What sort of tests or scales are there to test how moral people are or not, by any definition?
There is the famous trick or treat objective self-awareness test where children were told to take one sweet (candy) in the presence and absence of a mirror (Beaman, Klentz, Diener, 1979).
There is another test where a confederate drops stuff in a corridor and sees whether passers-by stop to help to test helping behaviour (e.g. Monk-Turner, Blake, Chniel, et al., 2002)
There is the lost letter test (Milligram, 1965).
Research on eye staring posters (pictures of eyes) used a coffee donation piggy bank as a dependent variable (Ernest-Jones, D Nettle, M Bateson, 2011).
I have used test time limit cheating measuring how much longer after a test time limit will subjects keep responding (Heine, Takemoto, Moskalenko, Lasaletao, Henrich, 2008), but as with all the above subjects have to be test individually, in a lab or in the wild.
I am looking for a test/scale/questionnaire but there is "the liar paradox" sort of problem in that liars and other immoral people say that they are not.
E.g. Guttman (1984) found that religious school children were more moral on paper but cheated on a test more than secular children.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/27540053?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
The Over claiming Questionnaire by Del Paulhus is a measure of self-enhancement but may also show how much of a dirty liar people are:-)
http://neuron4.psych.ubc.ca/~dpaulhus/research/OCT/PRESENTATIONS/APS.2001.poster_invulnerability.pdf#
My students and I developed a liar test based upon a similar idea asking whether subjects had done really bad things and then mixed in some questions such as "Told a lie to a friend" and rated "never" responses as indications of immorality (based upon FBI lie-detection technique which uses similar questions to calibrate lie responses). It is in Japanese but I could translate it to English if anyone were interested. It correlated with something.
Perhaps an "intelligence test" or "kindness test" with incorrect "the best answers" on the obverse or upside down at the bottom of the page, and see the extent to which subjects use the wrong answers in an attempt to bump their score (especially they are told their score is going to be made public.
Suggestions of other tests and scales would be gratefully received.
Hi Timothy!
You ask for morality tests sales, and point to some of them. In addition are other ones in offer.
Let me begin by saying that any answer to your question greatly depends on many issues: The 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 reasoning, not only behavior, 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.
Hi Timothy!
You ask for morality tests sales, and point to some of them. In addition are other ones in offer.
Let me begin by saying that any answer to your question greatly depends on many issues: The 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 reasoning, not only behavior, 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 Professor Lourenço ·
Thank you very much indeed for your learned and detailed and wide-ranging review of moral reasoning scales. I am thinking of testing university students in an attempt to see if caligraphic ability correlates with moral upstandingness (as it is sometimes claimed to do here in Japan. People who write beautiful characters are felt to be good people since the characters are an expression of the heart of their writer, so it is claimed, traditionally).
However, I am more on the search for a behavioural measure that could be administered as a test, rather than for moral reasoning ability since as mentioned above, moral reasoning can even be negatively correlated with moral behaviour in Guttman (1984).
So while moral reasoning scales will be useful, I am still on the look-out for some sort of test of moral behaviour, such as cheating on a cheatable test, overclaiming (of bogus facts), overclaiming of moral behaviour (which is in itself arguably immoral), or perhaps, thinking now
1) not completing a survey which the experimenter says is very important. I find often (50%) of students avoid free response answers despite being implored to respond. This could be claimed to be immoral? Or at least not-helpful, not-prosocial.
2) Giving un-original ideas to a creativity test. I am not sure how to test this but I might ask for unique original phrases and then search for them on the Internet to see if they have been plagiarised.
3) Giving an intelligence or social skill test where there is a seemingly accidental mark which in the first 10 answers that indicates the correct answer and then see whether respondents blindly pick that answer on the remainder of the test.
I am not seeing a way to comment on answers, so I am not sure how to respond with gratitude to future answers, since presumably I will only be allowed to respoind once. I hope this message reaches Professor Lourenço ·
Again, thank you very much indeed
Timothy
Hello,
Some measures that may interest you...
Berry, C. M., Sackett, P. R., & Wiemann, S. (2007). A review of recent developments in integrity test research. Personnel Psychology, 60(2), 271-301.
Diekhoff, G. M., Labeff, E. E., Shinohara, K., & Yasukawa, H. (1999). College cheating in Japan and the United States. Research in Higher education, 40(3), 343-353.
Guastello, S. J., & Rieke, M. L. (1991). A review and critique of honesty test research. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 9(4), 501-523.
McDaniel, M. A., & Jones, J. W. (1988). Predicting employee theft: A quantitative review of the validity of a standardized measure of dishonesty. Journal of Business and Psychology, 2(4), 327-345.
Nathanson, C., Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2006). Predictors of a behavioral measure of scholastic cheating: Personality and competence but not demographics. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 31(1), 97-122.
Sackett, P. R., & Harris, M. M. (1984). Honesty testing for personnel selection: A review and critique. Personnel Psychology, 37(2), 221-245.
Dear Professor Nicol
Thank you very much indeed. That is the sort of stuff I was looking for. I see for example Nathanson, C., Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2006). uses software to check test overlap, which combined with seating information can be used to demonstrate collusion with "certainty." I could set a test, tell them all that I would give money to the top x students, tell them to respond on their own, and then pretend to get a phone call. When collecting the surveys I could do so in the order the students are sitting and know who cheated. Perfect.
Timothy
There are many measures of student cheating out there, glad that one is of interest to you (perhaps others have used comparable ones and can share their experiences? I used one but it required testing one person at a time... not something you need). lots of luck!
Dear Timothy.
Thank you very much for you positive tone regarding my answer to your above mentioned question.
It makes sense to say that people who write beautiful characters are felt to be good people since the characters are an expression of the heart of their writer. Here in Portugal we almost say the same. You also say that you are am more on the search for a behavioral measure that could be administered as a test, rather than for moral reasoning ability since moral reasoning can even be negatively correlated with moral behavior in Guttman (1984). Note, however, that if do not know the reasons underlying a covert "moral behavior", then we cannot say that such a behavior is moral or immoral. Note your example of "cheating on a cheatable test" and imagine the following examples:
I did not cheat because if I were caught up, my parents would punish me This response would be according to Kohlberg a stage 1 oriented response and behavior. Would this be a moral behavior? Certainly not.
I did not cheat because if I were caught up, I would have problems with my teachers. This response would be according to Kohlberg a stage 2 oriented response and behavior. Would this be a moral behavior? Certainly not.
I did not cheat because if I were caught up, my schoolmates would form a bad image of me and I want to appear as a nice, decent pupil. This response would be according to Kohlberg a stage 3 oriented response and behavior. Would this be a moral behavior? Certainly not.
I did not cheat because when we cheat we are setting a bad precedent and taking the law, say, into our hands. This response would be according to Kohlberg a stage 4 oriented response and behavior. Would this be a moral behavior? Yes, it would be a moral behavior.
I did not cheat because, in the long rung, when we cheat we are destroying a social contract without which schools and societies cannot survive. his response would be according to Kohlberg a stage 5 oriented response and behavior. Would this be a moral behavior? Yes, it would be a moral behavior. This response could also be an example of a Kohlbergian stage 6 oriented response and behavior. This is so, because the late Kohlberg (See Colby and Kohlberg, 1987) gave up his stage 6 as an empirical reality, but not in ideal terms.
As these examples amply show, an apparently moral behavior -- not to cheat -- can be profoundly immoral. So, a behavioral measure of moral/immoral behavior does not go without problems.
As you certainly know, according to Kohlberg, stage 1 and 2 constitute his pre-conventional level. Pre-conventional moral individuals are guided by egocentric and personal interests, needs, and desires. To an extent, they live as if they were out of society.
Stages 3 and 4 constitute Kohlberg's conventional level. Individuals at these stages and level considered themselves societal individuals having rights and duties.
Stages 5 and 6 constitute Kohlberg's post-conventional level. Individuals at these stages and level considered that moral norms (e.g., not to steal) are relative and subordinated to moral principles. That is, moral norms only make sense when they are a guarantee of generalizable, prescriptive, and universalizable moral principles (one's right to live). When this is not the case, such norms should be violated (It is moral to steal to save a human life).
I hope that this helps you in your research .
Best regards
Orlando M Lourenço Excuse me, Professor. Good afternoon. How can I get DIT2? I plan to use it in my research, related to the Hofstede culture and leadership of servants.
Unfortunately, I do not know how you can get DIT2. Try to contact with the University of Alabama at USA.
Best regards,
Orlando
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