An Empirical Analysis of Gender-Based Ethics Among College
Students and How Symbolic Interactionism Just May Hold The Answers
Jeffrey Schulz
Central Community College
Martin Brittain
TexasA&MUniversity - Kingsville
Allen Francis Ketcham
TexasA & MUniversity - Kingsville
Introduction
According to Allen Ketcham (2006) “A major influence on the feminist view of ethics came from outside philosophy in the form of psychologist Carol Gilligan’s 1982 book, In a Different Voice. Gilligan’s book holds that males historically defined ethical standards. She states that males look to “rules of fairness” within the context of justice. And, she notes that in her psychology research girls demonstrated a different “voice” in ethics --- the ethics of care.”
There has been much research, both qualitative and quantitative, that examines both women’s and men’s behavior in terms of moral and ethical behavior (Sankaran and Bui 2003; Clarkeburn 2002; Brell 1989; Gilligan 1982; Kohlberg 1984 and 1981; Piaget 1932). Prior research collected from the 1930s through the 1980s suggests that women are geared more toward a “caring” attitude and that men are geared more toward a “justice” attitude (Brell 1989; Gilligan, 1982, Kohlberg 1984 and 1981, and Piaget 1932).
However, recent research indicates that the previous research conducted by well-respected scholars such as Gilligan (1982), Piaget (1932), and Kohlberg (1983 and 1978), may not necessarily explain why some women tend to be more “justice-oriented,” rather than “care-oriented.” Recent research in the popular press suggests that, rather than having one’s gender explain whether or not one is more “care-oriented” or “justice-oriented,” it may have more to do with how an individual sees or defines a situation in which he or she is involved on a more personal level (Killen 1996 and Broughton 1983).
In other words, how a male or female defines a situation and critically assesses it (thinks about how it has affected him or her personally) may be a better indicator in determining whether someone is “care-oriented” or “justice-oriented” (Broughton 1983; Walker 1987; Smetana 1991; Walker 1991; Killen 1996; Clarkeburn 2002). Many studies have focused on explaining why males are “justice-oriented” and females are “care-oriented.” Many of those previous studies have focused primarily on boys and girls in Kindergarten through 12th grade, or from general adult populations throughout the world, including the United States.
What makes this study unique and separate from other similar studies, is that it focuses strictly on college students from the United States and Canada and attempts to measure whether or not college-aged men and women fit the label of “caring” for women and “justice” for men. Since the authors are the first to assess these two concepts as it pertains to both American and Canadian college men and women, the study approaches the subject cautiously. Additionally, the authors consider this study to be exploratory in nature, and hope to determine, based on the data collection from the sample of college students, whether or not college-aged students actually fit the title of “caring” for women and “justice” for men.
Another unique aspect of this study will be the attempt to examine and explain college students’ decisions of “caring” and “justice” using the sociological paradigm of symbolic interactionism.
Justice and Care Overview
According to Brell, Jr. (1989), “Men tend to construe moral problems in terms of the competing rights of separate individuals, and women tend to do so in terms of the conflicting obligations they feel towards individuals with whom they feel connected” (p. 97). Gilligan (1982) has referred to the masculine moral experience as a “justice” or “fairness” orientation, and the feminine as a “responsibility” or “caring” orientation, and has suggested that in each situation, these are the criteria by which men and women tend to make their moral decisions (Brell, Jr. 1989).
As mentioned previously, this research is exploratory in nature and will examine nine social situations (scenarios) in which college men and women were asked to make an ethical decision. After each hypothetical scenario, two possible responses are given, forcing the respondent toward either “caring” or “justice.” The authors hope, through this research, to determine if women possess more of a “care” orientation, and men possess more of a “justice” orientation.
The research thesis is that college students, no matter what their age or gender, are not naturally geared toward a “care” or “justice” orientation as previous scholars in the field of psychology have suggested. Instead, the authors hypothesize that they gain a “care” or a “justice” orientation by experiencing a specific social situation on a more interpersonal (individual) level, regardless of gender. Furthermore, the study hypothesizes that the meaning an individual gains from a specific social situation determines whether or not they are “care” or “justice” oriented; not because they are naturally hard-wired to be “care” or “justice” oriented based on their gender.
Melanie Killen (1996) states “Justice and care are two fundamental and universal concepts that constitute the basis for human interpersonal relationships” (p. 43). She points out that there is much debate in the psychological literature about these two constructs. First, in her original work, Gilligan suggested that justice and care reflect two dichotomized moral orientations, one used by males and one used by females (Killen 1996).
According to Gilligan (1982), the male perspective involves being impartial and being able to make abstract, rational decisions, dimensions associated with a justice orientation (Killen 1996), while the female perspective involves being intuitive and thinking about the concerns of others, dimensions associated with a care orientation (Killen 1996).
The findings on whether justice and care reflect different gender orientations have been quite mixed in the literature. Some studies have reported findings that support the notion that justice and care are gender-related orientations and other studies have failed to find gender differences.
As this study hypothesizes, Walker (1991) and other researchers have shown that when the content of a dilemma is controlled, gender differences disappear. Another study conducted by Walker (1987) found no differences when assessing whether there were gender differences in the type of reasoning used for specific dilemmas. So, according to Walker (1987,1991), neither the content of the dilemma nor the type of reasoning used in specific dilemmas has anything to do with males or females being geared toward a “care” or “justice” orientation.
In 1991, Walker argued, “Gender-related findings for justice and care moral orientations are an artifact of dilemma content” (p. 49). As Walker also points out, “A number of other studies have shown that the content of the dilemma has a significant impact on the type of moral orientation used by males and females” (p. 49).
Furthermore, a study by Smetana (1991) proposes, “Concepts of justice, others’ welfare, and interpersonal obligations coexist in individual reasoning. Individuals’ tendencies to focus on justice, welfare, or interpersonal obligations are a product of their perception of the salience of these considerations in different types of situations rather than their moral orientation as determined by their gender or cultural membership” (p. 50).
According to Killen (1996) “Extensive research findings have shifted the focus of the gender issue in the justice/care debate from conceptualizing justice and care as a dichotomy (justice versus care) to formulating justice and care as considerations that coexist and are weighted by individuals (males and females) when evaluating social situations” (p. 50).
One of the primary reasons for this ideological shift from traditional research (men are “justice-oriented” and women are “caring-oriented”) is because researchers have been focusing on the content of a dilemma instead of one’s gender and this has a significant influence on how individuals reason about social and moral issues (Killen p. 52). Additionally, Broughton (1983) posits, “An implication of the expectation that men value justice and women value care is that men do not give priority to care and women do not give priority to justice.” A number of studies have shown that individuals reason about both “justice” and “care” and will have a preference for either construct depending on the characteristics of the situation they experience (Killen p. 53).
According to Brell, Jr. (1989), “Gilligan and Kohlberg alike maintain that justice and caring are both proper moral concerns, and that a resolution is desirable. However, neither Gilligan nor Kohlberg has articulated just how both constructs might work together to form a more comprehensive morality that transcends gender differences” (p. 98). This study focuses on how college students perceive and internalize certain specific social situations with either a “caring” or a “justice” orientation. The authors then explain the college students’ responses to the nine ethical questions by using sociology’s symbolic interactionism.
Overview of Symbolic Interactionism
According to Wallace and Wolf (1999), “Symbolic interactionism is essentially a social-psychological perspective; it focuses primarily on the individual “with a self” and on the interaction between a person’s internal thoughts and emotions and his or her social behavior. Most of the analysis is of small-scale interpersonal relationships. Individuals are viewed as active constructors of their own conduct, who interpret, evaluate, define, and map out their own action, rather than as passive beings, impinged upon by outside forces. Furthermore, it also stresses the processes by which the individual makes decisions and forms opinions (p. 191).”
This paradigm, which is considered to be a micro-sociological theory, essentially examines how individuals perceive situations that happen to them, socially constructs its own reality, attempts to explain individuals’ particular decisions and actions, and demonstrates the impossibility of explaining these decisions and actions by predetermined rules and external forces.
According to Blumer (1969), “Symbolic interactionism rests on three premises: (a) that human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings the things have for them; (b) that the meaning of such things derives from the social interaction one has with one’s fellows; (c) and that these meanings are handled in, and modified through an interpretive process” (p. 2).
Blumer (1969) suggests that objects or things can be classified into three categories: “physical objects such as buildings, social objects such as students, and abstract objects such as moral principles, philosophical doctrines, or ideas such as justice, exploitation, or compassion” (pp. 10-11). An object, according to Blumer (1969), “is anything that can be indicated or referred to. The nature of an object, of any and every object, consists of the meaning that it has for the person for whom it is an object. Furthermore, this meaning sets the way in which he sees the object, the way in which he is prepared to act toward it, and the way in which he is ready to talk about it” (p. 11).
The symbolic interactionist paradigm from sociology will serve useful in this research, because it may provide a better understanding of how people respond to an individual situation and label it as “caring” or “justice.” This study of “care” and “justice” would fall under the category of abstract object, according to Blumer’s definition. In other words, this paradigm could potentially help educators gain a deeper understanding of individual differences in men’s and women’s responses to certain situations as being either “caring” or “justice” oriented.
Methodology
A survey instrument was developed to operationalize both the “caring” and “justice” concepts. The 17-question instrument listed nine scenarios in which college students (both community college and four year undergraduate students) were asked to respond to a specific ethical situation. In other words, they were asked to make a moral decision. There were only two responses provided for each of the nine questions. One response was geared toward “caring” and the other toward “justice.”
The other eight questions included demographic and personal information such as number of years of college/university study completed, gender, age, major, racial/ethnic background, opinion on gay marriage, church attendance, and one’s political views. Aside from the eight personal questions, the other nine questions assessed one’s personality as either “caring” or “justice” oriented.
Sample
The respondents for this study consisted of 1,067 students from two four-year universities and two community colleges. One of the four-year colleges in the sample came from Canada. The bulk of the respondents, 785, came from undergraduate students in economics and philosophy classes taught in the College of Business Administration from a university in Texas. About 215 respondents came from a community college in Nebraska, in a varying range of backgrounds including health occupations, business administration, education, and/or transfer students. The remainder of the data was collected from another four-year college in Canada (43 student respondents) and another community college in Texas (11 student respondents).
Findings/Results
This study, which focuses on college students and moral and ethical behavior, is self-exploratory in nature, therefore no hypotheses are offered on the research. The survey instrument was designed differently than previous psychological instruments that have measured “caring” and “justice.” This study focuses on a college student population and asks them to respond to certain ethical scenarios. Therefore, the approach of measuring the ethics of college students only is not geared the same way as previous psychological research, which has measured how people in the general population would respond to ethical dilemmas.
A similar study, Sankaran (2003), measured the relationship between personal characteristics and the level of ethical behavior of college students. Although the study was not completely the same, it is a study that is most similar to this research that was discovered in the literature. The Sankaran study was similar in a few aspects primarily because it focuses on college students and ethical behavior based on age, gender, and major. Thus, this study examines several characteristics that are related to the ethical direction of college students.
Since Sankaran’s research is the most similar, this study tries to determine how the results of Sankaran’s study are similar. There are only three variables to go by, but the comparisons can be viewed below.
First, in Sankaran’s research on college students, the demographic variable “age” suggests that ethics grows with age. This study suggests that older students tend to be more “justice” based. When one research question is cross-tabulated with “age,” as the graph below shows, the students 30 years or older are justice-inclined with a Chi-Square value for that cross-tab of .009.
(See Graph 1)
Second, Sankaran’s research on college students the demographic variable “gender” suggests that there was not a significant difference between college men and women and their ethical behavior. This study generally supports Sankaran’s research. Two of the questions did show a slightly higher propensity for females to answer in the care mode than did males. But generally, females and males answered in a similar manner.
(See Table 1)
The third variable, Sankaran’s demographic variable of “major area of study,” suggests that students with certain majors had higher ethics scores than other majors. For example, within the Business major, Information Systems majors in Sankaran’s study had the highest ethics scores of all other business majors. Among the rest of the majors there was no statistical difference. This research found no statistically significant difference between major in answering the nine research questions.
Because of two unique aspects of this study (absent in Sankaran’s study) interesting statistically significant discrepancies stand out. The first is geographic differences and the second has to do with gay marriage opinions.
Geographically, two of the nine questions show that Canadians, as a group, respond in a “caring’ manner when contrasted to Americans (Texans & Nebraskans).
(See Graph 2)
(See Graph 3)
Respondents were asked if they supported, did not care about, or were against Gay marriage. On two of the questions there was an indirect relationship between supporting Gay marriage and justice based answers.
Implications for Further Research
The authors’ approach to studying gender-based ethics between males and females is different from previous studies. First, the focus is strictly on college students. Second, the instrument only has nine moral dilemmas. Finally, there were no statistically significant results found between men and women surveyed that would indicate men are more “justice-oriented” and women are more “care-oriented,” except for the two questions previously mentioned.
Perhaps gathering data from more college students from various geographic regions of the United States would have added more breadth and deeper understanding to this study. It is believed, however, that research on college students’ moral and ethical behavior can be examined in many ways. The instrument used in this study provides specific situations in which college students were forced to choose an ethical response that was either “care” or “justice” oriented. While other research studies have examined the morals and ethics of men and women, at this writing, no other studies have examined “care” and “justice” from a sociological perspective.
In the future, more questions and scenarios could be added to the survey instrument. It would certainly add greater depth to the understanding of how college students conceptualize the constructs of “care” and “justice.” Another idea that could potentially make this study more sociologically engaging is to examine and interpret the data using other sociological theories besides the symbolic interactionist theory.
Additionally, in the future, a more qualitative approach may be taken when obtaining data from college students. Perhaps face-to-face interviews with college students could lead to a deeper understanding of whether or not they are more “care-oriented” or “justice-oriented.” Focus groups could also be conducted on multiple campuses. In this manner, perhaps a deeper understanding could be obtained as to why college students responded to the scenarios or specific situations as they did.
Discussion
There have been numerous studies on how men and women conceptualize “care” and “justice.” Most of the research has taken more of a psychological approach with studies such as those by Gilligan, Piaget, and Kohlberg. In these studies, words such as “morality” and “ethics” are used. In other words, most of the research has focused on men and women in general, not a specific age group of men and women.
This study is unique, because it takes a different approach. The research population includes traditional college students (ages 18-24) and non-traditional college students (older than 24 years of age). While there is an abundance of psychological research regarding “care” and “justice,” there has not been any research focusing on how college students perceive care and justice from a sociological perspective.
In this study, previous social science studies were referenced in order to gain a deeper understanding of how men and women perceive “care” and “justice.” However, what truly separates this study from other similar studies is that it focuses only on college students and attempts to explain their behavior using the symbolic interactionist approach from sociology. By using this sociological theory, the study hopes to offer a sociological perspective on how college students view the constructs of “care” and “justice.” It also endeavors to demonstrate the value the field of sociology may have when attempting to explain why college students perceive specific ethical situations from either a “care” or “justice” perspective.
Conclusion
This study focused on nine moral dilemmas in which college students of all ages had to make one of two ethical decisions: a “caring” one or a “justice” one. The demographic variables of the college students were then examined, and attempt made to associate those variables, along with the responses, to the nine moral dilemmas. The study then attempts to explain the lack of statistical significance between men and women on the issues of “caring” or “justice” by using sociology’s symbolic interactionism.
As mentioned previously, numerous studies have found that there is no statistically significant difference in ethical attitudes of men and women (Broughton 1983; Walker 1987; Smetana 1991; Walker 1991; Killen 1996; Clarkeburn 2002). This study is offered as another example that it cannot necessarily be generalized that men are “justice-oriented” and women are “care-oriented.”
The symbolic interactionist approach from sociology may shed some light on the lack of any statistically significant findings in terms of college men’s and women’s responses to certain ethical situations. First, and foremost, symbolic interactionism is a micro-sociological theory, meaning that individuals are viewed as active constructors of their own conduct, capable of interpreting, evaluating, and defining their own actions based on a social situation. This means that each individual, whether male or female, has the capability to socially construct what a situation means to him or her. They are able to internalize what sort of meaning a situation has for them, make a decision on how they react to that situation, and form an opinion about it. The study results show both men and women tend to be more justice-oriented based on the nine moral dilemmas offered in the survey instrument.
To reinforce the importance of symbolic interactionism, Blumer states, “An object is anything that can be referred to. The nature of an object consists of the meaning that it has for the person for whom it is an object” (p. 11). Blumer lists three categories of objects. One example he lists is abstract objects, which would include constructs such as moral principles, justice, or compassion. Since this study consisted of nine moral dilemmas, possibly what Blumer refers to as abstract objects. In this case, each of the nine moral dilemmas had a certain meaning to the students who were answering the dilemmas from a “care” perspective or “justice” perspective. The nine moral dilemmas had different meanings to different students, but the students were still able to act toward the nine moral dilemmas based on the meanings the dilemmas held for them. In other words, the students read the nine moral dilemmas, evaluated each one, internalized what it meant to them on an individual level, and made an ethical decision.
The symbolic interactionist paradigm in sociology is offered as a possible explanation for why women do not always answer in a “care-oriented” manner and men in a “justice-oriented” manner. The authors believe that the content of the social dilemma or moral scenario is more important, when deciding whether someone is “care-oriented” or “justice-oriented,” rather than the general thought that women are hard-wired to be “caring” and men hard-wired to be “just.”
By using symbolic interactionism, the authors of this paper tend to agree with other researchers who state that how a man or a woman makes an ethical decision, whether he or she is a college student or not, or whether he or she is college educated or not, is more owing to how the student experiences and internalizes a real-life situation (Broughton 1983; Walker 1987; Smetana; Walker 1991; and Killen 1996; Clarkeburn 2002). This study suggests that it is how an individual perceives a situation, and the meaning that situation has for that individual who experiences it, that determines whether or not he or she a “justice” or “care” orientation.
This study’s research findings are in line with the findings of Clarkeburn (2002): “Moral judgment scores are linked to behavior from the perspectives of different moral judgments representing variation in the ways people construe situations, which then leads to different actions” (p. 309). In other words, people view morality differently as it pertains to their situation, whether it is by experiencing a situation or the way they have been socialized. Everyone perceives his or her own social situations differently, no matter how similar the situation is to another’s social situation.
This study adds to the understanding of how people form a “caring” attitude or a “justice” attitude based on how they experience and internalize a particular moral scenario. It demonstrates how a college-aged male or female may attach meaning to a situation he or she experiences and then makes a moral judgment of “care” or “justice” depending on what the situation means to him or her. Finally, the data collected in 2007 are similar to the findings of Ketcham (2006). They do not indicate any significant difference in ethical attitudes between males and females from the sample.
(Graph 1)
Which is worse?
- Stealing something valuable from someone for no good reason (Justice)
- Breaking a promise to a friend for no good reason (Care)
(Table 1)
(Graph 2)
Which is the worse mistake?
- To make exceptions too freely (Justice)
- To apply the rules too rigidly (Care)
(Graph 3)
Which is worse?
- Stealing something valuable from someone for no good reason (Justice)
- Breaking a promise to a friend for no good reason (Care)
(Graph 4)
Which is worse?
- Stealing something valuable from someone for no good reason (Justice)
- Breaking a promise to a friend for no good reason (Care)
(Graph 5)
Which is more important in determining whether an action is right or wrong?
- Whether anyone actually gets hurt (Care)
- Whether a rule, law, commandment, or moral principle is broken (Justice)
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