Relations between Moral Reasoning, Personality Traits, and Justice-decisions on Hypothetical and Real-life Moral Dilemmas

Participants (1 06 women and 95 men) responded to a distributive justice dilemma that involved allocating money to self and three others and making judgments about allocation behaviours. Participants were randomly assigned to groups that responded to the dilemma in a purely hypothetical manner, in a real situation with play money, and in a real situation with real money. Participants also completed Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview (MJI; Colby & Kohlberg, 1987), the Revised Interpersonal Adjectives Scale--Big 5 (IASR-B5; Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990), and a study-specific measure of the moral reasoning used to justify allocation decisions. Participants made more self-benefitting decisions when the consequences were real than when the consequences were hypothetical or involved play money and they justified their decisions at relatively low levels of moral reasoning. The data were consistent with previous findings that: a) moral reasoning scores on Kohlberg's test were higher than scores on a non-Kohlbergian dilemma; b) there were no sex differences in reasoning on Kohlberg's dilemmas; and, c) moral reasoning scores were moderately predictive of behaviour. New findings were that: a) specific instructions to engage in moral reasoning either before or after making a moral decision had little effect on moral reasoning or allocation decisions; b) men exhibited more selfish behaviour than women did, yet showed similar levels of moral reasoning; and, c) Openness scores on the IASR-B5 were as predictive of allocation behaviour as MJI scores were. The findings are discussed in terms of Kohlberg's model and the additivelinclusive model (Levine, 1979) of moral development. Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions iv Acknowledgements The existence of this work must be attributed to the support I received from family, friends, and colleagues. Sue Smyth, my partner and mate, gave me love and support over the long months when I was often home in body but not in mind. My parents, Ken and Kay Day, my sister Keli, her husband David Swinnard, and their children, Lisa and Alex, believed from the very beginning that I could do it. The work might never have been completed without the guidance, support, and friendship of my supervisor, Dr. Dennis Krebs. His efforts on my behalf have been exceptional. Thank you. The other members of my committee, Drs. Gary Poole, Bill Krane, and Steve Hart challenged me to do the best work possible. Grant Burt, in addition to conducting half of the research in a very profession manner, helped me to keep the project in perspective--thanks for your good humour. Dr. Gillian Wark and Danielle Krebs spent hundreds of hours scoring all the protocols; a job well done. Finally, my sanity, or lack thereof, through the whole process was due to the support of fiends and colleagues--in no particular order: Bev, Gill, Lorie, Cristine, Joan W. , Elizabeth, Phil, Dave, Wendy, Anita, Joanne, Gloria, Richard W. , Kathy D. , Gary, Devorah, Wayne, Dianne, and all the people who, in one way or another, made the process more human. Thanks to all. Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions v