Cultural Differences in Moral Judgement

Abstract

Morality can be explained as an innate sense of morality, a basic sense of fairness and a basic sense of justice. Moral judgments refer to people's positive or negative evaluations of what they see and hear and the actions of others. Moral judgments are affected by different factors. Cultural differences are one of the factors that can influence moral judgments. This article summarized and analyzed recent research regarding the impact of different cultures on moral judgments. The influence of culture on moral judgment was discussed from three aspects: cross-cultural similarity, differences across cultures, and developmental perspective. In the part of cross-cultural similarity, the influence of different genders and ages in different cultures on moral judgments was discussed. In the part of differences across cultures, the article compared the differences in moral judgments of participants from Eastern and Western cultures. The differences between collectivists and individualists in their moral judgments were also discussed. In the part of developmental perspective, how different cultures shape people's moral values and standards of moral judgment were analyzed and discussed. Through the analysis of recent research, it can be concluded that across all cultures, women and the elderly rely more on emotion when making moral judgments, while men rely more on reasoning. Besides, both collectivists and individualists were willing to punish violators when faced with immorality. Both collectivists and individualists were harsher when criminals were members of their own race. Individualists, after reflection, would reduce their dislike of offenders, but collectivists would not be affected by reflection. There are some limitations of recent studies. These include a lack of longitudinal comparisons and experimental procedures using assumed scenarios. The addition of follow-up experiments and simulated behavioral scenarios in future studies can solve these problems. At present, there is a lack of research regarding the influence of cultural differences on moral judgment in the research field. This paper fills this gap by analyzing the standards of moral judgment shaped by different cultures.