Abstract: the article reveals one of the actual age-psychological problems concerning the development and formation of moral and legal norms of truthfulness. A brief theoretical overview of approaches to determining the moral standards of truthfulness and honesty is given. For the study, the senior preschool age, sensitive to the formation of primary ethical instances, as one of the psychological neoplasms, was selected. The analysis of theoretical sources allowed to determine the following psychological and pedagogical conditions for the development of the norm of truthfulness in older preschool age: creating an atmosphere of friendliness and kindness, unhindered expression of the child’s feelings and personal qualities, patience and acceptance on the part of an adult, purposeful pedagogical influence on the behavior of a preschooler from both parents and public adults in the face of educators, overcoming self-centeredness of the individual, personal characteristics of children, arbitrariness of behavior. Diagnostics of the level of development of the norm of truthfulness in children of senior preschool age showed that knowledge about the moral norm of truthfulness in children outstrips the formation of a behavioral component in the development of this norm. The study compared the results of diagnostics of control and experimental groups with approximately the same level of development of arbitrary behavior, the level of development of the cognitive and emotional components of the moral norm of truthfulness, but the style of pedagogical communication in the two groups was different (authoritarian and democratic). There is a tendency in the predominance of the number of children who are inclined to truthful behavior in the group of educators who implement a democratic style of pedagogical communication, in contrast to the sample of 6-7 year old children from the group in which teachers implement an authoritarian style of pedagogical communication.
Keywords: truthfulness, honesty, moral and legal norms, norm of truthfulness (cognitive, emotional, behavioral components), senior preschool age, style of pedagogical communication, arbitrary behavior