Revising the Moral Foundations Questionnaire [post]

Craig A. Harper
2020 unpublished
The moral foundations theory (MFT) is an influential multifactorial model that posits how decision-making in the moral context originates from a set of six intuitive moral foundations: care, fairness, authority, loyalty, purity, and liberty. The established measure of these foundations – the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) – has been used extensively in a range of empirical projects. However, recent analyses of its factor structure and the internal consistency of the each of the
more » ... clusters have called its validity into question. In this paper, data from a large sample of British voters (N = 428) was used to re-examine the component structure of the MFQ. As opposed to a six-component structure, only three meaningful clusters emerged: traditionalism, compassion, and liberty. Concurrent validity was established via correlations with measures of 'social change' and 'systemic inequality' insecurities, while significant differences on each of the three components of the revised MFQ (MFQ-r) were observed between the voters of different political parties. Implications for moral foundations theory and its measurement are discussed.
doi:10.31234/osf.io/p5fj8 fatcat:q4l6dytv3fayhpiin4xhyjutf4