Abstract
Gender, age, and culturally specific beliefs are often considered relevant to observed variation in social interactions. At present, however, the scientific literature is mixed with respect to the significance of these factors in guiding moral judgments. In this study, we explore the role of each of these factors in moral judgment by presenting the results of a web-based study of Eastern (i.e., Russia) and Western (i.e., USA, UK, Canada) subjects, male and female, and young and old. Participants (n = 659) responded to hypothetical moral scenarios describing situations where sacrificing one life resulted in saving five others. Though men and women from both types of cultures judged (1) harms caused by action as less permissible than harms caused by omission, (2) means-based harms as less permissible than side-effects, and (3) harms caused by contact as less permissible than by non-contact, men in both cultures delivered more utilitarian judgments (save the five, sacrifice one) than women. Moreover, men from Western cultures were more utilitarian than Russian men, with no differences observed for women. In both cultures, older participants delivered less utilitarian judgments than younger participants. These results suggest that certain core principles may mediate moral judgments across different societies, implying some degree of universality, while also allowing a limited range of variation due to sociocultural factors.
Highlights
Social norms, both implicit and explicit, guide individual behavior
Our goal in this paper is to focus on moral judgments, using a well-studied battery of hypothetical moral dilemmas, while extending the analysis to an Eastern culture, along with potential age and gender effects
Our goal was to examine whether gender, age and the East–West axis have a significant impact on the nature of moral judgments and if so, in what way
Summary
From early stages of development and throughout life we learn to adapt our behavior according to social expectations and requirements, which may differ across cultures and may be relevant in various degrees for men and women of different ages. Social and moral norms are part of every human culture, with some indication that a set of core principles may underlie fundamental moral judgments. On this view, some aspects of moral competence may be universal, part of the human endowment (e.g., Dwyer, 1999; Hauser, 2006; Mikhail, 2011). While conventional rules may vary significantly across cultures and social groups, some moral
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