Sex roles and moral reasoning : the relationship between moral orientation and the social domain

One purpose of the study was to examine the suggestion about moral reasoning put forth by Gilligan (1977, 1982, 1986) that there are two perspectives of a moral dilemma which are gender related. The second purpose was to extend current knowledge about the relationship between moral reasoning and sex-role orientation by moving away from the much studied psychological measures of sex roles and concentrating on the sociological measures of social conventions and decision-making in the societal domain (Turiel, 1978). Subjects were 87 graduate student volunteers from two states in the eastern U.S. Fifty-two females and 35 males were in the sample. All of the females and all but two of the males were white. Data were collected using four questionnaires. Analysis of the data showed the sample to be high in moral maturity, "modern" in sex-role orientation, and to place a strong emphasis on both the "rights" and "care" moral orientations