Student Attitudes Concerning Abortion, Euthanasia, and the Death Penalty: The Importance of Gender and Need for Cognition Level

Abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty have consistently been controversial issues in our society, with people's attitudes concerning these issues varying widely. The current study assessed political attitudes of 93 male and 95 female undergraduates at Iowa State University and the importance of both gender and Need for Cognition level on these attitudes.Euthanasia and death penalty attitudes were assessed using Llkert-type scaled questions concerning the participant's attitude on the issue (1 ='"very unfavorable" to 7 ='"very favorable") and the strength of their attitude (1 = ''not very strong" to7= '"very strong"). Abortion attitudes were assessed using the same two Likert-type scaled questions as well as the degree of participant agreement with five statements concerning the acceptability of abortion ( e.g. "abortion is acceptable only in the case of rape"). Need for Cognition was assessed in a previous session using Petty and Cacioppo' s scale.Gender differences on the issue of abortion were expected and found, while gender differences on the death penalty were found but not expected. It was also predicted that high Need for Cognition students would hold more consistent attitudes across the three issues( e.g. being "pro-life" on all three). This trend was seen in the results, but was only marginally significant.The results are interesting from a theoretical and applied perspective. This line of research is important because college students are our next generation of leaders, and their attitudes on these issues are likely to have an impact on our nation.