Moral judgment: The influence of ethical ideology.

Abstract

To determine when ethical ideology influences judgments of morality, 32 male and 32 female undergraduates who endorsed an absolutist, exceptionist, subjectivist, or situationist ideology on the Ethics Position Questionnaire were screened from a large class. Ss then morally evaluated an actor linked, at varying levels of responsibility, to positive or negative outcomes. As predicted, absolutists judged the actor more harshly than exceptionists, but only when the described actor has foreseen or intended to produce a highly negative consequence. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)