Multivariate analysis of reasons for death penalty support between male and female college students: empirical support for Gilligan’s ‘ethic of care’

Abstract

Among a convenience sample of college students, the authors found an unexpectedly large difference in death penalty support between men and women, with only 45% of women supporting capital punishment in contrast to 71% of men. Reasons for supporting or opposing capital punishment varied by gender as well, with men holding more retributive and utilitarian views. Of the measures used in this study, women appeared to respond more to issues of compassion, caring, and mercy, thus providing inferential support for Gilligan’s ‘ethic of care’ hypothesis (1982).

Keywords:

• capital punishment views
• gender gap
• death penalty support

Acknowledgement

The authors thank Janet Lambert for editing and proofreading the paper. The authors also thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. These comments and suggestions improved the paper.

Notes

1. Pairwise deletion was used for missing responses. Responses for the 19 items were coded as strongly disagree = 1, disagree = 2, uncertain = 3, agree = 4, and strongly agree = 5. There is disagreement of how to treat responses of uncertain. In the analysis reported in the paper we used uncertain as the middle category of the response scale. In addition, the uncertain responses were dropped, and the t‐tests were redone. In terms of statistical significance, the same results were observed. Finally, in addition to the Independent t‐test, the nonparametric tests of the Kruskal–Wallis H‐test, the Chi‐squared test, and the Mann–Whitney U‐test were used. Similar results to the t‐test in terms of statistical significance were found.

2. Based upon the Independent t‐test (and the nonparametric tests of the Kruskal–Wallis H‐test, the Chi‐squared test, and the Mann–Whitney U‐test), there were statistically significant differences at p ≤ 0.05 between men and women for the retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, morality, and unfair administration indexes. Specifically, men were higher on the retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation indexes, and women were higher on the morality and unfair administration indexes.

3. The measures of brutalization and innocence were ordinal level variables. While OLS regression is robust, it is sometimes argued that Ordered Ordinal regression should be used when the dependent variable is measured at the ordinal level (Long, 1997; Menard, 1995). Using Ordered Ordinal regression, similar results in terms of statistical significance were observed. In addition, there is disagreement of how to treat responses of uncertain. In the analysis reported in the paper we used uncertain as the middle category of the response scale. We ran analyses with those who marked uncertain as being treated as missing cases. In terms of statistical significance for gender, the same results were observed.