Enhancing tolerance: The confluence of moral development with the college experience.

Abstract

This dissertation addresses how college experiences contribute to both moral development and tolerance for diversity in college students. Tolerance is broadly defined as openness to human differences, leading to acceptance and respect. Diversity concerns itself with human differences, whether race, gender, or any other attributional or mutable characteristic. The working premise is that tolerance is associated with a greater level of moral development, which is mediated or moderated by the degree of meaningful involvement in the college experience, as well as by pre-college characteristics and experiences. This research model distinguishes empathic and causal thinking, reflecting two orthogonal, cognitive and interpersonal decision-making processes of moral development. Empathic thinking reflects considering multiple points of view; causal thinking reflects considering the reasons for people's behaviors. These constructs are presented as complementary constructs, accessible to both genders. The study is based on a survey conducted at a large public research multiversity. The sample consists of White students surveyed at entry and following their second year of college. Multiple hierarchical regressions and path analyses were the principal statistical tools. Findings supported major hypotheses with size of effect modest yet significant. This study offers credence to the notion that enhanced tolerance is the result of two distinct, cognitive, interpersonal moral orientations. For both genders, enhanced tolerance results from the confluence of empathic and causal thinking. Both genders demonstrated significant influence of selected college experiences on tolerance. While males' tolerance was more influenced by perceptions of campus racial conflict than females, tolerance for both genders was influenced by positive perceptions of institutional diversity efforts and students' active involvement in cocurricular diversity-related activities. Important gender differences emerged as females demonstrated higher levels of entering tolerance than males and experienced almost three times the gains in tolerance during the first two years of college. This is a result of the enduring influences of pre-college socialization and the greater ability to access complex levels of causal thinking, influencing moral development and, ultimately, influencing tolerance in females. Overall, findings indicate that the college experience influences tolerance for both females and males, but that there exists an enhancing quality associated with causal thinking for females which contributes to more substantial gains in tolerance.