
The present experiment included an additional question where the child is required first
to decide whether the protagonist’s response was ‘a good thing to say’, and then to
justify this decision.
This experiment examines the social-cognitive correlates of modesty. An under-
standing of modesty involves a sophisticated coordination of mental states and
behaviour: children must understand the impact of an actor’s behaviour on the way other
people think about and respond to him or her. Several social-cognitive measures are
therefore included in this experiment. First, there are individual differences in
 Children’s understanding of modesty 507
sensitivity to the interpersonal dynamics of social situations which should relate to the
understanding of modesty. Teacher ratings of self-monitoring are used in this
experiment to examine this issue. The self-monitoring construct, developed and
explored in the context of adult personality and social psychology, concerns the extent to
which individuals regulate their behaviour in response to social cues (Snyder, 1987).
Individuals classed as high on self-monitoring will tend to alter their behaviour to fit
different social situations, whereas low self-monitors will tend to behave more
consistently across situations. High self-monitors therefore are better than low self-
monitors at tailoring their self-presentational behaviour to the particular situation and
audience at hand (see Snyder, 1987). Self-monitoring should therefore be correlated with
the tactical use and understanding of modesty to enhance social evaluation. Eder’s
(1984) teacher-rating form of the Self-Monitoring Questionnaire requires the teacher to
rate the child on 25 statements derived from the items in Snyder’s (1974) original
questionnaire. Eder and Jones (1989) observed that preschoolers’ scores on this scale
were correlated with the ability to produce and recognize facial expressions of emotion
(an ability that may be regarded as an early indicator of the interpersonal sensitivity of
interest here).
Finally, two measures of second-order mental-state reasoning were included, since
thinking about how one is being represented by others is the basis of self-presentation.
Sullivan, Zaitchik, and Tager-Flusberg’s (1994) second-order false-belief task was used
as a basic measure of understanding second-order mental representations. However, this
measure taps only the basic cognitive prerequisite for understanding self-presentation,
which as mentioned earlier has been found in children as young as age 5 (Banerjee &
Yuill, 1999a). Therefore a second measure of second-order mental-state reasoning was
included that contains motivational as well as cognitive components. The ‘faux pas’ task,
based on O’Riordan, Baron-Cohen, Jones, Stone, and Plaisted (1996), requires children
to explain an unintended insult (e.g. X tells Y he hates the violin, not knowing that Y
loves the violin ). In particular, children must explain how X did not mean to upset Y by
referring to X’s ignorance about Y’s attitude. Strictly speaking, as a cognitive measure of
second-order reasoning, this is easier than the second-order false-belief task because this
deals with second-order ignorance (X doesn’t know that Y likes . . . rather than second-
order belief (X thinks that Y thinks that . . ., and knowledge states are understood earlier
than belief (representational ) states (Hogrefe, Wimmer, & Perner, 1986). However, the
faux pas task may be more difficult for children because it requires a motivational
orientation towards what different people are thinking and feeling. Unlike the Sullivan
et al. (1994) task and many other standard theory of mind tasks, which deal with beliefs
about object identity or location, this task demands sensitivity to the multiple links
between thoughts, feelings and behaviours in social situations. Since an understanding
of modesty also involves a similar orientation to these interpersonal processes, a link
between modesty and faux pas understanding was expected.

Method
Participants
Sixty children from a primary school in an urban, middle-class neighbourhood participated in this
experiment. The sample is divided into three age groups with 10 boys and 10 girls each. Children were
508 Robin Banerjee
aged 6 (mean age = 6;3, range = 5;9–6;8 ), 8 (mean age = 8;2, range = 7;9–8;8) and 10 (mean
age = 10;3, range = 9;9–10;9).

Measures and materials

Four measures were used in this task. First, the modesty task included four stories, each accompanied by a
cartoon-style illustration. Each story involved a situation where the protagonist is praised in public and
then responds either modestly or immodestly. Children were asked to think about how the other
characters in the story would evaluate the protagonist in terms of his ability at the task for which he has
been praised and in terms of how nice he is (e.g. ‘What will the other children think about Fred: Will
they think he is good at painting? Will they think he is a nice person?’ ). Children responded to the two
questions in the first instance by saying ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. If the children gave a ‘Yes’ response, they were
asked to choose between ‘A little bit’, ‘Quite a lot’ and ‘Very much’, illustrated by the experimenter
measuring out increasing distances between his hands. Even the youngest children showed no difficulty
in making these ratings. Children were then reminded about the protagonist’s response and asked to
decide whether it was a good thing to say. They were also asked to justify their answer to this question.
The order of stories was randomized, and the type of response given by the protagonist for each story
(modest vs. immodest ) was counterbalanced. A sample story, with questions, is included in Appendix B.
Two tasks were used to measure children’s understanding of second-order mental-state reasoning. First
of all, Sullivan et al.’s (1994) standard second-order false-belief task (FB) involved acting out a story
using dolls and props, as described by Banerjee & Yuill (1999a).2 Secondly, a new task measuring
second-order reasoning in a more socially relevant situation was included. This faux pas task (FP, based
on O’Riordan et al., 1996) involves two stories, each acted out using dolls and props, where a person
commits a faux pas which upsets someone. The children were asked to identify the faux pas and the
character who committed it, and were then asked why the character should not have said what he did.
Children who failed any of these preliminary questions were excluded from analysis involving the FP
task. The test question was whether the first character meant to upset the second character. Children
were asked to justify their answer to this question. The two stories were presented in counterbalanced
order. Note that while the first FP story was only slightly modified from the first story of O’Riordan et al.
(1996), the second FP story was entirely new, since Morrison (1998) has reported difficulties with the
original second story. The second story from the FP task used here is given in Appendix C, along with all
questions.
Finally, the class teachers of all children provided self-monitoring ratings using the Self-Monitoring
Scale for Children (see Eder & Jones, 1989 ). The teachers were blind to children’s performance on the
modesty and second-order reasoning tasks. Ratings were not returned for one child, who was excluded
from analysis involving self-monitoring scores.

Design and procedure

A male experimenter worked with each child individually in a quiet room. All children completed the
modesty task and both second-order reasoning tasks in one session. The order of the tasks was
randomized.

2
Note that in addition to the second-order false-belief task reported here, children completed another
second-order false-belief task (Perner & Wimmer, 1985) in the same session. This was a precautionary
measure to confirm that there were no differences in associations between the modesty ratings and the
two second-order false-belief tasks. In the interest of brevity, since no such difference was observed, only
the data for the Sullivan et al. (1994 ) task are reported here.
 Children’s understanding of modesty 509
Scoring
Modesty task. For the two ratings made by the children (‘Will the other children think he is good at
. . .?’ and ‘Will the other children think he is a nice person?’ ), scores ranged from 0 (‘No’) to 3 (‘Yes, very
much’). These ratings were averaged across the two stories where a modest response was given, and across
the two stories where an immodest response was given. This yielded ‘ability evaluation’ and ‘character
evaluation’ mean rating scores ranging from 0 to 3 for both the modest and the immodest stories. For the
final question (‘Was that a good thing for him to say?’), children scored 1 for a ‘Yes’ response and 0 for a
‘No’ response. These scores were summed across the modest stories and across the immodest stories,
resulting in modesty and immodesty rating scores ranging from 0 to 2. The justifications given for
children’s responses to the final question were categorized using the hierarchical coding scheme described
above for Expt 1. An independent rater coded a quarter of the responses from each age group. Inter-rater
agreement was 93% (k = .90 ).

Second-order reasoning tasks. Responses on the FB task were scored in accordance with Banerjee and Yuill
(1999a). Children were required to pass all control questions, which tested for comprehension of the
story and for the understanding of second-order recursive syntax. Children had to make a correct forced-
choice response to the test question and justify their response appropriately in order to be scored as
passing the task. Justifications were coded as appropriate or inappropriate using Sullivan et al.’s (1994)
taxonomy. An independent rater, blind to the ages and other scores of the children, coded all
justifications provided by children who responded to the test questions correctly. Inter-rater agreement
was 100%.
Responses on the FP task were scored as follows. Nine of the children (four from the youngest age
group, four from the middle age group and one from the oldest age group) gave at least one incorrect
answer on the initial questions (i) through (iii ). These children were excluded from any analysis involving
this task. In order to pass the task, children had to answer the forced-choice test question (iv ) correctly –
which over 90% of children in each age group did – and then, crucially, justify their answer. Appropriate
justifications were those that made implicit or explicit reference to the first character’s ignorance about
the second character’s attitude (e.g. ‘He didn’t know that she loved the violin’; ‘She didn’t know that he
drew the picture’ ). Inappropriate justifications were typically those that simply reiterated the fact that
there was no deliberate insult (e.g. ‘He didn’t really want to be mean’; ‘She didn’t want him to be upset’ ).
An independent rater, blind to performance on other tasks, coded a quarter of the responses in each age
group. Inter-rater agreement was 100%.

Self-monitoring ratings. Finally, self-monitoring scores had a possible range of 0 to 25, with high scores
reflecting high levels of self-monitoring. On ten of the response sheets, one or two items were left
uncompleted, hence all scores were converted into percentages by dividing the self-monitoring score by
the total number of items for which ratings were given.

Results
The following analyses are reported below. First, children’s performance on the modesty
task was assessed. Next, associations between the modesty task and the second-order
reasoning tasks were analysed. Finally, correlations with self-monitoring scores were
examined.

Modesty task
Mixed analyses of variance, followed by simple effects analyses looking at each age group
separately, were used to analyse children’s ratings of how the audience characters would
evaluate the story protagonists and their ratings of whether the protagonist’s response
was ‘a good thing to say’. Age and Sex were the between-subjects variables, and Modesty
Condition (modest response vs. immodest response) was the within-subjects variable.
510 Robin Banerjee
Ability evaluation ratings (‘Will they think he’s good at . . .?’). There was a significant
main effect of Age (F(2,54) = 4.32, p < .02), whereby the youngest children generally
gave more positive responses than the older children (Helmert contrast, p < .02). This
was qualified by an interaction between Modesty Condition and Age (F(2,54) = 4.02,
p = .02). Simple effects analyses showed that the 6-year-olds gave lower ratings for
modest than immodest responses (Ms (SDs) = 1.83 (.95) vs. 2.28 (.95); F(1,57) = 4.83,
p = .03), the 8-year-olds gave higher ratings for modest than immodest responses (Ms
(SDs) = 1.58 (.65) vs. 1.20 (.88); F(1,57) = 3.35, p = .07), and the 10-year-olds rated
modest and immodest responses similarly (Ms (SDs) = 1.78 (.75) vs. 1.73 (.80);
F(1,57) = .06, n.s.). No effects of Sex were observed for this variable.

Character evaluation ratings (‘Will they think he’s a nice person?’). The main effect of Age
(F(2,54) = 4.14, p = .02), whereby the two older groups gave lower ratings than the
youngest group (Helmert contrast, p < .01), was explained almost entirely by an
interaction between Modesty Condition and Age (F(2,54) = 10.02, p < .001), as shown
in Fig. 1. Simple effects analyses showed that the youngest children showed no change
in ratings across conditions (F(1,57) = .01, n.s.), while the 8- and 10-year-olds rated
modest responses higher than immodest responses (8-year-olds: F(1,57) = 15.99,
p < .001; 10-year-olds: (F(1,57) = 31.11, p < .001). It is this behaviour by the older
groups that explains the observed main effect of Modesty Condition, whereby ratings
were in general lower for immodest than for modest responses (F(1,54) = 34.81,
p < .001). Interestingly, an interaction of Modesty Condition and Sex (F(1,54) = 4.97,
p = .03) was also observed, and this was qualified by a three-way interaction of Modesty
Condition 6 Sex 6 Age (F(2,54) = 3.69, p = .03). Figure 1 illustrates how the
tendency to give lower ratings for immodest responses appears at age 8 in boys, but not
until age 10 in girls.

Appropriateness judgments (‘Was that a good thing for him to say?’). There were strong age
effects in the discrimination between modest and immodest responses. There was a main
effect of Age (F(2,53) = 4.13, p = .02), whereby the older age groups were in general
more negative in their judgments than the youngest group (Helmert contrast, p < .01),
as well as a main effect of Modesty Condition (F(1,53) = 13.49, p < .001), whereby
ratings were in general lower for immodest responses. However, these effects are again
mainly a consequence of a strong interaction between Modesty Condition and Age
(F(2,53) = 11.54, p < .001). Simple effects analyses showed that the youngest group
tended to judge the modest and immodest responses similarly (Ms (SDs) = .95 (.97) vs.
1.20 (.95); F(1,56) = 2.14, n.s.), while the two older groups – in particular the oldest
group – rated modest responses significantly higher than immodest responses (8-year-
olds: Ms (SDs) = .80 (.83) vs. .25 (.64); F(1,56) = 6.83, p = .01; 10-year-olds: Ms
(SDs) = 1.30 (.80) vs. .15 (.37); F(1,56) = 29.86, p < .001). No effects of Sex were
observed for this variable.
Turning now to the distribution of justifications for the appropriateness judgments, a
similar pattern can be seen to that of Expt 1. Preliminary analysis showed no differences
in the distribution of justifications given for the different stories. However, there do
appear to be strong age effects. Table 3 shows the mean number of each type of
justification given across all four stories, for each age group. Because of heterogeneity of
 Children’s understanding of modesty 511

Figure 1. Mean character evaluation rating on modesty stories (out of 3 ), by modesty condition, age and
sex
variance, orthogonal contrasts with separate variance estimates were used. First, as in the
previous experiment, there was a decrease with age in the use of ‘truth’ justifications,
with the youngest group scoring higher than the two older groups (p < .01). Secondly,
there was again an increase with age in the use of ‘social evaluation’ justifications, with
the youngest children scoring lower than the two older groups (p < .001) and the
middle group scoring lower than the oldest group (p < .001). A slight decrease with age
can be seen in the use of justifications that refer to others’ feelings, with the youngest
children scoring higher than the older group (p = .07). Finally, there was a higher level
of residual justifications in the middle age group, relative to the other age groups
(p < .001). No sex differences were found.

Table 3. Mean numbers of each type of justification across all modesty stories (out of
4), by age group (Expt 2). SDs in parentheses
Social Social
Age evaluation outcomes Others’ feelings Truth Residual
6 (N = 20) 0.75 (1.29) 0.05 (0.22) 0.80 (1.32) 1.85 (1.73) 0.50 (0.83)
8 (N = 20) 1.20 (1.36) 0.35 (0.93) 0.25 (0.44) 0.85 (0.99) 1.35 (1.14)
10 (N = 20) 3.10 (0.97) 0.00 (0.00) 0.20 (0.41) 0.45 (0.83) 0.25 (0.55)

As in the previous experiment, the type of justification given is linked to the

children’s forced-choice judgment. In this case, there was a significant positive
512 Robin Banerjee
correlation between the number of ‘social evaluation’ justifications given and the extent
to which the modest responses were judged as more appropriate than the immodest
responses. Children who gave ‘social evaluation’ justifications were more likely to see
modest responses as being more appropriate than immodest responses (r(57) = .57,
p < .001). Unsurprisingly, the correlation was also significant, but negative, for the
number of ‘truth’ justifications (r(57) = 7.49, p < .001).
Finally, a composite score was constructed for the appropriateness judgments by
combining the forced-choice judgments (in response to ‘Was that a good thing to say?’)
with the justifications given for them. For each modest story, children scored one point
if they judged the modest response to be appropriate and provided a ‘social evaluation’
justification. For each immodest story, children scored one point if they judged the
immodest response to be inappropriate and provided a ‘social evaluation’ justification.
Thus, children could score a maximum of four points overall (two points for the modest
stories and two points for the immodest stories). Preliminary analysis showed no sex
effects, but a strong age effect was evident (Ms (SDs) = .26 (.56), 1.05 (1.39) and 2.80
(1.20), with ascending age). Orthogonal contrasts with separate variance estimates
showed that the youngest children scored significantly lower than the older groups, and
that the oldest group scored significantly higher than the middle group (both
ps < .001).

Associations with second-order reasoning tasks

There were age effects on children’s performance on both second-order reasoning tasks.
First, only 38% of the youngest group were correct on both FP stories, in contrast with
over 93% for both of the two older groups (w2(4) = 20.46, p < .0005). Secondly, the
pass rates for the FB task were 60% for the youngest group, 80% for the middle group
and 95% for the oldest group (w2(2) = 7.46, p < .03). Unsurprisingly, FB and FP scores
were correlated, even after partialling out age (partial r(47) = .35, p < .01).
Correlations between the second-order reasoning scores and the modesty scores were
next examined. In fact, after partialling out age, only the FP scores remained correlated
with performance on the modesty task (other rs < .12). Children who scored higher on
FP tended to give higher ‘ability evaluation’ and ‘character evaluation’ ratings for
modest responses than for immodest responses (difference in ‘ability evaluation’ ratings,
partial r(47) = .25, p < .05; difference in ‘character evaluation’ ratings, partial
r(47) = .23, p = .06). No correlations were found with the appropriateness judgments
(‘Was that a good thing for him to say?’) or with the composite modesty scores.

Associations with self-monitoring ratings

No age or sex effects were found on the self-monitoring ratings, but the self-monitoring
scores were correlated with the FP scores (r(48) = .27, p < .03). Overall, the self-
monitoring scores were not correlated with any of the modesty measures. However,
when looking at the oldest age group separately, there is an interesting tendency for a
positive correlation between self-monitoring scores and the discrimination between
‘character evaluation’ ratings for modest and immodest self-descriptions (r(18) = .36,
p = .06). That is, higher levels of self-monitoring were associated with giving higher
‘character evaluation’ ratings for modest than for immodest self-descriptions. The
 Children’s understanding of modesty 513
correlation remained marginally significant even after partialling out FP scores (partial
r(16) = .36, p = .07).

Discussion
This experiment confirms findings in Expt 1 of a change at age 8 in preference for
modest self-descriptions. Children in the youngest group tended, if anything, to see
immodest responses as leading to better social evaluation than modest responses. Older
children showed the reverse pattern. In confirmation of Yoshida et al.’s (1982) study,
older children saw modest self-descriptions as leading to markedly better ‘character
evaluations’, and they did not display the 6-year-olds’ tendency to judge immodest
responses as leading to higher ‘ability evaluations’. Furthermore, the analysis of
justifications and the composite score data reveal that there was a steady increase with
age in the ability to justify the preference for modesty in terms of social evaluation
concerns, with a decrease in the tendency to focus on the presumed ‘true state of affairs’.
Intriguingly, there was a higher incidence of ‘residual’ justifications in the middle age
group relative to the oldest and youngest children; it is possible that children in this age
group have begun to perceive a modesty norm but are still having some difficulty in
articulating the basis for that norm.
An interesting sex difference emerged here, not observed in Expt 1 or in Yoshida et
al.’s (1982) study. Boys discriminated between modest and immodest responses in terms
of character evaluation ratings from age 8, but girls did not do so until age 10.
Although this sex effect was not observed for the other modesty scores, it is possible that
the understanding of a modesty norm actually emerges at a later age for girls than for
boys. However, there is no evidence in the existing literature to clarify whether this
reflects a genuine difference in the development of the modesty norm. Future research
should explore the possibility of subtle sex differences in social norms for self-
presentation (see Heatherington et al., 1993).
Turning now to the cognitive and motivational correlates, it is interesting to see that
the second-order FB task was not correlated with the modesty scores, consistent with the
idea that the spontaneous preference for modest self-presentation requires more than just
a basic cognitive capacity for second-order reasoning. However, performance on the FP
task was significantly associated with the tendency to give higher evaluation ratings for
modest compared to immodest responses. As mentioned earlier, this could be because
the FP task has both a cognitive and a motivational component. It is related to
performance on the standard second-order FB task, reflecting the fact that it is tapping
second-order reasoning, but it is also related to self-monitoring scores. Consistent with
O’Riordan et al.’s (1996) view of the task as a better test of on-line social sensitivity than
traditional theory of mind tasks, it is reasonable to suppose that the task taps not just a
cognitive prerequisite but also a motivational orientation towards understanding the
connections between thoughts, feelings and behaviours in social situations. A child who
understands how one person’s behaviour can have unintended consequences for others’
feelings might be in a better position to see the links between mental states and
behaviours that are involved in modest self-presentations.
Finally, in a similar vein, it was observed that although there was no link between
self-monitoring and modesty scores in general, there was some evidence for such a link
514 Robin Banerjee
in the oldest age group. As mentioned earlier, when the modesty norm is strong (as it
appears to be in the oldest children), those high in self-monitoring – who are more
concerned about being socially appropriate (Snyder, 1987) – would be more likely than
low self-monitors to identify that norm.

GENERAL DISCUSSION
The present research has demonstrated that the value of modest self-presentation is
appreciated from the age of 8 onwards, and that this appreciation is likely to be directly
linked to motivational concerns about social evaluation. The observed development of
modesty is a good example of how children in primary school increasingly come to
understand the impact of their behaviour on others’ evaluations of them. The results in
these experiments remind us that children at a fairly young age have a sophisticated
understanding that they can present themselves in a self-deprecating way in order to
enhance their public face.
Much research on social cognition, including most work on children’s theory of mind,
has focused on children’s capabilities (e.g. determining when children are able to
understand belief as a mental representation). However, if we are to understand the
development of children’s social behaviour in everyday life, this analysis of cognitive
abilities must be accompanied by an awareness of changes in social motivation, both in
terms of broad age or sex differences and in terms of individual differences in social
orientation. The present study has revealed that such a multifactorial approach is likely
to be fruitful. Indeed, while Expt 2 supported hypotheses about the cognitive and
motivational correlates of modesty, the pattern of correlations observed suggests that the
measures used are tapping only some of the many factors likely to be involved. For
example, the FP scores correlated with the evaluation ratings on the modesty stories, but
not with the composite scores involving justifications. Similarly, the coefficients for the
correlations between self-monitoring and modesty ratings, while approaching
significance for the oldest age group, are in general not high. It seems reasonable to
expect that factors other than age and sex are mediating these relationships. The present
research selected only a small number of social-cognitive and motivational variables, and
future research must consider the use of other measures.
Research has already highlighted much about the social, cognitive and linguistic
predictors of performance on various social-cognitive tasks (see e.g. work by Brown &
Dunn, 1996; see also Dunn, Brown, Slomkowski, Tesla, & Youngblade, 1991, on the
antecedents of mental-state understanding). However, there is at present little empirical
evidence about exactly what factors are involved in children’s cognition about self-
presentation. Indeed, the faux pas and self-monitoring measures used in the present
study reflect only general orientations or sensitivities to social situations; the precise
motivational variables involved are still unknown. Therefore, further research effort
should be directed towards explaining variance in what children understand about
complex interpersonal processes like self-presentation. Likely candidates for predictor
variables include measures already known to be associated with social behaviour, such as
sensitivity to social comparison (Ruble, 1985), emotional responses to social situations,
such as social anxiety (La Greca, Dandes, Wick, Shaw, & Stone, 1988), and concepts of
friendship (Bigelow & La Gaipa, 1975; Parker & Gottman, 1989). Children who differ
 Children’s understanding of modesty 515
on variables such as these may reasonably be expected to differ in the way they think
about social processes such as impression management.
In addition, the role of social factors must also be considered. As mentioned earlier,
both family-related and peer-related variables could plausibly be involved in the
development of self-presentation. A direct examination of the role of parental
socialization characteristics and changes in peer relations seems appropriate. It is
important also to qualify this study’s conclusions regarding the development of modesty
by noting that only a relatively narrow set of scenarios was used here. One might
legitimately expect to find cross-situational differences, which were not tested in the
experiments reported here. For example, Tice, Butler, Muraven, and Stillwell (1995)
have observed that one’s use of modest self-presentation varies systematically across
familiar and unfamiliar audiences. Future research can build on the present research by
exploring children’s understanding of modesty in different contexts and domains.
Finally, a direct examination of cultural factors seems appropriate. For example,
although 8-year-olds in this study performed much like their Japanese counterparts in
Yoshida et al.’s (1982) experiments, it is not clear how younger children in Japan would
compare. If a self-effacing bias is strong in Japan (Kashima & Triandis, 1986), perhaps
children there will display it sooner than in England.
In sum, researchers need to work towards a multifactorial approach dealing with
variables at the individual, interpersonal and cultural levels, in order to formulate better
models of how children’s social cognition develops and how it relates to their social
behaviour.

Acknowledgements
The author would like to extend his thanks and appreciation to the children and staff at the schools that
participated in this study. He is grateful for the helpful comments of Nicola Yuill on an earlier version of
this article.
This research was funded by Economic and Social Research Council (UK) Research Studentship No.
R00429534012.

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Received 8 April 1999; revised version received 9 September 1999

Appendix A: Sample modesty story (Expt 1)

This is Georgie. Georgie is a new boy at school. He really wants to make some new friends at this school.
At the end of the first day at school, the teacher says to Georgie in front of everybody, ‘You did very well
on your maths work today, Georgie’. Now, remember that Georgie wanted to make some new friends at
his new school.
What should he say? Should he say:
Oh, that’s because I’m really clever at maths.
OR
Oh, I’m not usually so good at it.
Why should he say that?

Note: The complete set of stories is available from the author upon request.

Appendix B: Sample modesty story (Expt 2)

This is John. John is in PE class and all the children are playing ball. John makes a really good catch, and
the PE teacher says to John in front of everyone, ‘Wow John that was a really good catch!’ And then John
says, ‘Well, that’s because I’m really good at sports’ or ‘Oh, I think I just got lucky’.
What will the other children think about John?
Will they think John is a good ball-player? [Ability evaluation]
Will they think John is a nice person? [Character evaluation]
So remember, John said . . . Was that a good thing for him to say? Why?
[Appropriateness judgment and justification]

Note: The complete set of stories is available from the author upon request.

Appendix C: Sample faux pas story (Expt 2)

This is Sally, and this is her friend Nick. Nick has painted a picture of a rocket for a special exhibition in
the school. Nick is really proud of his picture and thinks it’s great. Anyway, they’re walking home from
school when they bump into Sally’s friend, Amy. Amy has never met Nick before.
‘Hi,’ says Amy.
Sally asks her, ‘Hi Amy, have you been to the exhibition in the school?’
‘Yes,’ says Amy, ‘It’s quite nice, except there’s that really horrible painting of a rocket. I think it’s a
really bad painting!’
(i) Did someone say something they shouldn’t have? Who?
(ii ) What was it that Amy said?
(iii ) Why shouldn’t Amy have said that?
(iv ) Did Amy mean to upset Nick? How do you know [child’s response]?

Note: The complete set of stories is available from the author upon request.
Source: Derived from O’Riordan et al. (1996).