Do cultural values predict individuals' moral attitudes? A cross‐cultural multilevel approach

Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2011 papers

Abstract

Abstract This study examined whether cultural values predict individuals' moral attitudes. The main objective was to shed light on the moral universalism and relativism debate by showing that the answer depends on the moral issues studied. Using items from the Morally Debatable Behaviours Scale (MDBS) fielded in the World Value Survey (WVS), we found that moral issues can be differentiated cross‐culturally into attitudes towards (1) dishonest–illegal and (2) personal–sexual issues. Drawing upon evolutionary and cultural theories, we expected that the former moral domain is not related to cultural values, whereas the latter is influenced by cultural conceptions of the self (i.e. independent versus interdependent selves). We used multilevel modelling with Schwartz' cultural values as the independent variables and the two moral domains as assessed through the MDBS as dependent variables to test our hypothesis. After controlling for individual‐level differences in moral attitudes as well as the socio‐economic development of countries, our findings confirmed that attitudes towards dishonest–illegal issues were not related to cultural values whereas attitudes towards personal–sexual issues were predicted by the Autonomy–Embeddedness value dimension. We conclude that our study sheds not only light on the universalism and relativism debate, but also on the discriminant validity of cultural values. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Related Papers

• → Bakhtinian thought and the defence of narrative: overcoming universalism and relativism(2011)8 cited
• → Universalism Versus Relativism in Public Relations(2005)8 cited
• → The relativity of cultural relativism(1993)4 cited
• → The Paradox Between Universalism of Human Rights and Relativism of Culture(2020)2 cited
• → Relativism and anthropology(2006)