ABSTRACT
Women's capacity for abstract moral reasoning is described as being less developed or even nonexistent, overridden by women's contextuality, emotionality, and inconsistency. Kohlberg predicted that controlling for gender differences in education and employment activities would cause differences between women's and men's moral reasoning to vanish. Kohlberg uses as the basis of his empirical research hypothetical moral dilemmas. Gilligan's assumed female preference for "compassionate" solutions to moral dilemmas is only partially confirmed. The same holds true for our own assumptions of the effects of socialization into patriarchal culture. Justice perceptions in real-life situations are also influenced by the rational considerations of individuals who are directly affected by the distribution of societal resources. The Eastern European models also revealed women's preference for egalitarianism. Preference differences between men and women did not disappear after controlling for the gender injustice items. Psychoanalytical and cognitive-developmental psychologists have long studied the formation and growth of individual moral perceptions.
