Relationship between general intelligence and moral reasoning: The mediating role of moral identity

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the moral identity as the role of mediator in the relationship between general intelligence and moral reasoning. This study considers general intelligence as an exogenous variable, and dimensions of moral identity (internalizing and externalizing) as mediator variables, and moral reasoning as an endogenous variable. The participants of this study were 250 nurses of hospitals in Kerman whom were selected by random multistage cluster sampling method and they responded to Cattell-III IQ Test (Cattell, 1943), Self-Importance of Moral Identity Scale (Aquino & Reed,22002), and Nursing dilemmas test (Chrisham, 1981). The method of research was correlation and path analysis was used to analyze the data. The results showed that the general intelligence has positive effect on the moral internalization (β=0.20, p=0.0001) and the moral internalization has a positive effect on the moral reasoning (β=0.26, p=0.0001) and the moral of symbolism has a negative effect on the moral reasoning (β=-0.14, p= 0.03). Also, it was found that the moral internalization played significant mediator role between general intelligence and the moral reasoning (β=0.05, p= 0.006). Based on these findings can be concluded when a person used his intelligence function in order to internalize of moral values, can have a richer argument.

Keywords

• general intelligence
• moral identity
• moral internalization
• moral reasoning
• moral symbolization