The Relationship Between Political Attitudes and Moral Judgment: Examining the Validity of the Defining Issues Test

Most ethics studies employing accounting subjects have utilized the Defining Issues Test (DIT), generally finding the moral judgment abilities of accounting students and accountants to be less advanced than those of the general population (Ponemon and Gabhart, 1994). This study assesses the validity of the DIT by examining whether an individual can achieve a higher moral judgment score on the DIT by responding from the role of a political liberal. Accounting undergraduates, defining themselves as liberal, moderate or conservative, completed the DIT once from their own perspective and once from either an "extremely conservative" or "extremely liberal" perspective.