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RESEARCH REPORT
Gender-related differences in moral judgments
M. Fumagalli
Æ
R. Ferrucci
Æ
F. Mameli
Æ
S. Marceglia
Æ
S. Mrakic-Sposta
Æ
S. Zago
Æ
C. Lucchiari
Æ
D. Consonni
Æ
F. Nordio
Æ
G. Pravettoni
Æ
S. Cappa
Æ
A. Priori
Received: 2 April 2009 / Accepted: 10 August 2009 / Published online: 30 August 2009
Marta Olivetti Belardinelli and Springer-Verlag 2009
Abstract The moral sense is among the most complex
aspects of the human mind. Despite substantial evidence
confirming gender-related neurobiological and behavioral
differences, and psychological research suggesting gender
specificities in moral development, whether these
differences arise from cultural effects or are innate remains
unclear. In this study, we investigated the role of gender,
education (general education and health education) and
religious belief (Catholic and non-Catholic) on moral
choices by testing 50 men and 50 women with a moral
judgment task. Whereas we found no differences between
the two genders in utilitarian responses to non-moral
dilemmas and to impersonal moral dilemmas, men gave
significantly more utilitarian answers to personal moral
(PM) dilemmas (i.e., those courses of action whose
endorsement involves highly emotional decisions). Cul-
tural factors such as education and religion had no effect on
performance in the moral judgment task. These findings
suggest that the cognitive–emotional processes involved in
evaluating PM dilemmas differ in men and in women,
possibly reflecting differences in the underlying neural
mechanisms. Gender-related determinants of moral
behavior may partly explain gender differences in real-life
involving power management, economic decision-making,
leadership and possibly also aggressive and criminal
behaviors.
Keywords Moral judgment Morality Utilitarianism
Gender differences
Introduction
The moral sense is central to the human mind and crucial in
determining human behavior. Whereas philosophers have
been speculating about the origin and determinants of
morality since antiquity (Thomson 1986), psychological
interest began in the 1960s and scientific investigation into
the neurological mechanisms underlying moral choice
began only recently.
M. Fumagalli R. Ferrucci F. Mameli S. Marceglia
S. Mrakic-Sposta S. Zago A. Priori (&)
Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche, Fondazione IRCCS
Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Mangiagalli e Regina Elena,
Universita
`di Milano, Via F. Sforza, 35, Milan 20122, Italy
e-mail: alberto.priori@unimi.it
M. Fumagalli R. Ferrucci F. Mameli S. Marceglia
S. Mrakic-Sposta A. Priori
Centro Clinico per le Neuronanotecnologie e la
Neurostimolazione, Fondazione IRCCS Ospedale Maggiore
Policlinico, Mangiagalli e Regina Elena, Milan, Italy
M. Fumagalli R. Ferrucci F. Mameli S. Marceglia
S. Mrakic-Sposta S. Zago A. Priori
Unita
`Operativa di Neurologia, Fondazione IRCCS Ospedale
Maggiore Policlinico, Mangiagalli e Regina Elena, Milan, Italy
C. Lucchiari G. Pravettoni
Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e Politiche, Centro
interdipartimentale di Ricerca e Intervento sui Processi
Decisionali (IRIDe), Universita
`di Milano, Milan, Italy
D. Consonni F. Nordio
Unita
`di Epidemiologia, Fondazione IRCCS Ospedale Maggiore
Policlinico, Mangiagalli e Regina Elena, Milan, Italy
F. Nordio
Dipartimento di Clinica Medica, Nefrologia e Scienze della
Prevenzione, Universita
`degli Studi, Parma, Italy
S. Cappa
Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Centro di Neuroscienze
Cognitive, Istituto Scientifico San Raffaele,
Universita
`Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy
123
Cogn Process (2010) 11:219–226
DOI 10.1007/s10339-009-0335-2
Philosophical and psychological studies have different
objectives. Whereas philosophers are interested in devel-
oping a normative theory, psychologists primarily want to
describe moral development and behavior. Without pur-
suing philosophers’ more ambitious goal of giving a
complete normative account, psychological studies aim to
pinpoint the major specific factors.
The groundwork of moral psychology hinges on the
theories proposed by Piaget and Kohlberg. Piaget’s psy-
chological theory assumes that moral stages are universal
and their development is invariable (Piaget 1932). In
addition, Kohlberg’ theory assumes that morality is uni-
versal, equal for men and women and for all cultures
(Kohlberg 1964). This idea has nevertheless been repeat-
edly questioned; the role of factors such as gender, edu-
cation and religion opens the more general question about
innateness of morality (Dupoux and Jacob 2007; Hauser
et al. 2007).
One of the major factors considered in evaluating moral
reasoning and behavior is gender. According to ‘‘common
sense’’, women were described as inclined to sentimen-
talism, to intuition and to emotion. Terms such as ‘‘angel of
the hearth’’ convey an idea of women characterized by
feelings, vocation to motherhood and care and empathy.
Despite this cliche
´, history contradicts this motherly image.
Take for example witches, prostitutes, and son-killers.
Even Kohlberg himself identified a strong interpersonal
bias in the women’s moral judgments. Other researchers
also questioned the possibility of a sex-related bias in
Kohlberg’s theory (Gilligan 1982; Haan 1975; Holstein
1976). In particular, Gilligan pointed out that the Kohlberg
model considers justice as the fundamental principle for
moral behavior and penalizes women, according to whom
the central moral problem is the conflict between self and
other. Whereas men solve moral dilemmas in a rational
way, respecting law and order, women are driven by
emotion, empathy and care for others. These differences
led Gilligan to describe two divergent modes of moral
reasoning: an ethic of care and an ethic of justice (Gump
et al. 2000). Other studies confirmed these differences in
various tests for evaluating moral judgment (Aldrich and
Kage 2003; Bjorklund 2003; Eisenman 1967; Gump et al.
2000; Indick et al. 2000;Skoe1995). Despite these reports,
others found no gender differences (Brabeck and Shore
2003; Jaffee and Hyde 2000; Keasey 1972; Lifton 1985;
McGraw and Bloomfield 1987), leaving this topic open to
debate.
In the neuroscience field, neuroimaging (Greene and
Haidt 2002; Greene et al. 2001,2004) and lesional studies
in patients with focal brain lesions (Koenigs et al. 2007)
have now documented the neurobiological determinants of
moral behavior. Except for Harenski et al. (2008) who
studied the neural correlates of moral sensitivity in females
and males and found greater posterior cingulate cortex and
anterior insula activation in females, and greater inferior
parietal cortex activation in males, these studies neglected
to consider the gender factor.
Research, expanding gender factors to other fields of
psychology, disclosed gender differences in empathic
ability (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright 2004; Eisenberg
2005) and in other functions having a causal role in moral
judgment, such as emotions (Aleman and Swart 2008;
Hareli et al. 2009). These differences correlate also with
the well-documented gender differences in brain structures
(Cahill 2006; Gur et al. 1999; Luders et al. 2002; Raz et al.
2004; Tranel et al. 2005), neurotransmitter systems (Cahill
2006), cognitive performance (Bolla et al. 2004; Kimura
1996; Overman et al. 2004,2006; Overman 2004; Reavis
and Overman 2001; Vecchi and Girelli 1998; Voyer and
Saunders 2004) and brain activation during cognitive tasks
(Bell et al. 2006; Fischer et al. 2004; Lee et al. 2005; Weiss
et al. 2003).
Among other factors influencing moral judgment is
education. Several studies investigated its role in relation to
age, specifically in college students, and to a lesser extent,
graduate students (Rest et al. 1999; Thoma 1993). Studying
both undergraduate and graduate students, Maeda et al.
(2009) found that students in medical schools give higher
average moral judgment levels than students in business
and other majors. These results suggested that such schools
are preparing students for a profession or calling that is
essentially a moral enterprise that serves as an environ-
mental factor that influences level of moral judgment
(Bebeau and Monson 2008).
Among the few studies interested in addressing the
relation between religion and morality, Hauser et al. (2007)
found no differences in moral judgment according to reli-
gious affiliation.
Moral judgment depends also crucially on cognitive and
emotional processes. In their recent research about neural
basis of morality, Greene et al. (2001) investigated this
topic according to the utilitarian theory stating that an
action is morally right if it produces the highest utility of
any available alternative action. The morality and duty of
an act were irrelevant. In this perspective, Greene distin-
guished between ‘‘personal’’ and ‘‘impersonal’’ moral
actions, on the basis of the dual-process theory (Greene
2009; Greene et al. 2001; McGuire et al. 2009). This theory
distinguishes a fast, unconscious and effortless affective
system and a slow, conscious and effortful cognitive sys-
tem. Whereas the affective system is activated by personal
moral (PM) judgments, cognitive system is preferentially
activated by impersonal conflicts. The term ‘‘utilitarian
responses’’ denotes the decision to perform an action
directed toward achieving the greatest advantage and the
minimum disadvantage for aggregate welfare. People
220 Cogn Process (2010) 11:219–226
123
usually choose this course of action when faced with a non-
moral (NM) choice (for example, choosing to take the train
instead of bus to avoid arriving late at an important
meeting), or an emotionally non-salient decision. Con-
versely, when choice involves, for example, inflicting
direct harm to one person to save the lives of others (a PM
dilemma), most people decide against the action or to
endorse it (utilitarian response) only after a high emotional
conflict.
Previous research in moral judgments, therefore, leaves
gender-related differences and the relation between this
factor and education and religion unclear. Neither does it
specify the role of reason and emotion in the complex
decisional processing involved in moral judgment nor can
it be modulated by gender, religion and education. Having
more complete information is essential in understanding
the role of culture and nature in moral thinking and
behavior.
We designed this study to find out whether moral
judgments differ between genders and differ according to
cultural factors such as religious belief and education. To
do so, we evaluated moral judgments with a computer-
controlled procedure, the moral judgment task, testing NM,
impersonal moral (IM) and PM dilemmas (Greene et al.
2001,2004; Koenigs et al. 2007). As dependent variables,
we assessed response times (RTs) and percentage of utili-
tarian responses. Utilitarian responses were defined as the
decision to perform an action directed toward achieving the
greatest advantage and the minimum disadvantage for
aggregate welfare.
Materials and methods
Participants
One hundred healthy volunteers (50 males and 50 females,
aged 20–32 years; education 14–22 years; Table 1) par-
ticipated in the study. Subjects were recruited from among
students at the University of Milan and received no reward
for taking part in the experiments. All participants spoke
native Italian, were right handed and had no history of
neurological or psychiatric disorders. All participants gave
their informed consent and the procedures were approved
by the local ethical committee. The experimental procedure
was in accordance with the declaration of Helsinki.
We distinguished between Catholics and non-Catholics
by asking subjects about their religious belief. The non-
Catholic group included both agnostics and atheists. We
also distinguished between health education and general
education in agreement with how the degree courses are
subdivided at the Italian Department for Education, Uni-
versity and Research.
Moral judgment task
We used the moral judgment task proposed by Greene and
colleagues (Fumagalli et al. 2009; Greene et al. 2001,
2004). We used a battery of 30 practical dilemmas ran-
domly extracted from 60 scenarios (Greene et al. 2004)
translated into Italian. The task consisted of 20 NM
dilemmas and two classes of ‘‘moral’’ scenarios subdivided
into IM (18 scenarios) and PM (22 scenarios) dilemmas.
RTs and percentage of utilitarian responses were recorded.
In agreement with the utilitarian theory, we distin-
guished utilitarian and non-utilitarian responses. A utili-
tarian response implies judging actions by their ability to
maximize good consequences, so that any harm to one
person can be justified by a greater gain to others: indi-
viduals’ interests can be sacrificed for the sake of the
community.
Procedure section
The experimental procedure took 30 min for each subject.
After participants gave their informed consent, we asked
about age, school and religious belief. We evaluated
handedness using the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory
(Oldfield 1971) and we also ensured the absence of neu-
rological and psychiatric diseases. Subjects were seated in
a quiet room in front of a personal computer.
The moral judgment task was administered in accor-
dance with Koenigs et al. (2007). Each dilemma was pre-
sented in a series of three screens of text. The first two
screens each presented a paragraph describing the context
and details of the dilemma. The third screen posed a
question about a hypothetical action related to the scenario
(‘‘Would you…in order to…?’’). Participants were allowed
to read through screens 1 and 2 at their own pace, pressing
the space bar to advance to the next screen. In the third
screen, participants had a maximum of 25 s to read the
final question and press the left (YES) or the right (NO)
mouse button (Fig. 1). Stimuli were presented on a
Table 1 Demographic data
Gender Education Religion NAge
Mean (±SE)
Female Health Catholic 16 23.25 (0.83)
Non-Catholic 9 24.11 (0.93)
General Catholic 13 24.92 (0.82)
Non-Catholic 12 22.41 (0.65)
Male Health Catholic 17 26.82 (1.50)
Non-Catholic 8 24.00 (0.85)
General Catholic 9 24.66 (1.04)
Non-Catholic 16 24.75 (0.80)
SE standard error
Cogn Process (2010) 11:219–226 221
123
personal computer screen using E-Prime Version 1.1
(Psychology Software Tools, Inc, Pittsburgh, USA).
Impersonal moral dilemmas included the following exam-
ple: You are at the wheel of a runaway trolley quickly
approaching a fork in the tracks. On the tracks extending to
the left is a group of five railway workmen. On the tracks
extending to the right is a single railway workman. If you
do nothing the trolley will proceed to the left, causing the
deaths of the five workmen. The only way to avoid the
deaths of these workmen is to hit a switch on your dash-
board that will cause the trolley to proceed to the right,
causing the death of the single workman. Would you hit the
switch in order to avoid the deaths of the five workmen?
Personal moral dilemmas included the following: A run-
away trolley is heading down the tracks toward five
workmen who will be killed if the trolley proceeds on its
present course. You are on a footbridge over the tracks, in
between the approaching trolley and the five workmen.
Next to you on this footbridge is a stranger who happens to
be very large. The only way to save the lives of the five
workmen is to push this stranger off the bridge and onto the
tracks below where his large body will stop the trolley. The
stranger will die if you do this, but the five workmen will be
saved. Would you push the stranger on to the tracks in
order to save the five workmen? Among the non-moral
dilemmas was the following example: You are a farm
worker driving a turnip-harvesting machine. You are
approaching two diverging paths. By choosing the path on
the left you will harvest ten bushels of turnips. By choosing
the path on the right you will harvest twenty bushels of
turnips. If you do nothing your turnip-harvesting machine
will turn to the left. Would you turn your turnip-picking
machine to the right in order to harvest twenty bushels of
turnips instead of ten?
Data analysis
We analyzed the effect of three factors on task perfor-
mance: gender, religious belief and education. Gender
differences in the percentage of utilitarian responses given
for each scenario type (NM, IM, PM) were tested using a
four-way between subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA)
with the factors gender (males, females), religion (Catholic,
non-Catholic), education (health, general) and type of
dilemma (NM, IM, PM).
Response times were collected as RTs for utilitarian
responses (mean utilitarian RTs for each type of dilemmas
for each subject) and non-utilitarian RTs (mean non-utili-
tarian RTs for each type of dilemmas for each subject). To
evaluate between-group differences in utilitarian and non-
utilitarian RTs we used a five-way between subjects
ANOVA with gender (males, females), education (health,
general), religion (Catholic, non-Catholic), utilitarian or
non-utilitarian responses and type of dilemma (NM, IM,
PM) as factors. Bonferroni corrected ttests were used for
post hoc analysis. We checked the normality assumption
for all the response variables with skewness and kurtosis
test for normality. A two-tailed Pvalue \0.05 was con-
sidered statistically significant. All statistical analyses were
performed in STATISTICA (StatSoft, Inc, Tulsa, USA).
Results
Gender had a highly significant effect on percentage utili-
tarian responses (F
2,176
=3.78, P=0.0248). Post hoc
analysis showed that despite no differences in IM and NM
responses, utilitarian responses to PM dilemmas were sig-
nificantly more frequent in men than in women [t(98) =
-3.28, P=0.0014; Fig. 2]. Conversely, no differences
were found in RTs for utilitarian and non-utilitarian
responses between the two sexes for the same class of
dilemmas. Education and religious beliefs neither had
significant effect on RTs for utilitarian and non-utilitarian
responses or on utilitarian response percentages, nor did
they significantly interact with gender (Tables 2,3,4).
Discussion
The first finding in our study is that moral judgments differ
between genders. We found that responses to PM dilemmas
differ specifically and selectively in men and in women,
showing that gender-related differences in moral judgment
specifically influence those dilemmas involving emotion-
ally salient actions. Under these circumstances, men more
frequently make a ‘‘pragmatic’’ choice regardless of putt-
ing others at risk of danger or harm. The prevalence of
Fig. 1 Task sequence representative of personal moral dilemma. The
sequence is the same for non-moral and impersonal moral dilemmas
222 Cogn Process (2010) 11:219–226
123
non-utilitarian responses to PM dilemmas in females sup-
ports the gender-related distinction between ethics of care
and ethics of justice proposed by Gilligan (1982). These
findings may be connected to the gender-differences in
empathic ability (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright 2004;
Eisenberg 2005) that make females more resistant to
decisions that despite being rationally viable entail directly
inflicting physical or moral pain to other individuals.
Hence, female moral reasoning seems directed to avoid
harming other people, to place high value on social rela-
tionships and to fulfill other individuals’ expectations.
Conversely, male moral thought hinges on the abstract
principles of justice and fairness and on an individualistic
stance (Jaffee and Hyde 2000;Rest1979). Overall, our
findings support Greene’s dual-process theory, confirming
that non-utilitarian choices in response to PM dilemmas are
driven more by emotions than by cognition. Whether
gender differences in behavioral measures arise from cul-
tural effects or reflect innate differences remains unclear.
Although the answer is probably more complex than the
traditional dichotomous nature-nurture debate envisages
(Lippa 2005), several observations support a possible role
of neural mechanisms in clarifying this question.
Unlike gender, cultural factors such as education and
religious belief had no effect on how the university stu-
dents we studied performed the moral judgment task.
Hence, we conjecture that gender differences are probably
Fig. 2 Percentage of utilitarian responses in males and females in the
moral judgment task. Error bars are standard error of the mean. We
used three classes of stimuli: non-moral dilemmas (NM, 20 scenarios),
impersonal moral dilemmas (IM, 18 scenarios) and personal moral
dilemmas (PM, 22 scenarios). Sex influenced the percentage of
utilitarian responses (F
2,176
=3.78, P=0.0248). Although ANOVA
disclosed no differences between impersonal moral and non-moral
responses, utilitarian responses in personal moral dilemmas were
significantly more frequent in men than in women [t(98) =-3.28,
P=0.0014]
Table 2 Percentage of utilitarian responses as function of gender, education and religion
% of Utilitarian responses NNon-moral Personal moral Impersonal moral
Gender Education Religion Mean (±SE) Mean (±SE) Mean (±SE)
Female Health Catholic 16 88.75 (1.80) 25.38 (3.51) 77.71 (3.24)
Non-Catholic 9 87.78 (3.24) 22.22 (5.05) 69.14 (3.60)
General Catholic 13 82.31 (3.43) 29.76 (4.83) 69.85 (3.43)
Non-Catholic 12 90.00 (2.75) 32.32 (5.61) 69.87 (5.65)
Male Health Catholic 17 83.53 (2.42) 37.14 (4.03) 78.02 (3.52)
Non-Catholic 8 85.00 (4.23) 39.77 (9.09) 71.84 (6.33)
General Catholic 9 85.56 (3.77) 39.06 (6.28) 70.03 (5.28)
Non-Catholic 16 89.38 (1.93) 40.97 (4.48) 81.63 (3.81)
SE standard error
Table 3 Reaction times of utilitarian responses as function of gender, education and religion
RTs utilitarian responses NNon-moral Personal moral Impersonal moral
Gender Education Religion Mean (±SE) Mean (±SE) Mean (±SE)
Female Health Catholic 16 4311.23 (249.04) 3889.62 (565.33) 3020.67 (210.55)
Non-Catholic 9 4273.68 (409.55) 4259.94 (1206.41) 3485.65 (678.61)
General Catholic 13 4403.48 (421.38) 4938.99 (514.18) 3358.08 (327.24)
Non-Catholic 12 4100.29 (355.48) 3990.96 (613.28) 3334.79 (385.18)
Male Health Catholic 17 4296.30 (300.18) 3713.75 (316.05) 3490.63 (348.59)
Non-Catholic 8 5273.59 (814.23) 4001.69 (667.2) 3986.67 (420.25)
General Catholic 9 3745.79 (303.87) 3592.43 (339.44) 2764.19 (166.19)
Non-Catholic 16 4274.29 (286.14) 4517.52 (711.31) 3841.40 (364.41)
SE standard error, RTs reaction times
Cogn Process (2010) 11:219–226 223
123
better explained by biological than by cultural differences.
In a neurophysiological perspective, Greene et al. (2004)
underline that assessment of moral dilemmas involves
brain areas associated with social–emotional and cognitive
processes such as affect, motivation, working memory,
abstract reasoning and problem solving. They also show
that brain activation patterns differ in the three classes of
dilemmas, and also in utilitarian and non-utilitarian
responses to PM dilemmas. In discussing the findings from
their lesional study, Koenigs et al. (2007) concluded that a
combination of intuitive–affective and conscious–rational
mechanisms operate to produce moral judgment, contrib-
uting in different proportion to moral choices. The fact that
patients with bilateral ventromedial prefrontal cortex
(VMPFC) lesions are more utilitarian than healthy subjects
in judging PM dilemmas suggests that the VMPFC is a
critical area in solving moral conflict in which social
emotions are relevant (Koenigs et al. 2007). This portion of
the frontal cortex may be the site of sex-related differences
in moral sense. In line with this conclusion, Tranel et al.
(2005) found gender-related differences in the pattern of
left–right asymmetry in the VMPFC. Several anatomical
studies also showed gender-related differences in the
frontal lobe. For example, women have a larger dorsolat-
eral prefrontal cortex (Chen et al. 2007; Schlaepfer et al.
1995; Sowell et al. 2007) and more gray matter in the
orbitofrontal (Gur et al. 1999) and in the left ventral frontal
cortex whereas men have thicker right orbitofrontal corti-
ces (Sowell et al. 2007). Another factor that might explain
the sex-related difference in moral sense is the specificity
of neurotransmitter systems or of hormonal stimulation
(Cahill 2006). Our hypothesis about gender-related differ-
ences in morality receives support also from a recent
functional neuroimaging study (Harenski et al. 2008).
Whatever the explanation, our new findings showing
gender-related differences in moral sense suggest that
previous studies need reappraising. For instance, a given
frontal lobe lesion might induce a different moral behavior
in men and women, and the pattern of functional brain
changes during a moral task might differ between genders.
Our findings should nevertheless offer a good starting point
to explain, for example, the gender-related inclination to
specific job classes, attitudes toward leadership and power
management and criminal behaviors. They may also pro-
vide clues as to why men are physically and verbally more
aggressive than women (Archer 2004; Buss and Perry
1992; Greenfeld and Snell 1999), and why crime statistics
in several countries (Australian Institute of Criminology
2007; Home Office 2002,2003; Sabol et al. 2007) report
that the female percentage of total inmates is 6–7%, irre-
spective of nationality, culture, religion and age.
In conclusion, our study showed the existence of gender-
related differences in moral behavior in young adults.
Whether and how these differences can change at different
ages should be matter of further, specifically designed
studies.
Acknowledgments Manuela Fumagalli was supported by Univer-
sity of Milan, Department of Neurological Sciences grant. Roberta
Ferrucci was supported by FISM-Fondazione Italiana Sclerosi Mul-
tipla—Cod. 2007/R/13.
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