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 developm entally more advanced than interpersonal considerations. Men tend to score as more morally developed than women on existing measures. Gilligan suggest ed that this is because women rely more on "care" considerations in moral d ilemmas, whereas men rely more on "justice " issues. Snarey noted similar, bias in the cross-cultural realm. The authors studied moral judgment in Mex ican 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.