Gender Differences in the Perception of Ethics and Civic Moral Disengagement in Medical Doctors

Abstract

The present study aims to find the gender differences in the perception of doctors while making ethical decisions and their level of civic morality. A simple distinction between ethics and morality would be that ethics are in reference to an external source, they come from the work environment. A comparative research design has been used in this study for which a Purposive sampling strategy was selected. The participants of the study selected were 75 male and 75 female doctors aged 25-40 years, practicing in Jinnah Hospital and Services Hospital, Lahore. Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) and Moral Disengagement Scale (MDS) were utilized to collect the data. To identify the differences among the variables Independent Sample T-test was administered on the collected data. The results of the study revealed that there is no significant difference in the perception of ethics and civic moral disengagement, this brought to the view that gender alone does not influence one’s ethics, pro-social reasoning, and behavior. The findings of this current research state that there are no differences among doctors working in two different locations, among genders, or between ethics and civic moral disengagement. This would be helpful to know because doctors constantly face questions regarding ethics and have to make fast, effective decisions that will affect their patient's life.