Sex differences in the moral values of college students and their parents

A values survey eliciting judgments of the morality of 50 behaviors was administered to 93 college students and both of their parents. Among students, who were generally more lenient in their judgments than their parents were, sex differences were virtually nonexistent. By contrast, mothers were more severe in their judgments than fathers across a wide range of behavior. Students' subscale and total severity scores were generally positively, though modestly, related to the corresponding scores of both their parents, with mother-child correlations being somewhat higher than father-child correlations, and with strengths of relationships varying as a function of domain of judgment and sex of student.