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ATTITUDES AND SOCIAL COGNITION

Culture and Moral Judgment: How Are Conflicts Between Justiceand Interpersonal Responsibilities Resolved?

Joan G. Miller and David M. BersoffYale University

A 2-session study examined Indian and American adults' and children's (N = 140) reasoning aboutmoral dilemmas involving conflicts between interpersonal and justice expectations. Most Indiansgave priority to the interpersonal expectations, whereas most Americans gave priority to the justiceexpectations. Indians tended to categorize their conflict resolutions in moral terms. In contrast,when Americans gave priority to the interpersonal alternatives, they tended to categorize theirresolutions in personal terms. Results imply that Indians possess a postconventional moral code inwhich interpersonal responsibilities are seen in as fully principled terms as justice obligations andmay be accorded precedence over justice obligations. Findings also suggest that a personal moral-ity of interpersonal responsiveness and caring is linked to highly rights-oriented cultural views,such as those emphasized in the United States.

Psychological theorists have tended to assume that a dichot-omy exists between the moral status of justice1 and of benefi-cence and role-related interpersonal responsibilities (i.e., obli-gations to be responsive to another's wants or needs that arise,in part, from in-group identity). Contrasting frameworks havebeen adopted to provide a philosophical grounding for this andrelated claims. Kohlberg and others have drawn on philosophi-cal arguments within the Kantian tradition to posit that benefi-cence obligations lack certain formal properties characterizingjustice obligations and therefore should logically be subordi-nate to justice obligations in situations in which the two typesof expectations conflict (e.g., Kohlberg, 1981; Kohlberg, Le-vine, & Hewer, 1983; Nunner-Winkler, 1984). In contrast, Gilli-gan and her colleagues have drawn on other conceptual frame-works to provide a philosophical grounding for their claimsthat interpersonal responsibilities represent an alternative typeof morality, distinct from the morality of justice, although notnecessarily subordinate to it (e.g. Lyons, 1983; Gilligan, 1977,1982; Gilligan& Wiggins, 1988). In comparing the priority thatAmericans and Indians give to justice and interpersonal obliga-tions, the present study provides a cross-cultural empirical ex-amination of these assertions.

Philosophical arguments focused on the differential charac-

This research was supported by National Institute of Mental HealthGrant MH42940 to Joan G. Miller.

We thank E. Annamalai and B. B. Rajapourohit of the Central Insti-tute of Indian Languages and R. Indira of the University of Mysore fortheir support of the project. Appreciation is also expressed to JonathanBaron and the reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of thisarticle and to Susan Goldman for her statistical advice.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to JoanG. Miller, Department of Psychology, Yale University, P.O. Box 11AYale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-7447.

teristics of beneficence and justice have been used by Kohlbergand others to support the claim that obligations to be respon-sive to another's needs are secondary to justice obligations(Gert, 1988; Nunner-Winkler, 1984; Sidgwick, 1962; Urmson,1958). It has been noted that, in contrast to justice obligations,which can be fulfilled merely by not violating another's rights(e.g., "do not harm innocent others," and "distribute goods in afair manner"), beneficence obligations prescribe acts of com-mission that go beyond those dictated by another's rights (e.g.,"help needy others"). Beneficence obligations, therefore, it hasbeen argued, must be limited in scope to avoid overtaxing the

1 Adopting the definition used by Kohlberg, justice is denned hereas encompassing "fairness, rights [and] the Golden Rule" (Kohlberg,1973, p. 29). This view treats welfare concerns as part of justice whenthey involve the principle of utilitarianism (Frankena, 1973). In con-trast, welfare concerns that encompass altruism, charity, prosocial be-havior or relationship-specific loyalty or caring are considered in non-principled terms as matters of either beneficence or interpersonal re-sponsibility. As Kohlberg and his colleagues comment, "Judgmentswhich consider the needs and welfare of the other as an individual,where the other's welfare seems to be a matter of a right or claim theother has or where it is a matter of not harming the other's welfare, arejustice judgments. Judgments which consider fulfilling the other'sneed when it is not based on a right or claim or where it is a matter ofpreventing harm are responsibility judgments" (Kohlberg, Levine, &Hewer, 1983, p. 26). Note that the present definition of justice isbroader than that used in much social psychological research. Suchresearch has tended to focus on questions of distributive, procedural,or retributive justice, namely, examining the fairness of approachesused in dividing resources, allocating outcomes, or sanctioning behav-ior (e.g., Bies& Moag, 1986; Reis, 1981,1986). In contrast, whereas thepresent view of justice encompasses such considerations, it considersother formal and content-based aspects of justice as well (see also Tu-riel, 1983).

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1992, Vol. 62, No. 4, 541-554Copyright 1992 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/92/S3.00

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542 JOAN G. MILLER AND DAVID M. BERSOFF

agent. However, even when qualified to apply only to low-costsituations, beneficence obligations have still been seen as toounbounded to fulfill completely. As Gert (1988) noted, agentsexpected to help all needy others whom they could potentiallyaid without great sacrifice would never be able to relax, in thatthere would always be others whom they could be helping. Inrecognition of these problems in limiting the scope of benefi-cence, theorists have concluded that beneficence obligationscan only be considered "imperfect duties" or "superogatory"expectations, rather than "perfect duties," subject to social regu-lation (Kant, 1788/1949,1797/1964).

In contrast, philosophical arguments focused on the distinc-tive properties of role-related interpersonal responsibilitieshave been referred to by Gilligan and her colleagues in supportof the claim that interpersonal responsiveness and caring have adifferent moral status than justice obligations (Blum, 1980). Ithas been maintained that, unlike justice demands, which aregeneral and rationally grounded, interpersonal expectationsare particularistic and, in part, affectively based. Role-relatedinterpersonal responsibilities, it has been argued, must be con-sidered idiographic in character and cannot be formulated asgeneral rules.

On an empirical level, research with Americans has sup-ported the argument that beneficence and role-related inter-personal responsibilities are accorded a personal moral status,distinct from that accorded justice obligations. Evidence sug-gests that American children believe that only justice obliga-tions, and not helping behavior, should be rule governed (Sme-tana, Bridgeman, & Turiel, 1983). American adults, it has alsobeen shown, tend to regard issues of caring and of interpersonalresponsiveness as personal decisions (Higgins, Power, & Kohl-berg, 1984; Nunner-Winkler, 1984).

Cross-cultural research, however, indicates that this view isnot universal. It has been shown that Indians classify breachesof various friendship and kinship expectations as moral issues—a pattern contrasting with the American tendency to classifythese issues as matters of personal choice (Miller & Luthar,1989; Shweder, Mahapahtra, & Miller, 1987). It has also beendemonstrated that, whereas American and Indian children andadults agree in categorizing beneficence in fully moral terms inlife-threatening situations, they disagree in their view of benefi-cence in nonextreme cases (Miller, Bersoff, & Harwood, 1990).In the latter cases, Americans tend to categorize helping otherseither as personal-moral issues (i.e., as involving a sense of ob-jective obligation but as being beyond the scope of legitimateregulation) or as matters of personal choice (i.e., as neither in-volving a sense of objective obligation nor as being within thescope of legitimate regulation). In contrast, even in cases involv-ing only minor need, Indians tend to view helping others infully moral terms (i.e., as both involving a sense of objectiveobligation and as being within the scope of legitimate regula-tion).

Whereas researchers have examined the moral status of ben-eficence and interpersonal responsibilities, little work has beendone comparing the priority that interpersonal expectationsare given relative to justice demands. To investigate this issue,studies are required that assess the manner in which conflictsbetween the two types of obligations are resolved. In investiga-tions of this type, it is critical to control the level of importanceof the justice and interpersonal concerns being compared.

Such control is necessary to ensure that a given expectation isaccorded precedence over another because, as a class, it takesprecedence, rather than because a more serious exemplar ofone type of issue is being contrasted with a less serious exem-plar of another type. Most past research on moral conflict reso-lution, however, has not involved this type of design. In somecases, attention has centered on the priority given to justice orinterpersonal issues relative to selfish concerns but not on thepriority that they are given relative to each other (e.g. Eisenberg,1982; Higgins et al., 1984). In other cases in which justice andinterpersonal obligations have been directly contrasted, thelevel of importance of the particular issues under considerationhas tended not to be controlled (e.g., Kohlberg, 1981).

A related issue, also subject to little empirical study, concernsthe interpretation of conflict situations. A dominant theoreti-cal position has been to assume that such interpretation pro-ceeds in a rational manner (Smetana, 1983; Smetana, Killen, &Turiel, 1991; Turiel & Smetana, 1984). Individuals are viewedas weighing competing behavioral expectations in terms oftheir moral versus nonmoral content or in terms of the magni-tude of their consequences. In contrast, other theoretical view-points imply that moral judgment may be guided, at least inpart, by irrational or nonrational processes (Kagan, 1984;Shweder et al, 1987). Unfortunately, however, little empiricaldata exist that would permit exploration of this issue, such asdata that would permit comparisons of individual expectationsin isolation with expectations in the context of a conflict di-lemma.

Using a cross-cultural developmental design, the presenttwo-part investigation was intended to examine these unre-solved issues regarding the priority given to justice and inter-personal expectations and regarding the interpretation ofmoral conflict situations. We focused on the manner in whichmiddle-class American and Hindu Indian children and adultsresolve situations involving conflicts between justice andfriendship-based interpersonal responsibilities that are at thesame level of perceived seriousness. We also examined howtheir views of justice and interpersonal breaches differ in isola-tion as opposed to in conflict situations. In sampling expecta-tions associated with friendship, we focused on a type of rela-tionship that is especially relevant to evaluating claims that par-ticularistic relationships are beyond the realm of socialregulation. Specifically, friendship bonds tend to be regarded asboth voluntarily assumed and affectively grounded (Argyle &Henderson, 1985; Blum, 1980; Wiseman, 1986).

American and Indian cultural groups were selected for com-parison because their cultural beliefs and values differ in waysthat have been shown to affect their moral views of interper-sonal responsibilities (Miller & Luthar, 1989; Miller et al,1990). As noted earlier, whereas Americans tend to considerinterpersonal responsibilities as either personal-moral or per-sonal-choice issues, Indians tend to consider them in fullymoral terms. We predicted that because of this cultural differ-ence Indians would give greater priority to interpersonal expec-tations relative to justice considerations than would Ameri-cans. Paralleling trends found in past cross-cultural develop-mental research (Miller, 1986, 1987; Miller et al, 1990), thiscross-cultural difference was hypothesized to be greater at olderages than at younger ages.

On an attributional level, we focused on ways in which cul-

JUSTICE VERSUS INTERPERSONAL RESPONSIBILITIES 543

turally based knowledge structures affect the interpretation ofinformation portrayed in conflict dilemmas. Past research hasdocumented, for example, that attributions tend to be in-fluenced by individuals' preexisting conceptual schemata, withthese schemata reflecting not only individual differences inattitudes and personality but also the beliefs and values sharedwithin cultural communities or subgroups (e.g., Chapman &Chapman, 1969; Harwood & Miller, 1991; Kahneman, Slovic,& Tversky, 1982; Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Shweder & DAndrade,1980). In the present case, we predicted that the types of attri-butions that subjects made regarding the conflict dilemmaswould be biased2 in the direction of the priority given to inter-personal expectations relative to justice considerations in eachculture. Specifically, we hypothesized that Americans woulddownplay the consequences of interpersonal breaches relativeto justice breaches, whereas Indians would display the reversetrend.

Finally, to provide information on the impact of socioeco-nomic status on the anticipated cross-cultural differences, anal-yses contrasted the responses of the main sample of middle-class American and Hindu Indian adults with the responses ofa subsample of higher socioeconomic status Hindu Indianadults. If cultural differences reflect merely an adaptation tothe functional constraints associated with different ecologicalconditions (Greenfield & Bruner, 1969; Hallpike, 1979), onewould expect that higher socioeconomic status Indian subjectswould differ from lower socioeconomic status Indian subjectsin the same direction as Americans did from Indians: Individ-uals exposed to the greater diversity, complexity, and availabil-ity of resources associated with technological development andwith higher socioeconomic status would be expected to be lessinterdependent and therefore less prone to give priority to inter-personal expectations relative to justice considerations. In con-trast, if cultural differences cannot be explained merely infunctional terms (Geertz, 1973; Sahlins, 1976), such socieco-nomic status differences would not be expected to occur: Onewould anticipate that the collectivistic orientation characteris-tic of Hindu Indian culture would be common across differentHindu Indian socioeconomic subgroups and thus that Indiansubjects of higher socioeconomic status would not resembleAmericans in their modes of responding.

Method

Subjects

The American data were collected in New Haven, Connecticut andthe Indian data in Mysore, a city in southern India. The main sample(n = 120) included 20 subjects at each of three grade levels (third gradeand seventh grade children and college-age adults) in the United Statesand in India. American adults were recruited from Yale University, andAmerican children were recruited from schools in the New Havenarea. Indian adults were from major local colleges (i.e., the Universityof Mysore and the Regional College of Education) and Indian childrenwere from schools in the Mysore area. All subgroups included an equalnumber of male and female subjects.

No significant differences were found in the occupational prestigescores of heads of households in the American and Indian samples(M= 59.4), as calculated using a scale developed by Nam and his col-leagues (Nam & Terrie, 1982). The heads of households tended to beemployed in middle-class occupations, such as accounting, teaching,or business. The American and Indian samples also did not differ

significantly in age at each grade level (third-grade M= 8.3 years, range8.1-8.7 years; seventh-grade M = 12.1 years, range 11.7-12.5 years;college M = 21.2 years, range 18.3-22.6 years). The American sampletended to have a Christian or Jewish background and to maintainrelatively liberal social and religious orientations. In contrast, the In-dian sample tended to maintain relatively traditional Hindu beliefs,values, and customs.

For comparison purposes, we also collected data from 20 HinduIndian middle-age adults of higher socioeconomic status than themain sample. To examine subjects likely to be more directly affectedby their socioeconomic status than a college population, a middle-agerather than a college-age population was recruited (age M = 45.7 years,range 28.6-54.2 years). The heads of households in the comparisonsample had higher occupational prestige scores (M =73.3) than thosein the main sample (M= 59.4). In contrast to those in the main sample,the heads of households in the comparison sample tended to be em-ployed as physicians, scientists, and professors or as owners or upper-level managers of businesses.

The decision to sample a higher rather than a lower socioeconomicstatus group, to be compared with the main middle-class sample, wasbased on the expected pattern of responses. In particular, we antici-pated that the vast majority of subjects in the main Indian samplewould give priority to interpersonal expectations in the conflict situa-tions. This would then leave little, if any, room for a comparison sam-ple to display significantly more interpersonally oriented responses.However, we could avoid such ceiling effects by using a higher socioeco-nomic status comparison sample. Specifically, if socioeconomic statusaffects subjects' resolutions of conflict situations, Indian subjects withhigher socioeconomic status would give less priority to interpersonalexpectations than would those in the main Indian sample.

Procedures

Interviews with Americans were conducted in English by Yale Uni-versity graduate students. Interviews with Indians were conducted inthe local language of Kannada by researchers from the Mysore area,who were native Kannada speakers. Recruited from local universities,the Indian researchers were fluent in English, held master's degrees ineither psychology or education, and had previous experience in bothpsychological research and clinical interviewing.

Several steps were taken to ensure the cultural appropriateness ofthe research materials in the Indian context. The protocols were exam-ined for cultural suitability by local Indian scholars and were modi-fied, as necessary, on the basis of their comments. The protocols werealso revised, as necessary, on the basis of results obtained in pilot workwith middle-class and lower-class child and adult populations in My-sore. Finally, two culture-specific versions of the experimental stimuliwere prepared for use with the American and Indian samples, respec-tively. These versions differed only in minor details, such as in substi-tuting Indian proper names for American (e.g., Soni for Sara) or inreferring to culturally appropriate place names (e.g., Bombay for SanFrancisco).

Native Kannada speakers who were fluent in English translated theIndian version of the protocols into Kannada. The translators werethoroughly instructed regarding the desired connotations of the termsto be used and were directed to use familiar words that would bereadily comprehended by subjects. All translated materials were pilot-tested to ensure that they were easily understood. Back translation wasalso performed to guarantee that the meaning of the original Englishversion of the research forms was preserved.

2 The term bias is used here to refer to a subjectively based attribu-tional preference, rather than to an attributional error (see Harvey,Town, & Yarkin, 1981). No claim is made regarding the accuracy of theexpected patterns of attribution in each culture.


The research was conducted in two sessions, scheduled 1 week apart.In both cultures, interviews were held in empty classrooms at theeducational institutions.

Rationale and Overview of Research Design

As noted earlier, to examine whether justice or interpersonal expec-tations take priority in conflict situations, it is crucial to use justiceand interpersonal issues that are equivalent in perceived importance.We judged, however, that this equivalence could not be achievedthrough use of a nomothetic methodological strategy in which all sub-jects are presented with identical experimental stimuli. In particular,we considered it unlikely that any standard set of justice and interper-sonal stimuli would be viewed as equivalent in seriousness by all indi-viduals from the diverse cultural and age groups sampled. We decided,therefore, to adopt an idiographic approach that obtained equivalencein the stimuli on a subjective level rather than on an objective level.

We asked subjects to rate the degree of undesirability of a set ofjustice and interpersonal incidents that had been experimentally de-signed to be at specified levels of undesirability. In cases in which asubject's undesirability rating of a particular incident accorded withthe experimental criterion, the incident was used for that subject in itsoriginal form. However, in cases in which a subject's initial undesir-ability rating of an incident differed from the experimental criterion,we asked the subject to modify the content of the incident so that, inthe subject's view, it met this criterion (i.e., by increasing or decreasingthe magnitude of the consequences). This specific incident was thenused for that subject in its modified form for the remainder of thestudy. In this way, all subjects reasoned about experimental stimulithat, although not totally identical in content, were equivalent in per-ceived desirability.3

The experiment was conducted in two sessions. In the first session,we obtained subjects' judgments concerning individual breaches inisolation. In turn, in the second session, we obtained subjects' judg-ments concerning conflict situations in which the only way to fulfillone type of behavioral expectation was to violate the other. The orderof administration of the incidents was randomized across the sample.Probes were included in each session to tap comprehension of thestimulus materials.

Session 1 assessments. The stimulus materials for the first sessionconsisted of a set of 15 situations, presented to subjects in short descrip-tions on separate index cards. Six of the situations portrayed justicebreaches, 6 portrayed breaches of interpersonal expectations related tofriendship, 2 portrayed nonbreaches, and 1 portrayed a breach of asocial convention. In each case, the behaviors involved were describedas having been undertaken for selfish reasons.

The justice and interpersonal breaches were each designed to in-clude two items that most subjects were expected to view as extremelyundesirable, two items that they were expected to view as moderatelyundesirable, and two items that they were expected to view as onlysomewhat undesirable. To achieve this range, items were constructedthat varied in the magnitude of the harm or unmet need portrayed. Inparticular, the items ranged from breaches that involved life-threaten-ing consequences (in the case of the extremely undesirable category) tobreaches that involved only minor consequences (in the case of thesomewhat undesirable category). The nonbreach situations includeditems that most subjects were expected to consider acceptable ratherthan undesirable. This was achieved by including one item in which anagent acted on his own desires without causing harm to another andone item in which an agent declined a friend's request to affiliate thatwas not based on an unmet need. Finally, the breach of a social conven-tion involved a school dress-code violation. The following are exam-p/es of the justice and interpersonal items we used:

Moderately undesirable justice breach: For selfish reasons, Fredtakes another man's train ticket from the man's coat pocket, with-out the man's permission. The other man has enough money tobuy another ticket.

Moderately undesirable interpersonal breach: For selfish reasons,Jim does not deliver the wedding rings to his best friend's wed-ding.

Three types of assessment procedures were used. The first proce-dure tapped subjects' ratings of the undesirability of the behaviorsportrayed and solicited any changes needed in the situations to matchthe experimentally designated undesirability levels. The second proce-dure assessed subjects' evaluations and social domain categorizationsof the behaviors, and the third procedure assessed subjects' ratings ofthe degree to which the behaviors were harmful or uncaring. Thesemeasures are described below.

1. In the first task, subjects were presented with the 15 behavioraldescriptions, written on index cards, and were asked to sort them on a4-point undesirability scale, ranging from not at all undesirable (0) toextremely undesirable (3). To promote comprehension, the children'sform of this scale consisted of a series of progressively frowning faces.

The experimenter then questioned subjects about the items in whichtheir initial undesirability rating differed from the experimentally des-ignated level. (This deviance could be calculated in all cases except thedress-code violation because that item was not experimentally con-structed to fit a preset desirability level). Subjects were asked, in eachcase, whether or not they felt that the incident could be modified4 sothat it matched the experimental level and, if so, in what way. Themodifications provided by subjects were written directly on the indexcards containing the situations.

To illustrate this procedure, consider the case of 1 subject whocategorized the justice breach described above initially as somewhatundesirable(l)ratherthanasmoderatelyundesirable(2),theexperimen-tally designated category. When questioned, the subject explained thatshe would consider the breach in the more serious category of moder-ately undesirable if the party harmed laclced enough money to buyanother ticket. For this subject then, the breach was modified by sub-stituting the sentence "The other man does not have enough money tobuy another ticket" for the original sentence "The other man hasenough money to buy another ticket." All measures following thischange task used the situations in the subject-specific ways, if any, inwhich they had been modified.

2. In the second task of the session, the order of the incidents wasrandomized and subjects were requested to answer three questionsregarding each incident. Tapping subjects' qualitative evaluations, the

3 To avoid sampling a skewed set of issues, the breaches were notmatched in perceived moral status. As noted, past research has demon-strated that western populations tend to accord interpersonal obliga-tions a distinctive moral status from justice obligations. Thus, al-though it might be possible to sample interpersonal obligations thatAmericans view in as fully moral terms as justice obligations, the re-sultant group of concerns would be unrepresentative of the domain ofinterpersonal issues. It also has been argued by theorists within therelational framework that the formal characteristics of an issue do notdetermine whether it will be given priority in a conflict situation. Forexample, Gilligan (1982) has maintained that interpersonal commit-ments may be accorded precedence over justice obligations, eventhough they lack various formal properties, such as impartiality, char-acterizing justice obligations.

4 Subjects were given the option of declining to modify a breach, ifthey judged that there was no way in which it could be modified tomeet the experimental criterion. No subjects, however, declined tomodify a breach.


first question asked subjects to explain why they regarded the behaviorunder consideration as undesirable or acceptable.

Adapted from past research (Miller et al., 1990), the second questiontapped subjects' judgments concerning whether each behavior was gov-erned by an objective obligation. Subjects were asked whether agentsare obligated not to undertake the action under consideration, even ifthey want to undertake it, for example, "In situations like this, dopeople have an OBLIGATION not to take another individual's train ticketwithout permission, even if they want to take it?". (This question wasphrased in a positive form in the case of the interpersonal issues.) It wasexplained that the question referred to an objective obligation (i.e.,"more than an obligation that exists just because of a rule or law").

Finally, again using a measure employed in past research (Miller etal., 1990), the third question tapped subjects' assessments of whethereach behavior under consideration was legitimately regulated. In thecase of the interpersonal behaviors, subjects were asked whether it islegitimate to positively enforce the behavior involved (e.g., "Is itALR IGHT TO TRY TO MAKE SOMEONE, who really doesn't want to, deliverthe wedding rings to his best friend's wedding or is it the PERSON'S OWNBUSINESS whether or not they do this?"). In contrast, in the case of theother behaviors, subjects were asked whether it is legitimate to prohibitthe act involved (e.g., "Is it ALRIGHT TO TRY TO STOP SOMEONE, whoreally wants to, from taking another individual's train ticket withoutpermission or is it the PERSON'S OWN BUSINESS whether or not they dothis?"). It was explained to subjects that the question referred not onlyto legal means of enforcement but also to nonlegal forms of sanction,such as shunning or snubbing.

3. The third and final task of the first session assessed subjects'qualitative ratings of the incidents. We randomized the order of theincidents and asked subjects to rate the degree of harm of the justicebreaches and the degree of uncaring of the interpersonal breaches on5-point scales, ranging from not at all harmful or uncaring (0) to ex-tremely harmful or uncaring (4).

The decision to use a harm scale for the justice breaches and anuncaring scale for the interpersonal breaches was based on the distinc-tion (Kohlberg, 1973) between justice as involving negative welfareconsiderations (i.e., not violating another's rights) and interpersonalresponsibilities and beneficence as involving positive welfare concerns(i.e., displaying a positive responsiveness to another's needs that goesbeyond noninterference with their rights). A similar contrast is drawnby Gilligan in distinguishing between a prototypical justice response,in which a subject "worries about people interfering with each other'srights," and a prototypical caring response, in which a subject "worriesabout the possibility of omission, of your not helping others when youcould help them" (Gilligan, 1982, p. 21).5

Session 2 assessments. The stimulus materials for the second ses-sion consisted of a set of conflict situations, in which the fulfillment ofone behavioral expectation entailed the violation of another. Six experi-mental conflict situations (two each involving extremely undesirableissues, moderately undesirable issues, and somewhat undesirable is-sues) were constructed by pairing together the justice and interper-sonal breaches at the same levels of perceived undesirability. In addi-tion, one control conflict situation was created by pairing together thetwo nonbreaches. An example of a conflict situation constructed fromthe above justice and interpersonal breaches is as follows:

Ben was in Los Angeles on business. When his meetings wereover, he went to the train station. Ben planned to travel to SanFrancisco in order to attend the wedding of his best friend. Heneeded to catch the very next train if he was to be on time for theceremony, as he had to deliver the wedding rings.

However, Ben's wallet was stolen in the train station. He lost allof his money as well as his ticket to San Francisco.

Ben approached several officials as well as passengers at thetrain station and asked them to loan him money to buy a new

ticket. But, because he was a stranger, no one was willing to lendhim the money he needed.

While Ben was sitting on a bench trying to decide what to donext, a well-dressed man sitting next to him walked away for aminute. Looking over at where the man had been sitting, Bennoticed that the man had left his coat unattended. Sticking out ofthe man's coat pocket was a train ticket to San Francisco. Benknew that he could take the ticket and use it to travel to SanFrancisco on the next train. He also saw that the man had morethan enough money in his coat pocket to buy another train ticket.

The behavioral options available to the agent were described follow-ing each situation. These descriptions mentioned both the expectationthat would be fulfilled and the expectation that would be violated byeach behavioral choice. For example, in the case of the conflict de-scribed above, subjects were asked to select which of the following twoalternatives Ben should undertake:

1. BEN SHOULD NOT TAKE THE TICKET FROM THEMAN'S COAT POCKET—even though it means not getting toSan Francisco in time to deliver the wedding rings to his bestfriend;2. BEN SHOULD GO TO SAN FRANCISCO TO DELIVERTHE WEDDING RINGS TO HIS BEST FRIEND—eventhough it means taking the train ticket from the other man's coatpocket.

In this example, the first alternative was scored as the justice choice,and the second alternative was scored as the interpersonal choice.

After endorsing a behavioral alternative, subjects were asked thesame types of questions posed in the first session, namely, questionsregarding their evaluations, social domain categorizations, and qualita-tive ratings of the behavior: First, subjects were requested to explainwhy they felt the agent should undertake the action endorsed. Second,using the same types of probes as in Session 1, subjects were then askedwhether they regarded the behavioral alternative endorsed as governedby an objective obligation and whether they viewed it as legitimatelyregulated. Finally, subjects were requested to rate the desirability ofundertaking both the alternative endorsed and the nonendorsed alter-native on a 7-point scale, ranging from extremely undesirable (1) toextremely desirable (7), with (4) indicating a neutral midpoint. Theywere also asked to rate the degree to which fulfilling the interpersonalalternative would indirectly be associated with harmful effects and thedegree to which fulfilling the justice alternative would indirectly beassociated with unhelpful or uncaring effects. These latter ratings weremade on the same type of 4-point harm and unhelpful/uncaring ratingscales used in Session 1.

Data coding. Responses were coded into various social domaincategories on the basis of subjects' replies to the probes regardingwhether the behavior under consideration was governed by an obliga-tion above rules or laws, was legitimately regulated, or both: (a) Behav-iors regarded as governed by an objective obligation and as legitimately

5 Some evidence indicates that lay attributors apply justice conceptsin a more inclusive manner than predicted by the psychological the-ories of moral development discussed here. It has been documentedthat adults apply the notion of fair or just not only to the types ofjustice violations sampled in the present research, but also to certainviolations of interpersonal responsibilities (Messick, Bloom, Boldizar,& Samuelson, 1985; Mikula, 1986). These trends do not imply, how-ever, that it is ecologically invalid to have subjects rate interpersonalbreaches on the dimension of uncaring. In particular, other evidencesuggests that lay attributors characterize breaches of interpersonal mo-rality both in terms of dimensions related to uncaring (i.e., unkind andnot nice) and in terms of dimensions related to harm and justice (i.e.,mean and cruel; Pool, Shweder, & Much, 1983).


regulated were considered moral issues; (b) behaviors regarded as notgoverned by an objective obligation but as legitimately regulated wereconsidered social conventions; (c) behaviors regarded as governed byan objective obligation but not legitimately regulated were consideredpersonal-moral concerns; and (d) behaviors regarded as neither gov-erned by an objective obligation nor legitimately regulated were consid-ered matters of personal choice.

A six-category coding scheme was devised to code subjects' open-ended explanations for why they favored acting on one alternativerather than on the other in each conflict situation. The categories in-cluded references to (a) "role related obligations" (e.g., "being a friend,she should have helped"); (b) "non-responsiveness to another's needs"(e.g., "it's insensitive not to help"); (c) "harm" (e.g., "the garden would bedestroyed"); (d) "fairness/rights" (e.g., "taking something that doesn'tbelong to you is unfair"); (e) "weighing" of the relative costs and bene-fits of the competing courses of action (e.g., "it is more important not tosteal than to attend your friend's wedding"); and (f) miscellaneousfactors not accounted for by the above categories. Reliability in apply-ing the coding scheme, assessed in terms of Cohen's kappa, reached.86, with a range from .84 for the category weighing to .94 for thecategory harm.

Results

The nondichotomous data were analyzed by either repeatedmeasures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) or multivariate analy-ses of variance (M ANOVAs), with breach type (justice or inter-personal) and breach level (extreme, moderate, or minor) con-stituting repeated factors in all analyses in which they ap-peared. The dependent variables in the various analyses werecalculated by using mean scores for the different levels of jus-tice and interpersonal incidents contrasted, with an arcsinetransformation applied to proportion scores.

In turn, the dichotomous data were analyzed by using un-pooled variance z tests for proportion data (Feinstein, 1985) toassess effects not involving repeated measures and the Mara-scuilo and Serlin (1977) procedure to assess effects involvingrepeated factors.6 In accordance with restrictions on its use, theMarascuilo and Serlin method was used only for preplannedcomparisons related to the experimental hypotheses.

Because preliminary analyses revealed no significant effectsof sex on subjects' responses, sex was not included as a variablein subsequent analyses. The cross-cultural comparisons focusonly on the main sample, with comparisons involving thehigher socioeconomic status Hindu Indian adult sample pre-sented in a later section.

Control Analyses

Comparisons of cases involving modified versus nonmodifiedsituations. As noted, we used an idiographic strategy to en-sure that the breaches in the conflict situations were equivalentin perceived seriousness. All subjects whose initial undesir-ability ratings of an individual breach differed from the experi-mental criterion were asked to modify the content of thisbreach to meet the criterion. Generally high levels of initialagreement with the experimental criteria were observed, with75% or more of the desirability ratings in each culture and agesubgroup initially matching the experimental designations. Aconcern might be raised, however, that although this procedureproduced concordance in subjects' ratings of the breaches, sub-tle differences still may have distinguished the perceptions of

subjects who agreed or disagreed initially with the experimentalratings.

To address this concern, the responses to each conflict situa-tion of subjects whose initial undesirability ratings accordedwith the experimental criteria were compared with those ofsubjects whose initial undesirability ratings differed from thesecriteria. Conducted separately for the American and Indiansamples, the comparisons were performed on an individualincident basis using either t tests (in cases that involved continu-ous variables) or chi-square procedures (in cases that involvedcategorical variables). The analysis was performed on an indi-vidual incident basis to compare the responses of subjectswhose initial ratings of both halves of a given conflict accordedwith the experimental criteria with the responses of all othersubjects. All dependent measures assessed in the conflict situa-tions were included in this examination. Results revealed nosignificant differences in response to the conflict situations as afunction of whether subjects' initial ratings of the breachesmatched or deviated from the experimental designations.

Social domain categorization of individual breaches. Toascertain whether the individual breaches were accorded theexpected moral status, a 2 x 3 x 2 x 3 MANOVA (Culture XAge x Breach Type X Breach Level) was performed on subjects'social domain categorizations of the breaches in either moral,personal-moral, or personal-choice terms.7 Results revealedsignificant overall main effects of culture, F(3,112) = 45.16, p <.01; of breach type, FQ, 112) = 53.66, p < .01; and of breachlevel, F(6,109) = 10.21, p < .01; as well as significant interac-tions of Culture X Breach Type, F(3,112) = 52.46, p < .01; ofCulture X Breach Level, F(6, 109) = 7.24, p < .01; of BreachType X Breach Level, F(6,109) = 7.26, p < .01; and of Culture XBreach Type X Breach Level, F(6, 109) = 7.03, p < .01. Theindividual ANOVAs performed on moral and on personal-moral categorization revealed the same types of significant ef-fects. Values for the moral category are as follows: culture, F(l,114) = 126.23, p<. 01; breach type, F(l, 114) =151.38, p<. 01;breach level, F(2,228) = 34.44, p < .01; Culture X Breach Type,F(l, 114) = 148.28, p< .01; Culture X Breach Level, F(2,228) =25.05, p < .01; Breach Type X Breach Level, F(2,228) = 20.35,p < .01; Culture X Breach Type X Breach Level, F(2, 228) =18.31, p < .01. Values for the personal-moral category are asfollows: culture, F(l, 114) = 106.06, p < .01; breach type, F(l,114) = 110.56, p < .01; breach level, F(2, 228) = 16.22, p < .01;Culture X Breach Type, F(\, 114) = 110.56, p < .01; Culture XBreach Level, F(2,228) = 16.22, p < .01; Breach Type X Breach

6 On the basis of the nature of the observed response patterns, wedecided not to use linear modeling procedures. The uniformity ofresults obtained means that a multiway contingency analysis of all thepotential response patterns includes many empty cells or cells with lowfrequency. Under such conditions, log-linear or other linear modelingprocedures may yield misleading results. In contrast, the Marascuiloand Serlin (1977) method produces results that, although equivalent tolinear modeling procedures, are unaffected by marginal zeros(Guthrie, 1981).

7 The social convention category was never used in categorizing theindividual justice and interpersonal breaches or the conflict dilem-mas. Thus, it is omitted from the present social domain categorizationanalysis as well as from the social domain categorization analysis of theconflict situations.


Level, F(2, 228) = 12.35, p < .01; Culture X Breach Type XBreach Level, F(2,228) = 12.35, p < .01. In turn, the individualANOVAs performed on the personal-choice categorization re-vealed only significant effects of breach type, F(l, 114) = 7.95,p < .01; of breach level, F(2,228) = 10.18,/?< .01; of Culture XBreach Type, F(l, 114) = 6.35, p < .01; and of Culture X BreachLevel, F(2, 228) = 3.39, p < .05.

Post hoc analyses indicated no cross-cultural differences incategorization of the justice breaches, with virtually all subjectscategorizing these breaches in moral terms (M= 99%). In con-trast, as compared with Americans, Indians more frequentlycategorized the interpersonal breaches in moral terms (India,M = 99%; United States (U.S.), M = 45%; p < .01) and lessfrequently categorized them in either personal-moral (India,M = 0%; US., M = 49.5%; p < .01) or personal-choice terms(India, M= 1%; U.S., M= 5.3%; p < .01).

Regarding within-culture effects, breach type and breachlevel had a significant impact only on Americans' judgments.Americans categorized interpersonal breaches in moral termsmost frequently in the case of extreme breaches (M = 68%),followed by moderate breaches (M= 38%), and finally by minorbreaches (M = 29%; p < .01). In contrast, Americans morefrequently categorized moderate and minor interpersonalbreaches in personal-moral terms (M = 58%) than they didextreme interpersonal breaches (M= 32%; p < .01). Americansalso more frequently categorized the minor breaches in per-sonal-choice terms (M = 6%) than they did the extremebreaches (M= 0%; p < .05).

To examine whether subjects applied the criterion probemeasures in the expected manner, subjects' categorizations ofthe control stimuli were analyzed. Results indicated that ineach culture and age subgroup, 90% or more of the subjectscategorized the dress-code control incident in social conven-tional terms and categorized both the individual and the con-flict nonbreach control incidents in personal-choice terms. Theonly exception to this trend occurred in the tendency for asizable minority of American adults to categorize the dress-code control incident in personal-choice rather than social con-ventional terms (personal choice, M = 35%; social conven-tional, M = 60%).

Harm and uncaring ratings of breaches in isolation. To exam-ine the comparability of subjects' qualitative ratings of thebreaches in isolation, a 2 x 3 x 2 x 3 ANOVA (Culture X Age XBreach Type X Breach Level) was performed on subjects' rat-ings of the degree of harm of the Session 1 justice breaches andof the degree of uncaring of the Session 1 interpersonalbreaches. This analysis revealed significant main effects of cul-ture, F(\, 107) = 8.30, p < .01; of age, F(2,107) = 4.24, p < .05;and of breach level, F(2, 214) = 524.82, p < .01; as well assignificant interactions of Culture X Breach Level, F(2, 214) =3.52, p < .05; of Age X Breach Level, F(4, 214) = 2.41, p < .05;and of Culture X Age X Breach Level, F(4,214) = 6.04, p< .01.

Post hoc analyses indicated that cultural differences in quali-tative ratings of the breaches occurred only among children andwere not related to the particular qualitative dimension beingrated. Indians assigned the breaches higher ratings than didAmericans among third graders for extreme and moderatebreaches (India, M= 3.32; U.S., M= 2.85) and among seventhgraders for minor breaches (India, M= 2.62; U.S., M= 2.00; p <.011. All subjects discriminated between the three levels of

breaches, with extreme breaches assigned higher ratings (M =3.82) than moderate breaches (M= 2.65), which, in turn, wereassigned higher ratings than minor breaches (M = 2.22;/x .Ol ) .

Summary. Subjects' responses were shown to be unaffectedby whether their initial desirability ratings matched the experi-mental criterion. As anticipated, all subjects tended to view thejustice breaches in moral terms. In contrast, Indians tended tocategorize the interpersonal breaches in moral terms, whereasAmericans tended to categorize them either in moral or per-sonal-moral terms. Replicating similar trends found in pastresearch (Miller et al., 1990; Miller & Luthar, 1989), this find-ing may be seen to reflect a general difference in Indians' andAmericans' orientations to interpersonal concerns, rather thana reaction specific to the particular interpersonal items evalu-ated. In addition, results indicated comparable qualitative rat-ings of the two types of breaches under consideration, with thedegree of harm of the justice breaches perceived as equivalentto the degree of uncaring of the interpersonal breaches.

Behavioral Resolutions of Conflict Situations

Alternatives selected in conflict situations. To examine thebehavioral resolutions offered to the conflict situations, an un-pooled variance z test was performed on the proportion ofsubjects giving priority to the interpersonal alternatives in theconflict situations. Results indicated that a significantly higherproportion of Indians than of Americans gave priority to theinterpersonal over the justice alternatives in the conflict situa-tions (z = 5.71, p < .01). Analyses employing the Marascuiloand Serlin (1977) method revealed that Indians less frequentlyselected the interpersonal alternatives as the extremity of theconflict situation increased (z = 4.14, p < .01), with this effectsignificantly more marked among adults than among thirdgraders (z = 2.25, p < .05). Among Americans, third graders'responses changed across breach level in the opposite directionfrom that observed among Indians (z = -2.81, p < .01), whereasolder Americans' responses were unaffected by breach level.

Table 1 contrasts the percentage of conflict situations inwhich subjects endorsed the interpersonal alternative. As maybe seen, striking cross-cultural differences occurred in the ten-dency to give priority to interpersonal responsibilities over jus-

Table 1Percentage of Conflict Situations in Which theInterpersonal Alternative Was Selected

Conflicttype

ExtremeModerateMinor


Thirdgrade

India

809898

United States

534330

Seventhgrade

638790

353830

Adult

588598

334548


tice obligations. Whereas Indians resolved the conflict situa-tions in favor of the interpersonal alternative in an average of84% of the cases, Americans resolved the conflict situations inthis way in an average of only 39% of the cases.

Justifications of choices made in conflict situations. To exam-ine subjects' justifications of their choices in the conflict situa-tions, a 2 X 3 X 3 M ANOVA (Culture X Age X Breach Level) wasperformed on the proportion of responses made in each of thevarious justification categories. This analysis revealed signifi-cant overall main effects of culture, F(6,102) = 19.49, p < .01;and of breach level, F(12, 96) = 7.62, p < .01; as well as asignificant interaction of Culture X Breach Level, F(12, 96) =4.59, p < .01. The individual ANOVA performed on the cate-gory of weighing revealed only a significant main effect of cul-ture, F(\, 107) = 13.51, p < .01. In turn, the individual ANOVAsperformed on the four other substantive categories each re-vealed significant main effects of culture and of breach level aswell as a significant interaction of culture and breach level.Values for role-related obligations are as follows: culture, F(l,107) = 10.31, p < .01; breach level, F(2, 214) = 11.54, p < .01;and Culture X Breach Level, F(2, 214) = 10.36, p < .01. Valuesfor nonresponsiveness to another's need are as follows: culture,F(l, 107) = 114.50, p < .01; breach level, F(2,214) = 20.69, p <.01; and Culture X Breach Level, F (2, 214) = 3.94, p < .01.Values for harm are as follows: culture, F(\, 107) = 11.61, p <.01; breach level, F(2, 214) = 10.40, p < .01, and Culture XBreach Level, F(2, 214) = 4.80, p < .05. Values for fairness/rights are as follows: culture, F(l, 107) = 25.71, p < .01; breachlevel, F(2, 214) = 5.63, p < .01; and Culture X Breach Level,F(2, 214) =4.70, p<.05.

Consonant with the observed tendencies of Indians to selectthe interpersonal conflict alternatives more frequently than didAmericans, Indians gave greater weight than did Americans tononresponsiveness to another's needs (at all three breach levels)and to role-related obligations (at the moderate breach levelonly; p < .01). Also, in accordance with this cross-cultural dif-ference, Americans made reference to fairness, at all threebreach levels, and to harm, at the moderate and minor breachlevels only, more frequently than did Indians (p < .05). Addi-tionally, Americans made greater reference to weighing thandid Indians at all three breach levels (p < .01). The percentageof different types of justifications appears in Table 2.

Breach level effects were similar in direction for each culture,with the categories of fairness/rights, harm, and role-relatedobligations selected more frequently in relation to the moreserious breaches as compared with the less serious breaches.The category of nonresponsiveness to another's need showedthe reverse trend. In particular, among Indians, both fairness/rights and harm were mentioned more frequently in relation tothe extreme breaches than in relation to either the moderatebreaches or the minor breaches (p < .01); role-related obliga-tions were mentioned more frequently in relation to both theextreme and the moderate breaches than in relation to theminor breaches (p< .01); and references to nonresponsivenessto another's need differed significantly among breach levels,with nonresponsiveness to another's need mentioned most fre-quently in relation to the minor breaches and least frequently inrelation to the extreme breaches (p < .01). Similarly, amongAmericans, fairness/rights was mentioned more frequently inrelation to the moderate breaches as compared with the minorbreaches (p < .01), with no significant differences observedbetween the extreme breaches and either the moderate or theminor breaches; role-related obligations were mentioned morefrequently in relation to the extreme breaches than in relationto either the moderate breaches or the minor breaches (p < .01);and nonresponsiveness to another's need was mentioned morefrequently in relation to the minor breaches than in relation tothe extreme breaches (p < .05), with no significant differencesobserved between the moderate breaches and either the ex-treme breaches or the minor breaches.

Social domain categorization of conflict situations. To exam-ine moral reasoning about the conflict situations, a 2 X 3 X 3(Culture X Age X Breach Level) MANOVA was performed onsubjects' social domain categorizations of the behavioral alter-natives, which they endorsed in the conflict situations in moral,personal-moral, or personal-choice terms. This analysis re-vealed only a significant overall main effect of culture, F(3,112)= 34.22, p < .01. Individual ANOVAs performed on thesocial domain categories indicated significant main effects ofculture occurring in each case: moral, F(l, 114) = 85.06, p < .01;personal-moral, F(l, 114) = 38.24, p < .01; and personal-choice,F(l, 114) = 40.15, p < .01. As compared with Americans, In-dians more frequently categorized their conflict choices in

Table 2Percentage of Different Types of Justifications Offered for AlternativesEndorsed in Conflict Situations

Conflicttype



Role-relatedobligations

19.028.05.2

18.52.83.6

Type of justification

Nonresponsiveto need

India

34.346.167.2

United States

3.49.9

15.4

Harm

19.33.41.7

19.512.418.5

Fairness/rights

13.32.61.0

24.629.6

8.8

Weighing

14.219.025.0

32.340.635.3


moral terms and less frequently categorized them in personal-moral or personal-choice terms. Virtually all of the Indiansgave moral appraisals of their conflict choices (M = 99%). Incontrast, although the majority of Americans treated their con-flict choices in moral terms (M = 59%), a sizable minoritytreated them in either personal-moral terms (M = 19%) or per-sonal-choice terms (M = 22%).

The invariance observed in Indians' social domain categori-zations indicates that their moral judgments did not vary withthe conflict alternative that they selected. Regardless ofwhether Indians endorsed fulfilling the justice alternative orthe interpersonal alternative, Indians described this choice as amoral imperative. In contrast, Americans exhibited markedvariability both in the behavioral alternatives that they selectedand in their social domain categorizations. Such trends there-fore leave open the possibility that Americans' moral appraisalsof the conflict situations may have been related in some way tothe alternatives that they endorsed.

To explore whether a relationship existed between conflictresolution and moral judgment in the American sample, wecompared the proportion of Americans who categorized theconflict alternative in moral terms when the justice alternativewas endorsed and when the interpersonal alternative was en-dorsed. Because subjects' resolutions of the dilemmas variedacross the scenarios, this analysis had to be performed sepa-rately for each conflict situation. (The Bonferroni procedurewas applied to control for any inflation in the alpha level re-lated to the number of tests performed.)

Unpooled variance z tests revealed that for each of the dilem-mas, Americans who selected the justice alternative more fre-quently categorized their choice in moral terms than did Ameri-cans who selected the interpersonal alternative (z scores for thesix dilemmas are 9.61, 8.93, 8.05, 17.33, 9.61, 9.12; p < .01).Whereas virtually all Americans who selected the justice alter-native described this recommended action as a moral impera-tive (M= 89%), only a minority of Americans who selected theinterpersonal alternative described this recommended actionin moral terms (M= 12%).

Summary. As predicted, Indians more frequently resolvedthe conflict situations in favor of the interpersonal alternativethan did Americans. Indians, we also observed, tended to cate-gorize their behavioral recommendations as moral imperatives,regardless of the particular alternatives that they endorsed. Incontrast, when Americans endorsed the justice alternative,they tended to portray such a choice as a moral imperative,whereas when Americans endorsed the interpersonal alterna-tive, they tended to portray such a choice in either personal-moral or personal-choice terms.

Qualitative Ratings of Conflict Situations

Harm and uncaring ratings of breaches in conflict situa-tions. To examine subjects' qualitative ratings of the breachesin the conflict situations, a 2 x 3 x 2 x 3 analysis of covariance(ANCOVA; Culture X Age X Breach Type X Breach Level) wasperformed on subjects' ratings of the degree of harm resultingfrom the justice breaches undertaken to meet the interpersonalexpectations and on their ratings of the degree of uncaringarising from the interpersonal breaches undertaken to meet the

justice expectations. Subjects' Session 1 harm and uncaring rat-ings as well as subjects' conflict situation resolutions weretreated as covariates in this analysis. After adjustment by thecovariates, results revealed significant main effects of culture,F(l, 104) = 67.36, p < .01; of age, F(2,104) = 5.99, p < .01; andof breach level, F(2, 210) = 38.82, p < .01; as well as significantinteractions of Culture X Breach Type, F(l, 105) = 43.51, p <.01; of Age X Breach Level, F(4, 210) = 3.31, p < .05; and ofBreach Type X Breach Level, F(2, 211) = 43.12, p < .01. Thecovariate of subjects' Session 1 harm and uncaring ratings in-fluenced the qualitative ratings at the levels of (a) the maineffects of culture and of age, F(\, 104) = 22.31, p < .01; (b) themain effect of breach level and the interaction of Age X BreachLevel, F(l, 210) = 6.73, p < .01; and (c) the interactions ofCulture X Breach Type and of Breach Type X Breach Level, F(\,211) = 9.54, p < .01. In contrast, the covariate of subjects'conflict situation resolutions provided no reliable unique ad-justment in the ratings.

Of theoretical interest was the significant interaction of cul-ture and breach type, indicating that ratings were biased in thedirection of the conflict resolutions favored in each culture.Specifically, Americans rated the degree of harm indirectly as-sociated with fulfilling the interpersonal expectations as higherthan the degree of uncaring indirectly associated with fulfillingthe justice obligations (p < .01). In contrast, Indians rated thedegree of uncaring indirectly associated with fulfilling the jus-tice obligations as higher than the degree of harm indirectlyassociated with fulfilling the interpersonal expectations (p <.01). We also observed that Indians perceived greater uncaringassociated with fulfilling the justice expectations than didAmericans (p < .01).

In terms of the other significant interactions, across bothcultures, the mean harm ratings assigned to the extremebreaches were greater than the mean uncaring ratings assignedto the extreme breaches (p < .01). In contrast, the mean uncar-ing ratings assigned to both the moderate and the minorbreaches were greater than the mean harm ratings assigned tothese breaches (p < .01). Also, across both cultures, thirdgraders gave higher qualitative ratings to the minor breachesthan did adults (p < .01), with seventh graders not differingeither from third graders or from adults in their qualitativeratings.

Table 3 displays subjects' harm and uncaring ratings of theconflict situations. Overall, Americans judged that the degreeof uncaring associated with leaving the interpersonal obliga-tions unfulfilled (M = 1.70) was less than the degree of harmassociated with committing the justice breaches (M = 2.16). Incontrast, Indians viewed the degree of uncaring associated withleaving the interpersonal obligations unfulfilled (M = 3.41) asgreater than the degree of harm associated with committing thejustice breaches (M = 2.60).

Desirability ratings of conflict alternatives. Finally, to con-trast subjects' evaluations of the behavioral choices in the con-flict situations, a 2 x 3 x 2 x 3 ANCOVA (Culture X Age XBreach Type X Breach Level) was performed on subjects' rat-ings of the desirability of the justice and interpersonal conflictalternatives. The behavioral resolutions selected by subjects inthe conflict situations were treated as covariates in this analysis.After adjustment by the covariates, results revealed significantmain effects of culture, F(\, 113) = 56.17, p < .01; of breach


Table 3Harm and Uncaring Ratings of Breaches in Conflict Situations

Conflicttype

ExtremeMSD

ModerateMSD

MinorMSD

ExtremeMSD

ModerateMSD

MinorMSD

Thirdgrade

3.900.21

1.781.53

2.151.33

3.580.59

1.200.98

1.981.22

Harma

Seventhgrade

3.660.49

2.661.06

2.340.80

Adult

India

3.730.38

1.700.95

1.530.47

United States

3.440.58

1.341.20

1.471.03

3.620.64

1.470.82

1.320.89

Thirdgrade

4.000.00

3.300.70

3.280.55

2.481.16

1.551.11

1.801.12

Uncaring6

Seventhgrade

3.740.38

3.370.59

3.080.56

2.161.22

1.280.99

1.311.01

Adult

3.600.55

3.380.51

2.930.47

2.121.69

1.321.03

1.290.88

a Values refer to the harm ratings associated with violating justice obli-gations. b Values refer to the uncaring ratings associated with violat-ing interpersonal obligations.

violations as more serious than the degree of uncaring of theinterpersonal violations, whereas Indians showed the reversepattern. Also, when controlling for the conflict alternatives en-dorsed, Americans considered it as more desirable to fulfill thejustice alternatives than the interpersonal alternatives, whereasIndians maintained the opposite view.

Socioeconomic Status Comparisons

To provide information on the impact of socioeconomic sta-tus on the observed cross-cultural differences, the responses of20 Indian adults of higher socioeconomic status were com-pared both with those of the main sample of Indian adults andwith those of the American adults. The higher status Indianadults did not differ from the main sample of Indian adults onany of the dependent measures. Also, with only one exception,the higher status Indian adults showed the same patterns ofsignificant differences from the American adults as observedamong the main sample of Indian adults. In particular, unlikethe main sample of Indian adults, the higher socioeconomicstatus Indian adults did not differ significantly from the Ameri-can adults in the priority given to interpersonal obligations inthe extreme conflict situations.

In summary, socioeconomic status was observed to have littleimpact on subjects' responses. Higher socioeconomic statuswas related to fewer endorsements of the interpersonal alterna-tives in the extreme conflict situations but had no effect on anyof the other study measures.

type, F(l, 114) = 21.49, p < .01; and of breach level, F(2, 227)25.99, p < .01; as well as significant interactions of Culture XBreach Level, F(2, 227) = 21.23, p < .01; of Breach TypeXBreach Level, F(2, 228) = 9.55, p < .01; and of Culture XBreach Type X Breach Level, F(2, 228) = 5.43, p < .01. Thecovariate of subjects' conflict situation resolutions influencedthe desirability ratings only in the case of the main effect ofculture, F(\, 113) = 8.94, p < .01; and in the cases of the maineffect of breach level and the interaction of Culture X BreachLevel, F(\, 227) = 9.85, p < .01.

Post hoc analyses revealed that desirability ratings wereskewed in the same direction as observed in the harm and un-caring ratings. In particular, Americans rated the justice alter-natives as significantly more desirable to fulfill than the inter-personal alternatives, whereas Indians showed the opposite pat-tern (p<. 01).

In terms of breach level effects, in both cultures it was consid-ered less desirable to fulfill the interpersonal alternative in theextreme conflict situations than in the moderate or minor con-flict situations (p < .01). Among Indians, it was also consideredmore desirable to fulfill the justice alternative in the extremeconflict situations than in the moderate or minor conflict situa-tions (p < .01). Subjects' desirability ratings of the behavioralalternatives in the conflict situations are contrasted in Table 4.

Summary. As hypothesized, Americans' and Indians' rat-ings of the conflict situations were biased in the direction oftheir culturally derived views. When controlling for ratings ofthe breaches in isolation as well as for the conflict alternativesendorsed, Americans rated the degree of harm of the justice

Table 4Desirability Ratings of Behavioral Alternativesin Conflict Situations

Conflicttype

ExtremeMSD

ModerateMSD

MinorMSD

ExtremeMSD

ModerateMSD

MinorMSD

Alternative

Justice"

India

3.022.34

1.971.23

1.960.88

United States

4.011.88

4.381.44

4.621.42

rated

Interpersonalb

5.072.32

6.021.35

6.040.90

2.201.05

2.981.30

2.971.34

* Values refer to the desirability ratings made regarding fulfilling jus-tice alternatives. b Values refer to the desirability ratings made re-garding fulfilling interpersonal alternatives.


Discussion

Results confirmed the research hypotheses regarding cross-cultural differences in the priority given to interpersonal re-sponsibilities relative to justice considerations. As hypothe-sized, Indians more frequently resolved the conflict situationsin favor of the interpersonal alternatives than did Americans,with this cross-cultural difference greater in cases of the non-life-threatening breaches rather than in cases of the life-threatening breaches. Also as anticipated, a culturally pat-terned asymmetry occurred in subjects' qualitative ratings ofthe conflict situations. Americans downplayed the degree ofuncaring relative to the degree of harm resulting from the alter-native conflict choices and rated the justice choices as moredesirable than the interpersonal choices. Indians displayed thereverse trends. Contrary to the hypotheses, the various cross-cultural differences were not observed to be more marked atolder ages than at younger ages.

Evidence suggests that the observed cross-cultural differ-ences did not result from variation in subjects' perceptions ofthe seriousness of the individual breaches forming the conflictsituations. The idiographic methodology employed ensuredthat subjects viewed the individual breaches at the same levelsof seriousness. In addition, responses to the conflict situationsdid not vary as a function of whether subjects' initial desirabil-ity ratings accorded or deviated from the experimental criteria.Responses to the control incidents also call into question aninterpretation of the results focused on cultural differences inunderstanding the probes. It was demonstrated that in bothcultures the majority of subjects agreed in categorizing the non-breach control incidents as matters of personal choice and thedress-code control incident as a social conventional matter.Also, as anticipated on the basis of past research (e.g. Turiel,1983), virtually all subjects categorized the justice breaches asmoral issues.

There was some indication that the cross-cultural differencescould not be fully explained in socioeconomic terms. Whereassocioeconomic status related to the priority accorded justiceversus interpersonal alternatives in the extreme conflict situa-tions, it had no effect on the remaining conflict dilemmachoices, on social domain judgments, or on qualitative ratings.Consonant with other evidence of relatively weak effects of so-cioeconomic status on social attribution and moral judgment(Shweder & Bourne, 1984; Miller, 1984; Miller et al., 1990), thepresent results support claims that higher socioeconomic statusand technological development are not invariably associatedwith the adoption of individualistic cultural values (Yang,1988).

Alternative Interpersonal Moral Codes

The results may be interpreted as challenging psychologicalclaims that interpersonal expectations are invariably subordi-nated to justice expectations and that the priority given to inter-personal expectations may be fully explained by reference tovarious inherent features of acts or relationships. Rather, weargue, the findings demonstrate that variability exists in thepriority given to interpersonal expectations, with this variabil-ity, at least in part, culturally patterned.

The conflict choices and social domain categorizations dis-

played by Americans, for example, support recent claims thatthe Kantian account of beneficence is inadequate to fully ac-count for views of the interpersonal and must be supplementedwith a relationship-based model (Blum, 1980; Gilligan, 1977,1982). In the Kantian framework, it is maintained that justiceobligations should be accorded precedence over interpersonalobligations in conflict situations and that such obligations al-ways represent moral imperatives (Kohlberg, 1981; Kant, 1949,1964). Although this response pattern was shown by mostAmericans, it was not uniform. Rather, in a sizable minority ofcases, (M= 41% of adults), Americans displayed an alternativepattern, consonant with the relationship-based model. This lat-ter mode of response gave priority to the interpersonal expecta-tions over the competing justice obligations and portrayed thischoice as beyond the scope of social regulation—namely, aseither a personal-choice or personal-moral issue. Such findingsimply that for Americans, the type of justice-oriented perspec-tive portrayed in the Kantian framework and the type of rela-tionship-based perspective described by theorists such as Blumand Gilligan coexist as available schemata that may be appliedin interpreting social dilemmas.

In contrast, the types of conflict dilemma responses offeredby Indians do not appear to be consonant with either the Kan-tian or the alternative relational framework (Miller, 1991). Thefinding that most Indians gave moral priority to the interper-sonal obligations over the competing justice obligations doesnot support the Kantian claim that justice obligations will takeprecedence over competing interpersonal obligations. Even inthe conflict situations involving life and death consequences(i£., the extremely undesirable breaches), most Indians wereobserved to give priority to beneficence over justice. Equally,the finding that Indians portrayed the interpersonal conflictchoices as subject to social regulation implies that the Indianperspective on interpersonal obligations is dissimilar in kind tothe type of relational perspective described by Blum (1980) andGilligan (1977,1982). Indians treated interpersonal responsibil-ities to friends as public and socially enforceable rather than asprivate and discretionary. Rather, the present results suggestthat Indians possess an alternative postconventional moralcode in which interpersonal obligations are seen in as fullyprincipled terms as justice obligations and may be accordedmoral precedence over justice obligations. The findings alsoimply that a personal morality of interpersonal responsivenessand caring is not a universal, but may be a phenomenon spe-cific to highly rights-oriented cultures such as the United States(Miller etal., 1990).

On a more general level, the present results may have impli-cations for the normative grounding of psychological theoriesof moral development. In particular, our research highlightsthe importance of recognizing that, although philosophical the-ories neither derive from nor depend on empirical evidence,they cannot be considered culture-free and should not betreated as ipso facto universally applicable. The findings thatthe Kantian and relational frameworks fit the observed pat-terns of moral judgment among Americans, yet fail to accountfor the observed patterns of moral judgment among Indians,are consonant with recent claims that these philosophic frame-works embody certain culturally specific presuppositions. Ascritics have argued, for example, the Kantian framework is pre-mised on the assumption of the autonomous asocial individual


as the starting point of social institutions—a conceptual prem-ise not shared in Hindu Indian culture with its emphasis onsocial duties as the starting point of society (Dumont, 1965,1970; Simpson, 1974; Shweder, 1982; Shweder et al., 1987). Simi-larly, the relational approach to morality, forwarded by theo-rists such as Blum (1980), is premised on a voluntaristic view ofsocial relationships, differing from the more intrinsic and obli-gatory perspective on relationships stressed in Hindu Indianculture (Kakar, 1978; O'Flaherty & Derrett, 1978; Schneider,1985). It should be emphasized that the present evidence thatthe Kantian and relational frameworks fit the patterns of moraljudgment displayed by Americans better than they fit thosedisplayed by Hindu Indians does not necessarily imply that theframeworks are invalid yardsticks for cross-cultural compari-son. It does, however, suggest that alternative normative frame-works, premised on more interdependent cultural views of theself (e.g. Markus & Kitayama, 1991), may be needed to under-stand the Hindu Indian perspective on interpersonal moralityas a distinctive system in its own right, rather than as a lessdeveloped version of the perspective emphasized in the UnitedStates. Equally, alternative normative frameworks may be neces-sary to adequately represent the scope of the moral domain. Itmay be noted that a similar argument has been made by Gilli-gan (1977, 1982) in her claims that the Kantian approach tomorality embodies certain conceptual presuppositions that aremore reflective of male approaches than of female approachesto experience and thus may represent an inadequate normativeframework for representing all of morality.

In summary, the present results challenge various psychologi-cal claims that an inevitable asymmetry exists between themoral status accorded beneficence and interpersonal responsi-bilities and that accorded justice obligations. The evidence sug-gests that such an asymmetry is, at least in part, culturallyinfluenced and does not arise merely as a consequence of in-trinsic differences in the status of positive injunctions versusnegative injunctions or as a consequence of inherent features ofrole relationships. The findings also support the claim that atleast three diverse perspectives exist regarding the moral statusof interpersonal commitments, rather than the two that havebeen commonly assumed within recent psychological ac-counts.

Gender Effects

In terms of gender trends, no support was obtained for claimsthat women are more prone than men to give priority to inter-personal issues over justice concerns (e.g., Baumrind, 1986; Gil-ligan, 1982). Specifically, consonant with weak or nonexistentsex differences reported in many other studies of moral reason-ing (e.g. Boldizar, Wilson, & Deemer, 1989; Donenberg & Hoff-man, 1988; Ford & Lowery, 1986; Lifton, 1985; Pratt, Golding,Hunter, & Sampson, 1988; Vasudev & Hummel, 1987; yet seeDeWolfe, Jackson, & Winterberger, 1988; Gilligan & Attanucci,1988; Lyons, 1983), no sex differences were observed on any ofthe study measures in either culture.

One interpretation of the present absence of sex differenceswould focus on methodological issues. Similar to the strategyemployed in Kohlbergian research, the present study assessedsubjects' reasoning about hypothetical scenarios rather thanreal-life conflict dilemmas and posed forced-choice alterna-

tives rather than open-ended situations that could be resolvedby accommodation and compromise. It could be argued thatthe demand characteristics associated with this methodologyobscured actual gender differences that exist.

Such a methodological interpretation, however, is weakenedby the present findings that extensive cross-cultural differencesoccurred with the measures used. If the demand characteristicsof the methodology were so great, it is unlikely that as extensiveand coherent a pattern of cultural differences would haveemerged. The interpretation is also challenged by evidence thatno gender differences have been observed in several other stud-ies that have used open-ended situations rather than forced-choice dilemmas (e.g., Nunner-Winkler, 1984; Higgins et al.,1984) or real-life rather than hypothetical stimulus materials(Walker, DeVries, & Trevethan, 1987; Miller & Luthar, 1989).

The present results suggest that an important area for futureresearch is to account theoretically for the cases in whichgender differences occur and those, such as the present study, inwhich they are absent or weak (see reviews by Brabeck, 1983;Thomas, 1986; Walker, 1984). Equally, it is important that mod-els of gender differences be tested in other nonwestern cultures,a type of comparative analysis that would contribute to an un-derstanding of the developmental mechanisms through whichsuch effects may emerge.

Perception of Conflict Situations

The present findings also contribute to an understanding ofthe biasing effects of cultural schemata on attribution. In partic-ular, they provide evidence to suggest that attribution may beskewed in opposite directions as a result of preexisting culturalvalues.

A culturally related asymmetry was observed to occur in sub-jects' qualitative ratings of the conflict situations. WhereasAmericans rated the degree of harm indirectly associated withfulfilling the interpersonal conflict alternatives as greater thanthe degree of uncaring indirectly associated with fulfilling thejustice conflict alternatives, Indians judged that the degree ofuncaring exceeded the degree of harm. Also, whereas Ameri-cans evaluated the justice behavioral choices as more desirablethan the interpersonal behavioral choices, Indians displayedthe opposite pattern of evaluation.

These effects do not appear explicable in terms of cross-cul-tural differences in perceptions of the individual justice andinterpersonal breaches. In the individual breach situations, allsubjects rated the degree of harm of the justice breaches asequal to the degree of uncaring of the interpersonal breaches.Methodological procedures were also used to equate the indi-vidual breach situations for perceived desirability. Equally, it isunlikely that the observed cultural trends can be explained interms of the background content of the conflict situations hav-ing altered the meaning of the individual justice and interper-sonal issues. In particular, the observed cultural differenceswere constant across all of the conflict situations—a level ofconsistency unlikely to have resulted from the diverse back-ground information supplied in constructing each conflict situ-ation. Finally, the effects do not appear to have resulted merelyfrom subjects' attempts to rationalize their personal resolutionsof the conflict dilemmas. Specifically, the cultural differencesin ratings and in evaluations occurred, even when controlling


for the alternatives endorsed by subjects in resolving the con-flict situations.

Rather, the results may be interpreted as reflecting a bias inwhich attribution is skewed in the direction of salient culturalvalues. It is argued that, with the cultural emphasis on the prior-ity of individual rights and justice, Americans are primed todownplay the consequences of interpersonal violations relativeto justice violations. In contrast, with their more holistic cul-tural emphasis, Indians are prone to display the opposite pat-tern of information weighing.

In more general terms, the present patterns of results aresuggestive of the types of information integration strategiesthat may be used in interpreting conflict situations. The find-ing that subjects perceived the conflict situations as entailingboth harm and uncaring is consonant with the interactive in-formation integration processes described by Turiel and Sme-tana (Smetana, 1983; Turiel & Smetana, 1984). Such theoristsportray "multidimensional" events as being processed throughan additive process, in which the discrete issues constitutingthe behavior are first identified and then weighed as to theirrelative consequences. In contrast, the finding of some culturalskewing in perception of the behavioral dilemmas is congruentwith claims that emergent information integrative strategiesmay also be used (Shweder et al., 1987). It may be that themeaning of information in a conflict situation does not remainthe same as it does in isolation, but changes, in culturally spe-cific ways, in accordance with the larger whole of the dilemma.

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Received August 3,1990Revision received April 30,1991

Accepted September 13,1991 •

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