Critical Perspectives on Accounting (2002) 13, 159177

doi:10.1006/cpac.2001.0496
Available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE USE OF

THE DIT IN ACCOUNTING ETHICS RESEARCH
DARLENE BAY
Maine Business School, University of Maine, 5723 Donald Corbett Business
Building, Orono, ME 04469-5723, USA

This paper discusses the Defining Issues Test (DIT) which has been used
extensively in accounting ethics research. The adjustments that the instruments
originator, James Rest, has made to Kohlbergs stage theory of the development
of cognitive ethical reasoning are discussed. In addition, potential biases of
the instrument with respect to gender, religion, culture, and political stance
are reviewed. Finally, the paper examines measurement issues related to the
instrument, and the correlation between the p-score of the DIT and ethical behavior.
The paper concludes with a summary of some of the issues that continued use of
the DIT represents for accounting ethics research.
c 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction
The Defining Issues Test (DIT) forms the basis of a substantial number of
accounting ethics research studies. The instrument, which is intended to measure
the level of ethical development of the subject, has been used to compare the
ethical development of accounting students to other business students and to
students from other academic majors (see, for example, Ponemon & Glazer, 1990;
St Pierre et al., 1990; Jeffrey, 1993). It has also been used to compare the
ethical development of practicing accountants across levels of seniority within public
accounting firms, as well as to compare the average level of ethical development
of accountants to other college-educated individuals (see, for example, Ponemon &
Glazer, 1990; Ponemon, 1992a; Shaub, 1994). Based largely on the results of these
comparisons, concern has developed that accounting education does not foster
ethical development to the same degree as other courses of study, and that the level
of ethical development of practicing accountants does not compare favorably to that
of their college-educated peers. Some researchers (see, for example, Ponemon,
1993; Shaub, 1994) and professional organizations, such as the AICPA (1988), the
AAA (1986) and the AACSB (1991), have called for interventions to be undertaken
by educators and by the profession aimed at reducing this perceived deficit.
Received 13 September 1999; revised 7 March 2000 and 4 January 2001; accepted 24 January 2001

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c 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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D. Bay

Despite its widespread use in accounting ethics research, little attention has been
paid to the DIT itself. There are some issues related to the instrument and to its
use to operationalize the concept of level of ethical development that have not been
addressed in the accounting ethics literature. These issues can be divided into three
basic categories: (1) divergence between the theory that forms the basis of most
accounting ethics research and the theory and practice that forms the basis of the
DIT; (2) potential biases that may result from the use of the instrument; and (3) an
incompletely studied relationship of the DIT to behavior.
While nearly all accounting studies that use the DIT (and many other accounting
ethics studies, as well) begin by examining Kohlbergs stage theory of ethical
development, on which the instrument is based, there are significant and growing
differences between Kolhbergs theory and the application of it as represented by
the DIT. When the theory that forms the underpinning of a study, and the theory that
forms the basis of the empirical data that is gathered are not the same, the potential
exists for the results to be imperfectly understood. Most accounting studies to date
that employ the DIT have discussed the results in light of Kohlbergs theory, with
little or no mention of differences in the theories of the DIT and Kohlberg.
Some studies from the social psychology literature provide evidence that the DIT
may be subject to biases with respect to certain types of individuals, for example,
political conservatives (Emler et al., 1983), members of cultures outside the US
(Ma & Cheung, 1996) and members of some religious orders (Richards & Davison,
1992). While the potential bias against politically conservative subjects has been
looked at in the accounting ethics literature (Sweeney, 1995), other potential biases
of the instrument have been largely ignored. To the extent that these biases are
confirmed, the results of DIT studies have the potential to be misleading.
Importantly, the relationship of scores on the DIT to behavior has been found to
be tenuous in some cases (for general reviews, see Blasi, 1980; Rest, 1986b), and
has shown a surprising quadratic form (indicating that those with low and high DIT
scores are more likely to engage in unethical behavior than those with mid-range
DIT scores) in other studies (Leming, 1978; Ponemon, 1993). Intuitively, one would
expect individuals that score higher on a measure of ethical development to behave
in a more ethical manner; that is, that DIT scores would relate linearly to behavior.
That this is not the case could signal a problem with construct validity. In addition,
the usefulness of a measure of ethical development that does not have the expected
linear relationship with behavior may be questionable.
This paper examines the above issues related to the DIT and its use in accounting
research with the intention of facilitating a thorough evaluation of use of the DIT in
accounting ethics research. If the DIT is to continue to be used to such a wide extent,
researchers and their audience should familiarize themselves with the theory behind
the measure, the degree to which it has been validated and its potential biases.
A few caveats are in order. It should be noted that this paper makes no attempt
to provide an exhaustive review of accounting ethics literature, or even of those
accounting ethics studies which used the DIT. Accounting DIT studies will be cited
to provide illustrations of some of the discussion points. In addition, this study looks
at the DIT as it has been used in accounting ethics research. New developments
and new indices that have not been widely used in accounting studies are not

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exhaustively discussed, since the attempt here is to examine how the DIT has been
used to date.
Further, this study is not intended as an evaluation of Kohlbergs theory. Objections to the theory are certainly possible, and have been discussed in the philosophy
literature. Other theories of ethics could have been, and sometimes are, applied in
accounting ethics research. However, it remains that Kohlbergs theories have had a
profound impact on accounting ethics literature, perhaps more than any other single
philosophy of ethics. In order to critically evaluate the use of the DIT in accounting
ethics research, it is necessary to make a careful distinction between Kohlbergs
theory and the DIT. It must be remembered that Kohlbergs theory can be applied
without the use of the DIT. Thus, for this study, Kohlbergs theory will be taken to be
given, not because the author necessarily agrees or disagrees with its use in accounting ethics research, but because the emphasis here is on the use of the DIT.
The following section briefly describes Kohlbergs theory of ethical development,
the construct which the DIT was developed to measure, and how the instrument
relates to the theory and to Kohlbergs ideas. Following that section, the paper looks
at several potential biases that have been discovered in some of the many studies
based on the DIT. Next, the relationship of the DIT to behavior is examined. Finally,
a summary and conclusions are presented.

The DIT and Kohlbergs Theory

The DIT is based on Kohlbergs (1969) stage theory of the development of ethical
understanding. The theory posits that individuals pass through six stages of ethical
understanding (see Figure 1 for a description of the stages as it generally appears
in accounting ethics literature). Each stage is characterized by the way in which the
individual conceptualizes societal relationships and determines justice. Kohlberg
believed that all people pass through these stages, that the order of the stages
is invariant, and that no stage can be skipped. He also stated that the stages
are universal, i.e. that they should be the same across culture, gender, political
persuasion, etc. (Kohlberg, 1971). Kohlberg developed a measurement instrument,
the Moral Judgement Interview, the result of which was a determination of the
individuals current stage of development. However, this instrument requires an
expert interviewer, the scoring process requires application of complex protocols
and data collection can only be conducted on an individual basisthe instrument
cannot be administered to large groups.
The Defining Issues Test is meant to be an objective, easily quantifiable measure
of ethical development (Rest, 1983). The DIT was an attempt to overcome the
difficulties in administration and scoring of the Moral Judgement Interview. It
consists of six ethical dilemmas (three in the short version). Following each dilemma
is a list of 12 considerations to be used in deciding how to resolve the dilemma.
Each consideration is meant to represent the thinking typical of a particular stage
of ethical development. Subjects are asked to rate these statements on a fivepoint scale ranging from great importance to no importance in resolving the
dilemma. Based on these ratings, the subject rank orders the four most important

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D. Bay
Pre-conventional levelFocus is self
Stage 1:
Stage 2:

Obedience
You do what you are told primarily to avoid punishment.
Instrumental egotism and simple exchange
You make deals or only consider the cost and/or benefits to yourself.

Conventional levelFocus is relationships

Stage 3:

Stage 4:

Interpersonal concordance
You are considerate, nice, and kind and youll get along with people. You
cooperate with those in your environment.
Law and duty to the social order
Everyone in society is obligated and is protected by the law. You cooperate with
society in general.

Post-conventional levelFocus is personally held principles

Stage 5:

Stage 6:

Societal consensus
You are obligated by whatever arrangements are agreed to and by due process
and procedure. Focus is on fairness of the law or rule as determined by equity
and equality in the process of developing the rule.
Nonarbitrary social cooperation
Rational and impartial people would view cooperation as moral. Focus is on
fairness of the law or rules derived from general principles of just and right as
determined by rational people.

Figure 1. Kohlbergs stages of moral reasoning.

considerations. The p-score, or principled score, is calculated from these final

rankings. This score measures the percentage of the time that the subject chose
statements meant to represent Stage 5 or Stage 6 reasoning (Rest, 1986b). Other
indices are available, but the p-score is the measure most often used in accounting
ethics research (Sweeney & Fisher, 1998). Only one accounting ethics study to date
has made use of the other indices, and this study is a comparison of the p-score
with the new n-score (Sweeney & Fisher, 1998).
While Rests DIT and Kohlbergs Moral Judgement Interview are both based, in
large part, on the same theory, there are important differences between the two
measures that should be carefully noted in accounting ethics research studies that
rely on the theory of Kohlberg and the measurement instrument of Rest. These
differences, discussed below, do not reveal general theoretical breaks between the
DIT and Kohlbergs theory, but relate to different perspectives on details of the
theory, or on methodological issues related to the instruments themselves. It should
be noted that Rest et al. (1999) have developed a new instrument, the DIT2, which
does represent a more substantial revision of the theory on which the instrument
is based. That instrument, however, has not yet become widely used in accounting
ethics research.
Each of the distinctions reviewed below describes differences between Kohlbergs
theory and Rests, as implemented in the DIT. These differences have been
extensively discussed in the literature by both Rest and Kohlberg. They relate to the
ability of the DIT to place a respondent in a specific stage (hard stage versus soft
stage), the degree to which it is believed subjects are assumed to operate in their

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modal stage (stage preference versus stage consistency) and the type of task that
should be employed to measure the level of ethical development (comprehension
task versus production task).
Hard stage versus soft stage
One discrepancy between the DIT and Kohlbergs work relates to characterization
of respondents as either being in a particular stage (Kohlberg), or responding mostly
in a particular stage (Rest). Colby and Kohlberg (1984) state that individuals can be
typed as being currently in a particular stage (the modal stage). The individual will
predominantly rely on ethical reasoning typical of that stage, and will only occasionally reason at the next lower or higher stage. As the individual advances through the
stages, lower level reasoning will be rejected as inadequate, and will not continue
to be used in any situation. Reasoning representative of one level above the modal
stage may also be employed, especially during the transition between stages, but
reasoning of the next higher stage(s) will neither be understood nor used. This
conceptualization has become known as a hard stage definition of moral reasoning.
Rests views, on the contrary, are based on a soft stage definition. Rest believes
that ethical development should be viewed as a distribution of reasoning (Rest,
1986b; Rest et al., 1997). That is, the individual will use reasoning related to a
particular stage to a greater or lesser degree, and at the same time, depending on
the situation or even idiosyncratically, will use reasoning related to all other stages.
It should be emphasized that the p-score which results from administration of the
DIT does not measure the stage at which the individual is currently reasoning. In
fact, it does not even indicate the stage the individual predominantly uses. It only
indicates the degree to which the individual applied higher level (Stage 5 or 6)
ethical reasoning in responding to the ethical dilemmas. A subject who chose almost
entirely Stage 4 reasoning and only a few Stage 5 or Stage 6 considerations would
receive the same p-score as a subject who chose almost entirely Stage 2 reasoning,
but the same number of Stage 5 or Stage 6 considerations (Ho, 1997). Kohlbergs
theory would seem to indicate that these two subjects are not operating on the same
level of ethical development, but in a study based on the p-score of the DIT, they
would be treated as if they were.
Rest (1983, 1986b) states that his views regarding the distribution of responses as
opposed to Kohlbergs hard stage beliefs are a result of being informed by the data.
A review of a set of completed responses to the DIT makes clear what this means.
According to Kohlbergs theory, a Stage 5 respondent should choose as most
important all those considerations which typify Stage 5 thinking, with perhaps some
residual Stage 4 thinking or perhaps the beginning of Stage 6 thinking (but not both).
In fact, respondents to the DIT typically choose as most important considerations
that vary widely across the stages.
To illustrate, a sample of DITs that were completed as part of an unrelated study
will be used. The 107 subjects involved were undergraduate business students at
a public university in the Western United States. Most of the respondents were
between the ages of 20 and 25 (84.2%), there were equal numbers of males
and females (56.1% male), and a substantial majority were US citizens (78.9%).

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Table 1 Range of stages on DIT by dilemma

All rankings from

same stage
Rankings include two
adjacent stages
Rankings include three
adjacent stages
Rankings exceed three
adjacent stages

Heinz

Escaped
prisoner

Student
newspaper

All three
dilemmas

3.7%

0%

2.8%

0%

14.0%

32.7%

30.8%

0.9%

27.1%

57.9%

36.4%

11.2%

55.2%

9.3%

29.9%

87.9%

Row three does not imply that statements from all three ranks were
included; merely that there was exactly one stage between the stage
of the highest consideration chosen and the stage of the lowest
consideration chosen. Similarly, in row 4 there were at least two stages
between the highest and the lowest.

The short form of the DIT was administered according to the instructions in the
DIT Manual (Rest, 1986a). Table 1 reports the percentage of respondents that
were consistent in picking considerations representative of one stage of moral
development. As can be seen, subjects were more consistent on some dilemmas
than others. However, in only a very small number of cases did any of the
respondents remain completely consistent on even one dilemma. When all of the
respondents responses to all three dilemmas are considered, the vast majority
applied considerations representative of more than three stages. According to Colby
and Kohlbergs (1984) statements about internal consistency, this should not occur.
Stage preference versus stage consistency
Since Kohlberg (Colby & Kohlberg, 1984) believed that individuals would not
employ reasoning more than one stage above or below their modal stage, stage
consistency would seem to be an integral requirement of an acceptable measure
of moral development. At least one researcher charges that the DIT measures
stage preference and ignores stage consistency. Lind (see Rest et al., 1997, for
a description of Linds theories) has developed an instrument that is widely used in
Europe and is similar to the DIT. However, the score that results from administration
of Linds instrument is computed quite differently from the p-score of the DIT. In
addition to a stage score, each subject is given a consistency score which is higher
if all items representing the same stage were rated at the same level of importance.
The consistency score is reduced for those subjects who sometimes rate Stage 2
statements of great importance, and sometimes rate them as not important, or for
subjects who rate Stage 2 and Stage 5 statements of equal importance.
Rest et al. (1997) defend the DIT by comparing the performance of the two indices
in some of the studies that were originally used to establish the validity of the DIT.
In most of these studies, the p-score from the DIT performs better than Linds consistency score as reconstructed by Rest from archival DIT information. Both Linds
instrument and the DIT produce responses that do not demonstrate stage consistency. However, Linds method of computing a quantified score penalizes subjects

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that have responded inconsistently, while the p-score from the DIT does not. As in
the soft stage/hard stage issue, Rest et al. (1997) believes that the ability of the subject to reason on the principled level, and the frequency with which that occurs, is of
prime importance. The consistency of the subjects reasoning is of less importance.
Comprehension versus production
A final difference between the DIT and Kohlbergs Moral Judgement Interview is the
type of task that subjects perform. Subjects completing the DIT are not required to
produce their own reasoning as a basis for the solution to the ethical dilemma. They
read prepared statements that may or may not represent considerations that would
have occurred to them had they not been presented with the list of statements.
Rest (1983, 1986b) calls this a recognition task, as opposed to the production
task that is an essential part of Kohlbergs Moral Judgement Interview. Clearly, this
was implemented as a means of making the instrument more easily quantifiable,
and making data gathering less onerous for both the researcher and the subject.
However, as Colby and Kohlberg (1984) point out, this may make the DIT more a
test of comprehension than of actual cognitive moral development.
Kohlberg (1971) defines the stages of cognitive moral development by reference
to the underlying structure of the reasoning process. Each stage has distinctive
characteristics in terms of what Kohlberg refers to as norms and justice operations,
and he takes great pains to distinguish these characteristics from what he terms
content (concrete statements that are prototypical representations of each stage).
The researcher looks for evidence of the operations in the statements subjects
make in response to the written dilemmas. Rest (1986b), on the other hand,
has no need to employ these abstract definitions. Because the DIT presents
respondents with prepared statements, it is not necessary to have criteria by which
to categorize any statement that the respondent may come up with. Thus, the
statements used in the DIT would be considered content or examples by Kohlberg
(Colby & Kohlberg, 1984).
To some extent, the format of the DIT may explain the lack of stage consistency
that is observed in the instrument. Subjects may tend to rate as important statements that they understand, without distinguishing between statements that represent significant issues and those that do not. This supposition is consistent with
some evidence in the hypothesis evaluation literature. Asare and Wright (1997) provide evidence that auditors evaluate competing hypotheses independently, i.e. the
likelihood of each hypothesis is not affected by the likelihood of a competing hypothesis. Further, Heiman (1990) finds that even if a new hypothesis decreases the subjective probability of the original hypothesis, the strength of the new hypothesis does
not impact the amount of the revision. Thus, subjects reading the list of considerations may initially agree with the first understandable consideration they encounter.
Further down the list, new considerations that are closer to the subjects true assessment may be encountered. However, either the original assessment of the first
consideration is not impacted, or the strength of the new consideration is not enough
to overcome the original assessment, so a consideration is marked as important
even when it does not represent the subjects highest level of ethical development.

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D. Bay

Another possible consequence of providing the subject with canned statements is

that certain concepts or words may be misunderstood by the subject, or understood
in a manner unintended by the researcher (Colby & Kohlberg, 1984; Rest et al.,
1997). Certainly, one can hope that this type of measurement error will be corrected
by sample size and randomization. However, as the scenarios that are used in the
DIT age, the chances increase that such miscommunication may lead to a true
bias1 . For example, one scenario relates to a student protest over US involvement
in Vietnam. Subjects who were students during that era may have a very specific,
emotional response to this scenario, while younger subjects may not even be sure
what the issues were. This strong difference in degree of involvement may impact
the result. Some words used in the DIT (such as mimeographed) may simply
suggest its age, causing respondents to take it less seriously.
An ideal measure of cognitive moral development would capture the subjects
ability to reason ethically. Simple recognition of valid considerations may fall short of
this goal. After all, faced with a real-life ethical situation, one is required to generate
ones own list of considerations for prioritization, and it is precisely this process
of generating the considerations that determines what aspects of the decision will
receive attention, and what the eventual outcome will be. At least two studies
present evidence that responses to the DIT do not necessarily correspond to the
ethical reasoning that subjects employ in making real life decisions (Wygant, 1997;
Reall et al., 1998). In both of these studies, subjects completed the DIT, and were
then asked to respond to considerations that were important to them in resolving a
real world or game situation. In both cases, real-world reasoning was, on average,
lower (in terms of Kohlbergs taxonomy) than that measured by the DIT. This may
be a result of the subjects more personal involvement in the former, while the
DIT presents subjects with dilemmas that they have never experienced and which
present no potential of personal gain or loss.
Implications of theory differences for accounting research
The difficulty that these departures from Kohlbergs theory present for accounting
ethics research is that, often, development of hypotheses and discussion of results
is done in terms of Kohlbergs stages, while empirics are based on the the DIT.
This very likely results from the strong effect that Kohlbergs theory has had on
accounting ethics research. It is not difficult to find examples of accounting ethics
studies that show evidence of thinking in terms of Kohlbergs theories, without
sufficient consideration given to exactly what has been measured using the DIT.
Many accounting ethics research studies contain discussion that would lead one
to believe that each individual can be typed as being in a particular stage (hard
stage). For example, Ponemon (1992b, p. 177), in a study of auditor underreporting
of time, develops the hypotheses based on how an auditor at each stage of
moral development would make a judgement about underreporting. . . . the Stage 4
auditor, depending upon his or her sense of obligation to the firm, may feel a need
to report honestly despite pressure from peers to do otherwise. In this study, moral
reasoning is measured by the DIT and the results discussed in terms of high or
low p-scores, which give no indication of whether or not the auditor is at Stage

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4 level of ethical development. As another example, in a study of the effect of a

unit on environmental reporting (Kite & Radtke, 1997, p. 185), the authors find
that students with higher p-scores showed more concern about the environment,
. . . individuals at higher levels of moral reasoning have views consistent with those
of society as a whole; or are more concerned about the social good. The authors
are describing a Stage 5 or Stage 6 individual in discussing results in which they only
know the p-score of the respondents. In both examples, the statements make sense
if one applies the hard stage interpretation of Kohlbergs work, but do not seem well
founded given that the p-score only gives a distribution of possible responses.
Some researchers have become sensitive to this issue and have attempted to
limit discussion to the p-score of the DIT rather than the underlying construct.
However, this results in discussions and implications sections that talk about High
DIT subjects and Low DIT subjects (see, for example, Ponemon, 1993, 1995),
leaving the reader to draw her own conclusions about what exactly differentiates a
high DIT subject from a low DIT subject. It is, in fact, the percentage of the time the
subject reasons at the Stage 5 or Stage 6 level, which is not the same thing as the
subjects level of ethical development.
Respondents inconsistent usage of levels of moral reasoning also presents a
substantial interpretation problem for accounting ethics research. For example, in
a review of accounting ethics studies, Ponemon and Gabhart (1994, p. 115) write
. . . partners in US firms tend to think at the conventional level of ethical reasoning.
However, detailed examination of the results of the DITs would reveal that partners
sometimes apply concepts from nearly all stages of ethical development, and do not
consistently operate at any stage. Thus, any actions predicated on this conclusion
would be appropriate only some of the time. This is not the same issue as the
influence of context on ethical decision making, since the inconsistencies can be
found during the same scenario as well as across scenarios.
Finally, the issue of the comprehension versus production task raises external
validity questions for accounting ethics research. The fact that accountants
recognize and/or agree with certain types of statements more than others does
not guarantee that, faced with an ethical dilemma in practice, the same types of
considerations would be spontaneously generated.

Potential Biases
Even if one is willing to accept the differences in theory between the DIT and
Kohlbergs writings, there remain other unresolved potential problems with the
instrument. The possibility of bias by gender, culture or national origin, religion, and
political stance has been studied in the social psychology literature. Each of these
are discussed below.
Gender
Gilligans (1982) assertion that the concept of justice, which forms the basis of
Kohlbergs stage theory and of the DIT, is a male orientation has often been

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D. Bay

repeated in accounting ethics research. However, it is usually dismissed by referring

to Rests (1986a) claim that differences in DIT scores by gender are very small,
and that the total variance accounted for by gender is minor. The difficulty with
this line of reasoning is that it assumes DIT scores should not vary by gender,
thus proving the instrument is unbiased when indeed little variation is found.
While Kohlbergs (1969) theory states that all individuals progress through all of
the stages, it does not claim that all travel at the same rate, nor that all eventually
reach the same terminal stage. On the contrary, Kohlberg believed that certain life
experiences would tend to cause some individuals to progress faster or farther than
others. Kohlberg called these experiences role-taking experiences and believed
that consideration of a situation from anothers perspective would tend to increase
the individuals moral development. Indeed, Rest (1986b) reviews evidence that
indicates that the same circumstances that increase social development also
advance moral development.
Gilligan believes that rather than justice, women are largely attuned to an ethic of
care. This can be related to Kohlbergs idea of life experiences. One could argue
that women as a group, by virtue of the fact that they participate in career activities
to an equal degree with most men and home/social activities to a greater depth than
some men, may be more likely to engage in more different types of life experiences
and to be more deeply involved in several different roles. This has the potential to
increase the ethical understanding of women at a different rate, or in a different way,
from that of men. Anecdotal evidence that women, as a group, tend to apply more
complex reasoning to ethical issues has been found by Piper et al. (1993) in a series
of in-depth interviews with MBA students.
To date, the matter has not been resolved. Gilligan speculates that women do
not determine moral behavior on the basis of justice, and Rest and his colleagues
speculate that men and women, on average, should develop ethical understanding
at approximately the same rate. No concrete empirical evidence has been found
that supports either position.

Politics
There is some evidence that politically conservative subjects score lower on the
DIT than do liberal subjects (Rest, 1986b). Emler et al. (1983) charge that the relationship is so close that the stage theory of moral development equates to political
ideology rather than to increasing structural complexity of moral judgement2 . They
base their conclusions on a study in which politically conservative respondents,
when told to respond as would a radical liberal, were able to significantly increase
their DIT scores. Liberal subjects, told to respond as would a conservative, suffered
decreases in their DIT scores. This result was later replicated with a different group
of subjects (Markoulis, 1989), and with a sample of accounting students (Fisher &
Sweeney, 1998).
Rest and his colleagues conducted a study to refute the conclusions reached
by Emler et al. (Barnett et al., 1995). The study reports that conservatives were
able to increase their scores only because they knew they needed to choose new

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statements as most important. They had already used up the Stage 4 statements,
and so, by default, they moved to the Stage 5 and Stage 6 statements. When given
a new instrument with more Stage 4 and especially more Antagonistic statements
(statements meant to appeal to individuals who are anti-establishment, which do
not increase the p-score), and told to fake liberal, conservatives were not able to
artificially increase their p-scores.
Culture
Kohlberg (1969) believed that the six stages of ethical development were universal.
While cultural differences could be a factor in the rate at which individuals progress
through the stages, individuals from all different cultures would still be expected
to progress through the same stages in the same order. Rest (1986b) reports the
results of several cross-cultural studies and concludes that the similarities in DIT
scores are stronger than the differences.
However, at least one recent study (Ma & Cheung, 1996) seems to indicate
that there may be differences in how respondents understand and respond to the
DIT that are based on culture. This study was motivated by the belief that the
Chinese cultural value of collectivism would cause different reactions in subjects
to some of the DIT statements, particularly those representing Stage 4 thinking.
Using a statistical technique called unidimensional unfolding, several Stage 4
statements were isolated that caused a sample of Chinese respondents to respond
differently to the DIT than did a comparison sample of American and English
respondents.
Two of the statements found to be understood differently by the Chinese contained
references to Western religious concepts: the word Heaven and a reference to a
Christian commandment. The other statements related to laws and community
values, which represent Stage 4 Law and Order thinking, but also represent the
Chinese cultural value of collectivism. US respondents do not have to abandon
a cultural value in order to disregard these statements in favor of higher level
statements; Chinese respondents do.
A less geocentric interpretation of this evidence may indicate that those Stage 4
statements are not really viewed as law and order by the Chinese respondents.
Hofstede (1991) has identified that one of the dimensions upon which cultures
vary is the independence/collectivity dimension. In the US, the appropriate unit of
analysis in questions of justice is the individual. However, in China, the appropriate
unit is the collective. Thus, a statement which reflects an attitude of justice for the
collective is not really a Stage 4 statement at all, but reflects higher order thinking.
Since the theory upon which the DIT is based states that moral development
is invariant across cultures, this implies that the DIT must also be free of cultural
bias. In practice, the use of Western religious and political concepts and scenarios
may severely limit the applicability of the instrument in the international arena. In
addition, the potential surely exists that other, as yet unstudied, biases with respect
to other cultures may be found. As Hofstede (1998) notes, one should not assume
that an instrument developed in one country will communicate the same meanings
to respondents from another country.

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Religion
While there is little evidence that religion is a correlate of DIT score (that is, Catholics
are as likely to score well on the DIT as Protestants or Jews), there is some
evidence that religiously conservative subjects score lower than their more liberal
counterparts (Rest, 1986b). This may be the result of strong adherence to the tenets
of the church and a belief that moral decisions are to be made by a higher authority.
This type of thinking would be considered Stage 4 thinking, and would therefore
cause respondents to score lower on the DIT.
By applying methods used in psychology to evaluate cross-cultural fairness of
aptitude and intelligence tests, Richards and Davison (1992) were able to determine
that a religiously conservative sample of Mormon students did indeed respond
differently to certain items on the DIT than a normative sample of mixed religious
background. The authors conclude that certain items on the DIT are measuring a
different construct for the conservative sample than for others. The majority of these
items represent Stage 4 items.
Implications of potential biases for accounting research
All of these issues have the potential to impact accounting ethics research
since results with regard to accountants in general may have been different had
these other variables been controlled. Sweeney (1995) shows that when political
conservatism is controlled for, the oft-noted decrease in p-score as rank in public
accounting firms increases disappears. One could postulate that similar results
would be found for membership in a conservative religious group3 . Ho (1997) shows
that Chinese accountants and students seem to have lower DIT scores than their US
counterparts and Etherington and Schulting (1995) show that the Canadian public
accountants do not demonstrate the decrease in DIT score as rank increases that
their US peers do. On the other hand, Irish practitioners and students seem to have
about the same average level of DIT score as Americans (Hill et al., 1998; Eynon
et al., 1996). Finally, several studies (see, for example, Shaub, 1994; Etherington &
Schulting, 1995) have found that female CPAs, on average, score higher on the DIT
than males.
However, it is unclear how to interpret these results. In each case, at least two
possible interpretations pertainthe results could be an artifact of the DIT, or a
consequence of application of Kohlbergs theory. Sweeney (1995), for example,
seems to believe that the bias against political conservatives is an artifact of the DIT.
However, political conservatives tend to be law and order adherents, and according
to Kohlbergs stage theory, they would be expected to be Stage 4 thinkers and would
therefore score lower on the DIT. A third possible explanation, however, is that some
of the scenarios on the DIT cover issues that are (or were) politically charged. Thus,
respondents picked considerations that seemed to point to an action in line with their
feelings about the issue, rather than thinking carefully about each consideration.
For the cross-cultural studies, the same two possibilities exist. The DIT contains
statements that refer to God and seems to confound Stage 4 thinking with higher
order cultural responsibility that many Chinese respondents espouse, thus creating

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the lower DIT scores for Chinese accountants. Alternatively, according to Kohlbergs
theory, a culture that demands subordination of individual thought to cultural perspectives may be retarding the ethical development of its citizens. This type of explanation was advanced in the Canadian study: the higher emphasis in Canadian education on liberal arts was assumed to be the cause of the overall higher DIT scores.
The results with respect to female accountants also lend themselves to several
interpretations. In the general population, women do not typically score higher on
the DIT than men, and, according to Gilligans ethics of care, would not be expected
to. One possibility is that the women who are being attracted to accounting had
or have developed a justice perspective to a greater degree than the average
woman. One could even posit that these women felt constrained to abandon the
caring perspective and thus have become more zealous in their espousal of justice.
Alternatively, the results in accounting could be impacted by the fact that all female
respondents must, by definition, be career women. Thus, they have at least two
roles to fill, and likely even more than that. In line with Kohlbergs reasoning, these
women have greater life experiences and thus higher DIT scores.
Many accounting ethics studies have concluded that Stage 4 thinking typifies
most accountants (see, for example, Ponemon & Gabhart, 1994; Fisher & Sweeney,
1998). The fact that Stage 4 considerations have met with measurement issues in
the cross-cultural study and the study of religious bias is of concern. As before,
two possibilities exist. Stage 4 has been poorly conceptualized by the theory, or
the considerations offered in the DIT that are meant to represent Stage 4 thinking
have been poorly chosen. In either case, if this is indeed the stage that most
closely represents the thinking of most accountants, the DIT may not be accurately
measuring the level of development of the average accountant.
Relationship to Behavior
In spite of any concerns about theoretical consistency or potential biases, perhaps
the acid test of a measure of ethical development is its ability to predict ethical
behavior. In fact, Rest (1986b) notes that research into ethical development is a
mere academic exercise unless it can be related to ethical behavior. Rest claims
that DIT scores exhibit a low but consistent correlation with ethical behavior.
Two studies report on the general relationship of measures of ethical understanding to ethical behavior. Blasi (1980) reports on 75 studies, most of which used a
Kohlbergian measure of ethical understanding. About half of the studies found a relationship between behavior and ethical understanding. Clearly, the other half found
no such relationship. Rest (1986b) examines 30 studies that used the DIT and some
measure of behavior. Most of these studies show a statistically significant relationship between p-score and behavior. However, it should be noted that the correlations
were only moderate (in the range of 30%).
Implications of relationship to behavior for accounting ethics research
If DIT scores do not relate in some consistent way to behavior, then the concern
about the lower scores found in public accountants may be misplaced. However,

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it must be remembered that the relationship of the DIT to behavior has not
been clearly established. One important issue is that many of the studies of
behavior included in the reviews cited above examine behavior that does not
correspond to the kind of behavior that is of concern in the accounting profession.
These studies have looked at juvenile delinquency, student protestors, marijuana
usage, guilty votes in a mock trial, etc. (see Blasi, 1980 and Rest, 1986b). Some
accounting studies have related DIT scores to specific accounting behaviors, such
as whistleblowing, sensitivity to management integrity, solution to an independence
conflict and underreporting of time (see Ponemon and Gabhart, 1994, for a
summary). It should be noted that only one of these studies relates to the type of
behavior (underreporting of audit hours, signing off on audit steps that had not been
completed, etc.) that initially sparked the concerns about ethics in accounting (see,
for example, Lightner et al., 1982, 1983). Every day, practicing accountants make
ethical decisions that are small in and of themselves compared to career decisions
or major decisions like whistleblowing. These less momentous but far more frequent
decisions are the kind that will shape the accounting profession and determine if it
will continue to be regarded as possessing the ethical strength to serve the public
as watchdogs and assurers.
At least three studies show that for such day-to-day decisions, DIT scores exhibit
a quadratic relationship with behavior. (Ponemon, 1993) provided graduate and
undergraduate students with an apparently unobserved chance to free-ride instead
of paying their share of a course expense. For both types of students, the most
likely to free-ride were those with lower or higher DIT scores. Leming (1978) used
an instrument called the circles game with a group of students and found a similar
result. In addition to cheating more often, subjects with higher and lower DIT
scores were more likely to be affected by heavy supervision. In the underreporting
experiment mentioned above, Ponemon (1992b) found a similar result in one
condition of the experiment.
Summary
Rest (1986b) is quite careful to emphasize the differences between Kohlbergs work
and the theory behind the DIT. According to him, they are perceived as minor for
people working outside the field, and sometimes as major differences for people
working in the field (Rest et al., 1997, p. 6). Accounting ethics researchers have not
been as careful to make clear the differences between Rests work and Kohlbergs
theory. Many simply give a review of Kohlbergs work and proceed directly to the DIT
as a widely accepted, well validated measurement of ethical development. To the
reader, this may imply that the theory behind the DIT is the same as the theory that
has been presented. The reader is left to interpret the study within that framework.
While some of potential biases in the DIT may not seem disturbing, especially
in a discipline that is still struggling to increase its diversity, other, as yet unstudied
biases may exist, as well. Certainly, the bias against politically conservative subjects
is of concern to accounting researchers, especially in the United States, since it
appears to at least partially explain a recorded deficit in p-score among partners in
US public accounting firms. Accounting ethics research cannot afford to ignore the

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alternative explanations of results that these biases represent, nor to accept at face
value results that may not be caused solely by the level of ethical development.
Far more troubling is the tentative connection between DIT score and behavior,
and the possibility that the relationship may be quadratic rather than linear. If
one assumes for a moment that the relationship is indeed quadratic, and accepts
Rests evidence that educational interventions do increase DIT scores, then the
many attempts to integrate ethics education into accounting curricula may have the
clearly dysfunctional result of actually decreasing the level of ethical behavior in
the accounting profession. Of course, much work remains to be done in this area.
Lemings (1978) result that threat of discovery reduces the propensity of those who
are most likely to behave unethically is certainly good news for the profession. Other
variables may also be found to moderate the relationship of DIT to ethical behavior.
The larger question, of course, is exactly what does the DIT measure? Accounting
ethics research as a discipline has apparently accepted as fact that it measures level
of cognitive moral development. Colby and Kohlberg (1984) assert that it measures
only moral comprehension. The differences in ratings of different statements which
represent the same stage by the same subject, the spread of ratings across many
stages for the same subject, and the observable differences in both of these by
dilemma are of real concern. There is clearly more variation in the responses to
the DIT than can be accounted for by theory. Additionally, given the large amount
of variation noted in responses to an extremely short dilemma that has no personal
affect for the respondent, what may the degree of variation be in responses to reallife situations, the resolution of which will directly impact the financial, social or moral
well-being of the decision maker?
The implications of this variation for interpretation of accounting ethics research
based on the DIT are significant. Decision makers may mentally review a number
of considerations from a variety of stages before determining an action. We do
not know what type of situation is likely to cause a wider array of considerations,
and what type of situation may produce considerations of only one or two stages.
Decision makers, even those determined to be highly principled, may, at certain
times, respond based on ethical considerations of a very low stage. Again, we have
no indication of when or why this may occur.
All of this makes practical implications of accounting ethics research problematic.
As noted above, education aimed at increasing DIT scores may not be the answer
to the ethics crises. Recommendations have been proposed that deal with establishing more rules that cover a wider variety of situations for practicing accountants
(Ponemon & Gabhart, 1994). However, this assumes that most accountants are
operating at Stage 4 (law and order) and that they reason at that stage consistently.
The new instrument that has been developed by Rest et al. (1999), the DIT2,
still presents many of these same issues. The theory behind the instrument is
even farther from the theory of the original DIT. The authors now speak in terms
of schemas rather than stages, and basically admit of only two possible schemas
present in most adults. In addition, these schemas are both assumed to be available
for use by any one individual. Thus, external validity becomes a huge issue. The
schemas evoked by the filling out of a form regarding a one-paragraph ethical
dilemma that has no personal relevance may not be at all the schema that is evoked

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when facing an ethical dilemma in practice. Further, at least one of the biases clearly
remains. The DIT2 continues to contain statements about God, clearly limiting its
relevance to cultures where the predominant group calls its deity by that name. It is
not yet clear which of the other potential biases remain.
Business ethics as an academic discipline has had difficulty achieving the status
enjoyed by other business disciplines (Hosmer, 1999). Some of the reasons for this
struggle relate to the need for a language with which to talk about the issues and an
established theory on which to base discussion and research (Piper et al., 1993).
It is easy to see how Kohlbergs theory met these needs. It provided academicians
with words such as ethical development, stage sequence, and ethical reasoning with
which to discuss the perceived crises in ethics that was occurring in business. In
addition, it provided a logical taxonomy of stages that could be used to assess better or at least more highly developed. Absent from this theory was a method to form
a basis for saying one person or group of persons was more ethical than another.
However, an additional problem was also faced by ethics researchers. The
discipline was often regarded as soft by colleagues in more numbers-oriented
research areas (Freeman, 1991; Piper et al., 1993). The DIT seemed to solve this
problem. The DIT results in a number (the p-score) that can be used in further
analysis. This number places the respondent relative to other respondents and
can therefore be used in models that require a measure of the relative ethics of
the subject. The number (according to theory) is stable for each respondent, and
should change (and then only upward) with such things as education and other life
experiences, but should not change with the situation.
We are all familiar with the axiom stated by Ijiri (1975) that quantified goals drive
out unquantified ones. In accounting ethics research, it may be the quantified
measures of ethics have driven out unquantified (and perhaps unquantifiable)
aspects of ethics. The DIT provided us with a measurement tool, but in the process,
may have overshadowed other considerations that are at least as important. Efforts
to appear scientific may have obscured the need to evaluate such things as
commitment, values, imagination and reflection (Piper et al., 1993).
Perhaps, now, when the old DIT is being phased out, and the new DIT2 has not
become firmly established, is an excellent time for accounting ethics researchers
to reassess use of this instrument. Is continued use of this instrument of benefit to
the discipline? Is it helping to inform efforts to improve ethics education of future
professionals? Does it describe what actually happens in accounting practice in any
meaningful way? Does it provide a basis for making recommendations that have
the potential to increase the level of ethical behavior that is observed in practice?
Will use of this instrument which produces a number to be analyzed, perhaps, limit
the amount of effort that is allocated to discussions of topics that cannot be so
easily quantified?
Finally, continued use of the DIT implies continued reliance on Kohlbergs theory
at least to the extent that Rest continues to espouse some parts of that theory.
Kohlbergs theory is a cognitive theory. There may be other, equally important
factors in ethical decision making. Is continued use of the DIT, then, helping to avoid
less comfortable, but perhaps more important, issues of values, personal feelings,
and other affective components of ethical decision making?

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Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of workshop participants
at the 1999 Critical Perspective in Accounting Conference in New York and of two
anonymous reviewers.
Notes
1. As mentioned previously, a new version of the DIT, the DIT2, is now available. However, the age
of the DIT is still important. Subjects that took the DIT in the 1990s potentially had a far different
reaction to a scenario about Vietnam than those who took the DIT in the 1970s, but comparisons are
still made without taking this effect into account.
2. This argument ignores the fact that there are clearly two possibilities here. One is that the DIT does
not completely correspond to the theory, but contains a built-in bias against politically conservative
subjects. The other possibility is that the DIT does measure moral development, but that the theory
itself is flawed. Emler has chosen to suggest the latter, but the former is as real a possibility.
3. Since no studies were found that address the issue of religious affiliation among accountants, this
potential bias is not discussed further here.

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