Sex Roles, Vol. 18, Nos. 11/12, 1988 Gender Differences in Moral Development Geri R. Donenberg and Lois W. Hoffman University of Michigan Sixty-nine Midwestern middle-class children and adolescents were tested on justice and care orientations when reasoning abstract and interpersonal moral dilemmas. Nona Lyons" ("Two Perspectives on Self, Relationships and Moral- ity," Harvard Educational Review, 1983, 53,125-145) scoring method was used to score subjects" responses. A 2(sex) × 2(age) analysis of variance run on the total justice and care scores, as well as each individual dilemma, sup- ported Carol Gilligan's (In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development, Cambridge, MA" Harvard University Press, 1982) theory that two distinct ways of thinking about moral problems exist-justice and care-and are differentially related to gender. Girls emphasized the morality of care significantly more than justice. Contrary to Gilligan (1982) and Lyons (1983), however, boys in both age groups emphasized the morali- ty o f justice and care equally. Data from the interpersonal dilemmas using L yons's (1983) coding scheme are consistent with J. Piaget (The Moral Judge- ment of the Child, New York: Free Press, 1966) and Lawrence Kohlberg ['The Cognitive-Developmental Approach, " in D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research, Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969]: older subjects became more justice oriented and younger subjects emphasized the morality of care. Sex differences on Kohlberg's stage theory were not sig- nificant and the protagonist's gender in the Heinz dilemma had no effect on moral reasoning. The study of moral development is currently expanding to include new ideas and considerations involving the process of moral development. In the past, Kohlberg's stage theory has been widely accepted as a conceptualization of an individual's moral growth. However, over the past decade many criticisms arose over the generalizability of his theory. Carol Gilligan (1977, 1982) sug- gested that people consider more than justice when reasoning moral conflicts, and found another "voice" concerned with care, relationships, and connec- tions with other people especially salient in women. A great deal of con- 701 0360-0025/88/0600-0701506 00/0 © 1988 Plenum Pubhshmg Corporation