Hello Calli, this scale is based on Kohlberg's theory and his way of evaluating moral judgement. 

Hi Cecile. Thank you. Are you talking about the MFQ-20?

Excuse me I forgot the link.

http://www.unifr.ch/ipg/aric/assets/files/ARICManifestations/2001Actes8eCongres/ComunianAL.pdf

:-). Thank you Cecile. It's very helpful.

Calli,

There are many morality scales out there that measure different aspects of morality, so there really isn't any one universally recognized best morality scale. You can find short-form versions of many of them and the names of the scholars who recommended them (and hence the theoretical traditions they derive from) here: http://kenan.ethics.duke.edu/attitudes/resources/measuring-morality/. This is a link to a project aimed at measuring morality in various ways. If the scales are too long, you can download the data and use factor analysis or related techniques to find a subset of items that meets your needs.

Thank you Andrew.

Hi Calli,

You ask if anyone have a short scale that measures morality.

Any answer to your question greatly depends on many issues. Age of individuals whose moral behavior/thinking you want to assess, and the type of morality (e.g., justice-oriented a la Kohlberg, or care-oriented a la Gilligan) you are interested in, are but two examples of such issues. 

I know of several scales that try to evaluate the individual's moral reasoning. I say to evaluate or assess, not to measure, because, I think, no psychological instrument measures the individual's competence in any psychological domain. To measure means to attain a degree of rigor that it is not possible in psychology whatever. This rigor only exists in the so called "hard" sciences, as is the case of physics, geometry, mathematics, and the like. Note, for example, that psychology is pervaded by many Likert-scales, which are generally based on self-reports. The results obtained are often treated as if they were, say, interval, not categorical or ordinal, results. Note also that in a Likert-scale, a given score, 30, for example, can be obtained by answering differently to the several items of such a scale. This clearly shows that such a scale does not really give us interval data, even though such data are often subject to parametric statistical analyses, such as ANOVAS, MANCOVAS, and the like. This statistical procedure gives us an illusion of rigor that does not exist in psychology (see, for example, Paul Meehl, 1978). As Wittgenstein once remarked in his famous Philosophical Investigations, in psychological there are experimental methods, but conceptual confusion. 

With these caveats in mind, I turn to your question. Kohlberg's interview and scoring system is perhaps the most known and deep tool to assess the individual's moral reasoning/behavior. I say behavior, and not only reasoning, because no behavior can be considered moral or immoral when we do not take into account the moral reasons underlying such a behavior. Kohlberg's verbal interview and scoring system is, for instance, only at the reach of Kohlbergian experts and consumes much time and effort. Because of this, James Rest put forth his Defining Issues Test (i.e., DIT), which is relatively easy to apply and is an objective, and group-administered  questionnaire .The DIT 1 (and now the DIT2)  is, nowadays, the most used tool to assess one's moral reasoning. Note that Kohlberg's method is difficult to apply to individuals under 10-11 years of age, and Rest's test, to individuals under 12-13 years of age. Neither Kohlberg's method nor Rest's test are, as it were, short "scales". In addition to this, both tools are mainly justice-oriented and appeal to hypothetical moral dilemmas.  Because of this, Carol Gilligan (1982) advanced a care- oriented tool. This tool is not either, so to say, a short "scale", nor is it suitable for children under adolescence. However, it deals with real-life, instead of hypothetical, moral conflicts, choices and dilemmas.

The Piagetian moral stories (see Piaget, 1932, The moral judgment of the child) may be considered a short "scale" of children's moral heteronomy and moral autonomy, a "scale” suitable for children aged between 4 and 12 years.

To assess children's sense of justice you can employ the following scale: The moral development scale by W. Kurtines and J. Pimm (1983). The moral development scale: A Piagetian measure of moral judgment. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 43, 89-105. See also Pimm, J., Kurtines, W., & Ruffy, M. (1982). Moral development in contemporary American and Swiss children. Archives de Psychologie, 50, 225-235, and Kurtines, W., and Pimm, J. (1983): The moral development scale: Unpublished Manual. As its title shows, this scale is a Piagetian-oriented scale. It is suitable for children aged between 3-4/9-10 years and allows you to easily classify a child as oriented to moral autonomy or to moral heteronomous.  Although being a Piagetian-oriented scale, the scale is standardized, and hence, it also allows you to attribute a numeric score (from 0 to 30) having to do with the child's sense of justice. In Pimm, Kurtines, and Ruffy's words, the scale allows us to see "... to what extent [the child being interviewed] gave up of his/her moral realism and acquired a sense of justice" (1982, p. 226). More importantly, the moral development scale is, say, referred to a criterion, not to a norm. Note that the majority of mental tests are referred to a norm, not to a criterion. Developmental tasks, such as Piagetian tasks are always referred to a developmental criterion, not to a norm

Other RG researchers could suggest the moral-conventional transgression task by Turiel and his colleagues. This task, however, assesses the child's distinction between morality and social convention. As this distinction appears even in children as young as 3-year-olds, and such a distinction does not change over time, I do not see such task as a suitable task to assess the subject's sense of morality.

Nancy Eisenberg (1982) has developed a questionnaire to assess the individual’s prosocial reasoning. Contrary to moral reasoning a la Kohlberg or perfect and negative duties a la Kant,  for example, Eisenberg’s questionnaire deals with positive moral reasoning and behavior (e.g., sharing, helping, donating, comforting), not with negative immoral behavior such as hitting, lying, stealing and the like.  Eisenberg has distinguished among several categories of prosocial reasoning, such as hedonistic reasoning, others’ needs-oriented reasoning, social approval- oriented reasoning, and so forth.

A way of assessing one’s moral reasoning can also be found in the literature on the “happy-unhappy victimizer phenomenon”. In studies on this phenomenon, there are a victimizer who gets some tangible outcomes after committing an immoral act (e.g., to steal a chocolate bar from another individual) and an innocent victim, who is deprived of some of his/her goods (e.g., a chocolate bar).  Participants in such studies are asked to attribute positive (immoral) emotions (e.g, the victimizer feels good and happy because s/he got what s/he wanted) or negative (and moral) emotions (e.g., the victimizer feels bad and unhappy because s/he committed an immoral act) to the transgressor at hand. Findings have generally found that young children (under 5 years, for instance) tend to attribute positive emotions to the victimizer, whereas older children tend to attribute negative emotions to the victimizer at hand.

Of course, there are many other ways to assess one’s moral thinking and behavior. I am fully aware that I only pointed to some of them. Even so, I hope that my considerations are of help to you.   

Best regards.   

Dear Orlando,

your input is more than helpful. my phd is about bullying and i have included many factors that i look into, thus the short version that i am looking for. my questionnaire is already big and i am trying to make it shorter for participants. because i am dealing with bullying i am more interested in the aspects of hurting or caring or helping someone, when it comes to morality, so i would say behaviour more than thinking. aspects that perhaps can be altered or manipulated if you want and possibly incorporated in a anti-bullying awareness or program. participants are over 16 so i think age will not limit my results.

thank you again for your guidance