Explorations in Reported Moral Behaviors, Values, and Moral Emotions in Four Countries.

University students (n = 758) from Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, and Portugal were given a list of morally relevant behaviors (MRB), the Schwartz Value Survey (PVQ40) and Tangney's TOSCA, measuring empathic guilt, guilt over norm-breaking, and shame. A factor analysis of MRB yielded 4 dimensions: prosocial behaviors, interpersonal transgressions, antisocial behaviors and secret transgressions. Prosocial behaviors were predicted by self-transcendence-self-enhancement (SET) value contrast only while the three transgression categories were associated with both SET and openness to change-conservation (hedonism-conformity) contrast. Norm-breaking guilt was more strongly associated with behaviors than were empathic guilt and shame. However, shame was (positively) associated with secret transgressions in three countries, after controlling for values. The associations were strongest in Bulgaria and Estonia while fewer associations were found in Finland and Portugal. The implications of the findings for the cross-cultural psychology of morality are discussed.

Does Organizational Justice Modify the Association Between Job Involvement and Retirement Intentions of Nurses in Finland?

Given the growing aging population in Finland, retaining health staff to care for them is important. In an exploration of predictors of quitting before the typical retirement age, which ranges from 63 to 68 years in Finland, we examined whether organizational justice moderated the association between job involvement and retirement intentions among nurses 50 years and over. The sample was 446 nurses (70% practical nurses) working in 134 assisted living facilities providing 24-hour care for older residents in Finland. Job involvement was measured with the Job Involvement Questionnaire, and organizational justice with a scale that tapped its three dimensions: distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice. In covariance analyses, low organizational justice and low job involvement were associated with a higher likelihood of retirement intention. Both interactional justice and procedural justice moderated the association of job involvement with retirement intentions. Among nurses with low job involvement, those who experienced unjust treatment, that is, low interactional justice, and evaluated organizational procedures as unjust had significantly stronger retirement intentions than nurses with high levels of interactional and procedural justice. Distributive justice was associated with retirement intentions in both high and low job-involved respondents. Organizational justice may act as a buffer against retirement intention as one consequence of nurses' low job involvement. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Empathy, values, morality and Asperger's syndrome.

The aims of this study were, first, to re-address the issue of empathy among people with autism conditions; second, to explore the relationships between empathy and values among autistic populations and controls; and third, to explore the capacity for moral agency among those affected by autism. We compared responses of an Asperger group (N = 41) and a control group (N = 139) to measures of self-reported empathy (Davis's IRI) and value priorities (Schwartz's PVQ). Control group results were largely in line with previous studies, such that empathy subscales of perspective taking and empathic concern showed their strongest positive and negative relations to the Schwartz self-transcendence/self-enhancement dimensions. Results for the Asperger group showed that although on the one hand there were self-reported difficulties in perspective taking and the cognitive recognition of affect, and that on the other hand there were less connections between the empathy and value measures, there was nevertheless a comparable prioritization of moral values. Conclusions suggest that different people may acquire moral values through different mechanisms.

Empathy, guilt, and gender: a comparison of two measures of guilt.

The relations of empathy with two measures of guilt were examined in a sample of 13- to 16-year-olds (N= 113). Empathy was measured using Davis's IRI and guilt by Tangney's TOSCA and Hoffman's semi-projective story completion method that includes two different scenarios, guilt over cheating and guilt over inaction. Empathy correlated more strongly with both measures of guilt than the two measures correlated with each other. For boys, cognitive perspective-taking was a stronger predictor for guilt than for girls. Hoffman's guilt over inaction was more strongly associated with empathy measures in girls than in boys, whereas for guilt over cheating the pattern was the opposite. The results indicate that boys and girls may emphasize different aspects of morality.

Socio-cognitive conflict, emotions and complexity of thought in real-life morality.

A new taxonomy of real-life dilemmas was tested in two studies. In Study 1, 35 respondents assessed six types of real-life dilemmas in terms of socio-cognitive conflict. Support was found for a classification of dilemmas into three levels of socio-cognitive conflict. In Study 2, 191 young women responded to measures of social perspective-taking and emotional empathy and reported a real-life moral dilemma as well as their feelings while making decisions about it. The dilemmas were classified into personal and impersonal and into three levels of socio-cognitive conflict. Dependent variables were the integrative complexity of the arguments and the reported feelings (sympathy, upset, and remorse). Dispositional empathy and perspective taking predicted level of socio-cognitive conflict and feelings of sympathy but not integrative complexity. Personal dilemmas aroused more feelings of upset than did impersonal ones. Low socio-cognitive conflict dilemmas evoked less complex thinking and less intensive feelings of upset and sympathy than did moderate and high socio-cognitive conflict dilemmas.

The development of moral judgment during nursing education in Finland.

This study describes moral judgment among first- and last-year nursing students in Finland and examines the effects of ethics teaching on the development of moral judgment. The data for this quantitative cross-sectional study were collected using the Defining Issues Test (DIT), which is based on Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning stages. The questionnaires were sent to four polytechnics, which offer nursing education in southern Finland. A total of 52 first-year students and 54 last-year students participated. The results showed that students who had had to deal with ethical dilemmas in their practical training had higher moral judgment than students who did not. Last-year students had higher moral judgment than first-year students. Last-year students resorted to principle-based thinking more often than first-year students in resolving DIT dilemmas. The differences between the two groups were statistically significant. The results indicate that nursing education may has an effect upon students' moral judgment.