Project One

Overview:

There are many reasons for political voting in the world. These behaviours could sprout

from any number of things like family background, religion, media ect. All of which could be the

reasoning for ones voting preference. My group chose to look at opinions of the death penalty as

our starting point. We were interested to see if the characteristics of femininity and masculinity

influenced opinions on a moral issue. The significance of asking about the death penalty was that

it was the best topic for showcasing that. Death is a very serious topic and choosing in a sense if

it is acceptable for someone to live or die would give the best idea of if the hypothesis was

correct.

Hypothesis:

The data my group collected was on woman versus men supporting the death penalty.

My hypothesis was that woman will vote against the death penalty more then men because they

are more compassionate to others pain. In my experiences many women tend to hold a belief that

all life holds intrinsic value. They also hold the belief that many people with the correct help can

become better. Adversely, many men are far less emotionally driven. Keeping a prisoner locked

up can be expensive. Without the belief that a criminal’s life holds great meaning, their opinion

may be completely different.

Although men do have compassion, there is a lesser level of compassion compared to

women. This compassion and empathy that woman possess could lead to agreeing to other

political beliefs that provide answers to moral dilemmas such as agreeing with affordable
healthcare. Affordable healthcare would help those that cannot pay for it. There are sides to both

arguments on if affordable healthcare is actually a good thing. The point is that women may be

more inclined to agree with policies like that one because of their more caring nature. They could

show this through voting for policies that tend to support their view.

Methodology:

We conducted the study by survey on 30 individuals total. We asked mostly friends and

family. There was no age group or specific commonality any of those asked had to have. It was

done this way to allow for a better overall idea of opinions on the topic. In this study four

questions were asked. Do you support the death penalty? Do you think the death penalty is more

given to rascial minorities? Would it be alright to give it to a child? What if the child was a mass

murderer? My group picked these questions because we felt they give a complete view of if

people support the death penalty and by what margin. If the only question that was asked was if

they support the death penalty it would be harder to draw a conclusion on if those individuals

answering the questions were very empathetic. Having the wider range gives a more

well-rounded view. Children are seen as innocent with their whole life ahead of them, and as

such it is harder to condone them of anything terrible on the basis that they have not lived long

enough to learn that it is not right to do this or that. The assumption is that women are more

empathetic and as such will choose on more occasions, depending on the circumstances and

background of the perpetrator, to give them a second chance.

 Men vote for or against death penalty

13 yes or 87% Men supporting death penalty

2 nos or 13%

5 yes or 33% Men supporting the idea it is given more

10 nos or 67% frequently to minorities

4 yes or 26% If it is ok to give to a child

11 nos or 73%

5 yes or 33% If the child was a serial killer

10 nos or 67%

Womans vote for or against death penalty

10 yes or 67% women supporting death penalty

5 nos or 33%

8 nos or 53% women supporting the idea it is given more

7 yes or 47% frequently to minorities

1 said yes or .07% If it is ok to give to a child

14 no or 93.3%

2 yes or 13% If the child was a serial killer

13 no or 87%
Results:

The results that were found was that woman do support the death penalty less often then

men do regardless of the circumstance. In the first question,“do you support the death penalty”

87% of men said yes compared to 67% of woman. Even with the small data set there is a 20%

difference. The next question, “Do you think the death penalty is more given to racial

minorities?” was 33% yes for men compared to 53% for women. A difference of 20% again.

The next question, “ Would it be ok to give it to a child?” 26% of men saying yes compared to

.07% of women. If the child was a murderer, it was 33% for men and 13% for women.

There is a clear difference in answers, especially regarding children. This may be from

the nurturing aspect of woman. In each question there is a comparable difference in the answers.

All the answers go along with my hypothesis. The reason woman chose more often not to

approve of the death penalty and that minorities were given it discrimitavely is likey due to their

deeper level of compassion and overall value of the person. This could be important to many

places because women are now largely in the workforce, colleges, and other walks of life. Their

opinion holds more weight then ever and more women are voting and participating in politics.

Their compassionate viewpoint could lead to larger ethical dilemmas being addressed.

Conclusion and Suggestions for Further Research:

Woman do tend to vote against the death penalty more often then men do. The data was

consistent on this point, although it cannot be for certain if all those woman chose to go against
the death penalty for the same reason. If anyone wanted to recreate this study to get more

accurate findings one could get a larger data set.

Further ideas to recreate this study could be testing if viewpoints vary from different age

groups and test by only collecting data set from only one age group of people. All of the data was

collected by people known to the group. This could mean the data is not as accurate as it could

be as many people associate with others that agree with their opinions and as such if data was

collected in many separate areas from many different diverse areas the results may look

different. Most of the people interviewed were caucasian. That may also be a point of interest

that could be changed.

Another possibility is asking in person could lead to more people on both sides saying

they do not agree to seem like a very forgiving person. Taking it anonymously could be a way to

make it more accurate. There could also be an undecided section because for some people they

didn’t fully agree or disagree and were somewhere in the middle. They only chose to side more

with the yes or no when asked specifically.