THE RELATIONSHIP OF DOGMATISM, MORAL-, EGO-DEVELOPMENT AND SEX-ROLE AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS MAJORING IN DIFFERENT FIELDS IN SAUDI ARABI

This study investigated the relationship between dogmatism, college majors (within and between universities), moral-, ego-development, and sex roles among senior college students at some Saudi universities. Two hundred and fifteen senior students majoring in Arabic, history, chemical and civil engineering from four universities participated. Each student completed the short form of the Sentence Completion Test, the Dogmatism Scale, the Sociomoral Reflection Objective Measure and the Bem Sex Role Inventory. Translated versions of the instruments showed very satisfactory reliability coefficients. The hypotheses were concerned with: the effect of college major and university affiliation upon dogmatism scores and the relatedness of ego-, moral-development and sex role to one another as well as to dogmatism.;Based on the present findings and previous studies, the following conclusions were reached: (1) dogmatism as an intercultural construct is supported empirically; (2) university affiliation seems to have an effect on the dogmatism score; (3) the effect of majors on dogmatism is qualified by the significant "university" by "major" interaction, i.e., the patterns of dogmatism differ from one university to another for the same major as well as for other majors; (4) the inverse relationships between dogmatism and moral and ego development are empirically defensible; (5) sex role is not related to either dogmatism or ego development, but has a weak positive relationship with moral development; (6) the adequacy of both the additive and the interactive conception of sex role was questioned; (7) the relationship between ego and moral development follows theoretical expectations; (8) the relationships between moral development and the other variables were taken as evidence of construct validity for the SROM.