From the scene to the crime: the effect of alcohol and social context on moral judgment

Forty men and women were given Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview (MJI) while drinking in a natural setting and were asked a series of questions about whether they should and would drive impaired. In a second testing in an academic context, these subjects were given an alternate form of the MJI and were asked whether they drove on the previous occasion. Forty additional men and women completed the MJI in an academic context and responded to the impaired driving questions hypothetically. Results revealed that Ss scored lower on moral maturity in the the social drinking contexts than in the academic contexts, especially when highly intoxicated. Ss responding hypothetically attributed more moral integrity to themselves than to others, indicating they would not drive impaired. The self-righteousness of these attributions was apparent in the behavior of Ss who drove to the social drinking settings--all but 1 drove home, however impaired.