Gender Differences In Moral Judgment Research Articles

A Crime by Any Other Name: Gender Differences in Moral Reasoning When Judging the Tax Evasion of Cryptocurrency Traders.

Tax evasion is a major issue for authorities worldwide. Understanding the factors that influence individuals' intrinsic motivation to pay taxes, known as their tax morale, is important for improving tax compliance. This study investigated gender differences in judging tax evasion in the context of cryptocurrency trading. Specifically, a survey study explored whether different moral foundations, financial literacies, and political orientations among females vs. males might explain potential gender differences in judging tax evasion. In an online survey, 243 U.S. adults read a vignette about a friend evading taxes in a cryptocurrency trading context. In a correlational analysis, we found that females judged tax evasion harsher, as being more morally wrong than males. Of the psychographic factors, only individualizing moral foundation values (i.e., fairness and harm avoidance) explained the harsher moral judgment by females. That is, individualizing moral foundation values were at a higher level among females, which further predicted females' harsher judgment of tax evasion. While females also had, on average, lower financial literacy and knowledge of cryptocurrencies than males, these did not predict their harsher judgment of tax evasion. The findings contribute to research on gender differences in moral judgments and highlight that a given transgression, or a specific crime, may violate different moral values in men and women. The results demonstrate to policy makers that it is important to take into account gender differences, in campaigns promoting tax morale and compliance.

Exploring cultural and gender differences in moral judgment: A cross-cultural study based on the CNI model.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04662-6.

Moral judgments, gender, and antisocial preferences: an experimental study

We study questionnaire responses to situations in which sacrificing one life may save many other lives. We demonstrate gender differences in moral judgments: males are more supportive of the sacrifice than females. We investigate a source of the endorsement of the sacrifice: antisocial preferences. First, we measure individual proneness to spiteful behavior, using an experimental game with monetary stakes. We demonstrate that spitefulness can be sizable—a fifth of our participants behave spitefully—but it is not associated with gender. Second, we find that gender is consistently associated with responses even when we account for individual differences in the propensity to spitefulness.

Gender differences in moral judgment and the evaluation of gender-specified moral agents.

Whether, and if so, how exactly gender differences are manifested in moral judgment has recently been at the center of much research on moral decision making. Previous research suggests that women are more deontological than men in personal, but not impersonal, moral dilemmas. However, typical personal and impersonal moral dilemmas differ along two dimensions: Personal dilemmas are more emotionally salient than impersonal ones and involve a violation of Kant's practical imperative that humans must never be used as a mere means, but only as ends. Thus, it remains unclear whether the reported gender difference is due to emotional salience or to the violation of the practical imperative. To answer this question, we explore gender differences in three moral dilemmas: a typical personal dilemma, a typical impersonal dilemma, and an intermediate dilemma, which is not as emotionally salient as typical personal moral dilemmas, but contains an equally strong violation of Kant's practical imperative. While we replicate the result that women tend to embrace deontological ethics more than men in personal, but not impersonal, dilemmas, we find no gender differences in the intermediate situation. This suggests that gender differences in these type of dilemmas are driven by emotional salience, and not by the violation of the practical imperative. Additionally, we also explore whether people think that women should behave differently than men in these dilemmas. Across all three dilemmas, we find no statistically significant differences about how people think men and women should behave.

Antisocial Attitudes, Gender and Moral Judgments: An Experimental Study

We study questionnaire responses to moral dilemmas hypothetical situations in which sacrificing one life may save many other lives. We demonstrate gender differences in moral judgments: male participants are more supportive of the sacrifice than female participants. We investigate the importance of the previously studied source of the endorsement of the sacrifice: antisocial attitudes. First, we elicit the individual proneness to spiteful behavior using an incentivized experimental game. We demonstrate that spitefulness can be sizable but it is not associated with gender. Second, we find that gender is associated with moral judgments even when we account for individual differences in antisocial attitudes. Our results suggest that the performance of many institutions (related to the distribution of wealth or punishment, for instance) may be affected by the gender of the decision-makers.

Beyond Kohlberg vs. Gilligan: Empathy and Disgust Sensitivity Mediate Gender Differences in Moral Judgments

A landmark debate in moral psychology concerns gender differences in moral judgment. This debate concluded that, when making moral judgments, women are primarily driven by moral concerns about caring for others, whereas men are primarily driven my moral concerns about fairness/justice. However, empirical findings have been inconsistent and limited to a “care and justice” conceptualization of morality. Using recent advances in morality research, we examine gender differences in moral judgment and emotion. Across 10 studies (including over 150,000 participants and two nationally-representative U.S. samples) we find that, relative to men, women a) have clearly stronger moral concerns related to care and purity, b) are less utilitarian, c) have a stronger sense of moral identity, and d) moralize everyday actions more. Furthermore, we show that these effects are mediated by gender differences in the emotion tendencies of empathic concern and disgust sensitivity. Finally, we show that these gender differences in moral judgment are consequential in three everyday contexts: parenting, politics, and group stereotypes.

How Workplace Accounting Experience and Gender Affect Ethical Judgment

We investigated how individuals' ethical intentions and moral judgments were influenced by the discipline that they were studying or practicing and by their gender. Results showed that, compared with men, women consistently viewed questionable actions as less ethical and expressed a lower likelihood that they would perform these actions. Accounting students had higher ethical intentions and stricter moral standards than either students in other disciplines or accounting practitioners. Furthermore, there were no gender differences in moral judgments among accounting practitioners.

Children's Moral Reasoning Regarding Physical and Relational Aggression

AbstractElementary school children's moral reasoning concerning physical and relational aggression was explored. Fourth and fifth graders rated physical aggression as more wrong and harmful than relational aggression but tended to adopt a moral orientation about both forms of aggression. Gender differences in moral judgments of aggression were observed, with girls rating physical and relational aggression as more wrong and relational aggression as more harmful than boys. In addition, girls were more likely to adopt a moral orientation when judging physical and relational aggression and girls more often judged relational aggression than physical aggression from the moral domain. Finally, moral reasoning about aggression was associated with physically and relationally aggressive behavior. Considered together, the results indicate that children tend to adopt a moral orientation about aggression, but that they nonetheless differentiate between physical and relational aggression in their moral judgments.

Cultural and Gender Differences in Moral Judgment: A Study of Mexican Americans and Anglo-Americans

Kohlberg’s theory of moral development regards justice concerns as developmentally more advanced than interpersonal considerations. Men tend to score as more morally developed than women on existing measures. Gilligan suggested that this is because women rely more on “care” considerations in moral dilemmas, whereas men rely more on “justice” issues. Snarey noted similar bias in the cross-cultural realm. The authors studied moral judgment in Mexican American (n = 40) and Anglo-American (n = 40) college students. On the care measure, as expected, females scored higher than males (p < .05), and Mexican Americans scored higher than Anglo-Americans (p < .01) Contrary to expectation, no differences were obtained on the justice measure. The role of socialization in moral development is discussed.

Vocational training and moral judgement: are there gender-specific traits among apprentices in commercial business?

Since Carol Gilligan (1982) presented her conception of “two morals”, several empirical studies have been carried out to verify her assumption that the moral reasoning of men and women generally follows different principles. These research findings led to an examination of gender-specific traits in a sample of insurance apprentices. The data suggest that Gilligan’s assumption cannot be upheld although the detailed analysis of moral reasoning and the conditions of its development seem to be gender-biased. Gender differences in moral judgments should not be dealt with as a matter of the quality of moral reasoning (“different voice-hypothesis”), but rather as a matter of perceiving social role concepts in a deciding situation (“different role-hypothesis”). Thus, the intra- and interpersonal differences in moral judgment found in this study might not be explained by the internal structure of “moral competence” alone. To a certain extent they are also caused by the interaction among the social situation, the individual’s personal and moral self, and moral competence.

Gender differences in moral judgment: Implications for clinical practice

While the potential for gender bias in psychotherapy is commonly recognized, most of the literature addressing this problem has concentrated on the assessment process. Therapists are left with few guidelines regarding the avoidance of bias in ongoing therapeutic relationships. This article reviews alternative explanations of gender difference in moral judgment with particular attention to their clinical relevance. The writer suggests that therapists' conceptions of these differences, as well as their own moral judgment, may be a potent source of gender bias. Understanding these differences is conceivably a powerful means of averting their contaminating effects on clinical theory and practice.

Gender differences in moral judgment: The state of the art∗

Gender differences in moral judgment: The state of the art∗