## 3 Results
### Interactions of Individual and Institutional Factors  
Multiple interactions emerged between institutional factors and individuals' political orientation, though the results demonstrated a nonsignificant main effect for political orientation (\(\gamma\)30) (see Tables 2 and 3). Before we discuss the findings related to political orientation, recall that lower political orientation scores indicate a more liberal political orientation and higher political orientation scores indicate a more conservative political orientation. Additionally, interaction effects must be interpreted alongside significant main effects. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c} \hline \hline
**Parameters** & **N2 Score** \\ \hline _Level 1_ & \\ Sex (\(\gamma_{10}\)) & 2.11 \\ Education Level (\(\gamma_{20}\)) & 1.08 \\ Political Orientation (\(\gamma_{30}\)) & \(-\)0.68 \\ _Level 2_ & \\ Region (reference = South) & \\ West (\(\gamma_{01}\)) & 29.72 *** \\ Midwest (\(\gamma_{02}\)) & \(-\)29.13 *** \\ Northeast (\(\gamma_{03}\)) & 3.02 \\ Institution Type & \\ Public (\(\gamma_{04}\)) & 29.40 *** \\ Liberal Arts (\(\gamma_{05}\)) & 11.58 ** \\ Not Religious (\(\gamma_{06}\)) & 0.85 \\ SAT (\(\gamma_{07}\)) & \(-\)0.04 * \\ Student–faculty Ratio (\(\gamma_{08}\)) & \(-\)3.76 *** \\ Racial Composition (\(\gamma_{09}\)) & 0.89 *** \\ Morally Relevant Words & \\ Mission (\(\gamma_{010}\)) & \(-\)2.36 *** \\ Values (\(\gamma_{011}\)) & 3.59 *** \\ Course Catalog (\(\gamma_{012}\)) & 4.44 *** \\ Intercept (\(\gamma_{00}\)) & 25.75 *** \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} NOTE: * \(p<0.05\); ** \(p<0.01\); *** \(p<0.001\); Sex (1 = Female, 0 = Male); Education Level (3 = senior, 2 = junior, 1 = sophomore, 0 = freshman); Public (1 = public, 0 = else); Liberal Arts (1 = liberal arts and liberal arts-religious, 0 = else); Not Religious (1 = not religious = public, private and liberal arts, 0 = religious = religious) affiliated and liberal arts-religiousious; Mission = total number of words in the school’s mission statement related to ethics and morality; Values = total number of words in the school’s value statement(s) related to ethics and morality; Course Catalog = 10 categories of total number of words in the school’s course catalog related to ethics and morality (see Table 4); SAT, Student–faculty Ratio, Racial Composition, Mission, Values and Course Catalog all are centered around the grand mean.  
\end{table} 
Table 2: Parameter estimates for target variables. First, there was a significant interaction between political orientation and institutions' region. Among those with very liberal to somewhat conservative political orientations, students at schools in the West exhibited moral reasoning scores higher than those of students at schools in the South. However, more conservative students in the West exhibited lower moral reasoning scores than did those in the South (\(\gamma_{01}\)West + \(\gamma_{13}\)Political orientation \(\times\) West = 29.72 \(\times\) 1 - 9 \(\times\) 4 \(\times\) 1 = \(-\)6.28 for West region (=1) and very conservative (=4)). Regardless of political orientation, the results showed that moral reasoning scores for students at schools in the Midwest tend to be lower compared to those of students in the South (\(\gamma_{02}\)Midwest + \(\gamma_{32}\)Political orientation \(\times\) Midwest = \(-\)29.13 (=\(-\)29.13 \(\times\) 1 + 1.99 \(\times\) 0 \(\times\) 1) for very liberal to \(-\)21.17 (=\(-\)29.13 \(\times\) 1 + 1.99 \(\times\) 4 \(\times\) 1) for very conservative). The magnitude of the difference in moral reasoning scores between students in the Midwest and the South depended on students' political orientation. The difference in scores between the two regions among more liberal students was more pronounced than that among more conservative students (region difference = 29.13 for very liberal students and 21.17 for very conservative students). Third, political orientation interacted with student-faculty ratio.