IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2021i1p10-d707280.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Moral Judgement along the Academic Training

Author

Listed:
  • Giulia D’Aurizio

    (Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy)

  • Fabrizio Santoboni

    (Department of Management, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Roma, Italy)

  • Francesca Pistoia

    (Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy)

  • Laura Mandolesi

    (Department of Humanities Studies, University Federico II, 80138 Napoli, Italy)

  • Giuseppe Curcio

    (Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy)

Abstract

Moral reasoning and consequent decision making are central in the everyday life of all people, independent of their profession. It is undoubtedly crucial in the so-called “helping professions”, when the professional through his/her decisions can support or not support others. Our study aimed to investigate whether academic training can play an essential role in influencing moral reasoning. We used three different conditions: 20 moral personal, 20 moral impersonal, and 20 nonmoral dilemmas to assessed differences in moral judgement between students of Economics, Medicine, and Psychology at their first year and at the end of university training. We observed a difference between school and year of course: psychology students showing more time when asked to read and answer the proposed questions. Moreover, medical students showed a significant increase in sensitiveness to moral issues as a function of academic ageing, whereas such a moral sense regressed from the first to the fifth year of academic training in other students. Gender was also relevant, with women showing an increased response and reading times compared to than men when asked to cope with moral decisions. This study shows that the main factor driving moral decision making is the faculty to which one is enrolled, significantly modulated by sex and academic seniority.

Suggested Citation

  • Giulia D’Aurizio & Fabrizio Santoboni & Francesca Pistoia & Laura Mandolesi & Giuseppe Curcio, 2021. "Moral Judgement along the Academic Training," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-13, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2021:i:1:p:10-:d:707280
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/1/10/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/1/10/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Orsini, Raimondello, 2006. "Etica ed Economia: alcune riflessioni sul concetto di scelta," AICCON Working Papers 33-2006, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    2. Alison L Antes & Kelly K Dineen & Erin Bakanas & Tyler Zahrli & Jason D Keune & Matthew J Schuelke & James M DuBois, 2020. "Professional decision-making in medicine: Development of a new measure and preliminary evidence of validity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(2), pages 1-18, February.
    3. John R. Carter & Michael D. Irons, 1991. "Are Economists Different, and If So, Why?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 171-177, Spring.
    4. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2003. "The nature of human altruism," Nature, Nature, vol. 425(6960), pages 785-791, October.
    5. Martin A. Nowak & Karl Sigmund, 2005. "Evolution of indirect reciprocity," Nature, Nature, vol. 437(7063), pages 1291-1298, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mengyuan Zhou, 2022. "Does the Source of Inheritance Matter in Bequest Attitudes? Evidence from Japan," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 43(4), pages 867-887, December.
    2. Mengyuan Zhou, 2019. "The Effect of the Source of Inheritance on Bequest Attitudes: Evidence from Japan," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2019-018, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    3. Ahmadreza Asgharpourmasouleh & Atiye Sadeghi & Ali Yousofi, 2017. "A Grounded Agent-Based Model of Common Good Production in a Residential Complex: Applying Artificial Experiments," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(4), pages 21582440177, October.
    4. Li, Yixiao & Jin, Xiaogang & Su, Xianchuang & Kong, Fansheng & Peng, Chengbin, 2010. "Cooperation and charity in spatial public goods game under different strategy update rules," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(5), pages 1090-1098.
    5. Nichola Raihani & David Aitken, 2011. "Uncertainty, rationality and cooperation in the context of climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 108(1), pages 47-55, September.
    6. Ahmed, Ali & Salas, Osvaldo, 2008. "Is the Hand of God Involved in Human Cooperation? An Experimental Examination of the Supernatural Punishment Theory," CAFO Working Papers 2009:1, Linnaeus University, Centre for Labour Market Policy Research (CAFO), School of Business and Economics.
    7. Podobnik, Boris & Gabor, Andrijana Musura & Kirbis, Ivona Skreblin, 2019. "Scale-free growth of human society based on cooperation and altruistic punishment," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 513(C), pages 613-619.
    8. Domenico Rossignoli & Mario A. Maggioni & Simona Beretta & Sara Balestri, 2017. "Growing up in Africa Age and Pro-social attitudes in Primary Schoolchildren in Goma (DRC)," DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo dis1704, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS).
    9. Andreoni, James & Rao, Justin M., 2011. "The power of asking: How communication affects selfishness, empathy, and altruism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 513-520.
    10. Naoki Masuda & Mitsuhiro Nakamura, 2012. "Coevolution of Trustful Buyers and Cooperative Sellers in the Trust Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(9), pages 1-11, September.
    11. Gagen, Michael, 2013. "Isomorphic Strategy Spaces in Game Theory," MPRA Paper 46176, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Simon Gaechter & Benedikt Herrmann, 2008. "Reciprocity, culture, and human cooperation: Previous insights and a new cross-cultural experiment," Discussion Papers 2008-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    13. Yu, Tongkui & Chen, Shu-Heng & Li, Honggang, 2011. "Social Norm, Costly Punishment and the Evolution to Cooperation," MPRA Paper 28814, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Ahmed, Ali M. & Salas, Osvaldo, 2008. "Is The Hand Of God Involved In Human Cooperation?An Experimental Examination Of The Supernatural Punishment Theory," CAFO Working Papers 2008:1, Linnaeus University, Centre for Labour Market Policy Research (CAFO), School of Business and Economics.
    15. Felix C Brodbeck & Katharina G Kugler & Julia A M Reif & Markus A Maier, 2013. "Morals Matter in Economic Games," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-1, December.
    16. Yuan Yuan & Tracy Liu & Chenhao Tan & Qian Chen & Alex Pentland & Jie Tang, 2019. "Gift Contagion in Online Groups: Evidence From Virtual Red Packets," Papers 1906.09698, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    17. Boero, Riccardo & Bravo, Giangiacomo & Castellani, Marco & Squazzoni, Flaminio, 2009. "Reputational cues in repeated trust games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 871-877, December.
    18. Hanyeong Kim & Yun Shin Lee & Kun Soo Park, 2018. "The Psychology of Queuing for Self-Service: Reciprocity and Social Pressure," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-15, November.
    19. Gao, Meng & Li, Zhi & Wu, Te, 2023. "Evolutionary dynamics of friendship-driven reputation strategies," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 175(P1).
    20. Wubben, Maarten J.J. & Cremer, David De & Dijk, Eric van, 2011. "The communication of anger and disappointment helps to establish cooperation through indirect reciprocity," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 489-501, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2021:i:1:p:10-:d:707280. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.