The Influence Of Power And Role On Moral Judgment

Recent years, moral scandals appeared as the headlines with high frequency, such as official corruption, making a sale of questionable food, paying no attention to the one who calling for help and so on, which triggered concern and argument about moral issues. As a result, moral issues has been a hot topic in academic fields. In 2008, forerign researchers combined Construal level theory with moral issues:people with high construal level tend to judge moral events in terms of moral judgment; for people with low construal level, situation-specific information seems more important in moral judgment. As a result* people with high power were more strict in judging others'moral transgressions compared with low power. Furthermore, social distance theory has fund that high power incline to explain social events with high construal level, low power with low construal level, it seems to provide a new theoretical explanation to the study of difference between high power and low power in moral judgment.On the basis of Construal level theory, this study applied a self-administered moral scale to measure the moral judgment, and used 2 experiments to explore the moral judgment differences between high power and low power when they stand in different roles(observer, actor, sufferers),400 subjects come from college in Henan and Jiangsu province. Conclusions of the study are as follows.(1)Powerful is more strict in judging others'moral transgressions when they were the observers and sufferers.(2)Individuals under the role of observers were harsher in moral judgment than those who act as actors.(3)Individuals under the role of sufferers were more strict in moral judgment than those who act as observer.(4)The role of actors moderate the relationship between power and moral judgment:under the role of observers, individuals with high power is harsher in judging others'moral transgressions; but in the role of actors, individuals with high power and low power all take the harsh judgment.(5)Males seems more strict than females when they judgment others'moral transgressions; There may be an interaction between gender and observer- sufferer role:under the role of observer, males seems more strict; but under the role of sufferers, males and females all held strict attitude.