The Moral Development of Public Relations Practitioners: A Comparison With Other Professions and Influences on Higher Quality Ethical Reasoning

This study gathered baseline data on the moral development of 118 public relations professionals. The respondents scored 7th highest among all professionals tested. They performed significantly better when the ethical dilemmas were about public relations issues than when they were not, indicating domain expertise on ethical issues. No significant differences were found between men and women, or managers and nonmanagers. There were significant correlations between moral reasoning and several variables including political ideology and fundamental/liberal religious views.