Pegah Nejat; Javad Hatami
Abstract
Introduction: Moral judgment is one of the subjects studied in social cognition.Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) is a recent theory in moral psychology which has an intercultural and intuitive approach to moral beliefs of people around the world. The current study is concerned with examining psychometric ...
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Introduction: Moral judgment is one of the subjects studied in social cognition.Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) is a recent theory in moral psychology which has an intercultural and intuitive approach to moral beliefs of people around the world. The current study is concerned with examining psychometric properties of a Persian version of the questionnaire associated with this theory, and comparing findings with available reports from the original version as well as other cultures. Method: Data are provided by three studies on Iranian samples: Golkar (2016) and phases II and III of Nejat (2016), with 280, 314, and 180 participants respectively, who responded to Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ-30). Calculations of Cronbach alphas, as well as exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted and comparisons were made between genders in reliance on foundations. Results: Cronbach alphas for care, fairness and loyalty were relatively low and generally lower than obedience and sanctity. Exploratory factor analysis has led to a three-factor solution in phase II of Nejat (2016), and two-factor solutions in Golkar (2016) and phase III of Nejat (2016). Fit of data to the correlated five-factor model was acceptable. Women scored higher than men in care, fairness, and sanctity. Conclusion: Psychometric properties of the Persian MFQ, though not perfect in some respects, were comparable to those reported by other cultures, and therefore seem to be mainly caused by the complex nature of morality itself. Observed gender differences were similar to international findings and thus supportive of the known-groups validity for this questionnaire.
Pegah Nejat; Fatemeh Bagherian; Javad Hatami; Omid Shokri
Volume 4, Issue 1 , September 2015, , Pages 109-126
Abstract
Aims: Moral Foundations Theory is among the latest theories of moral judgement in social cognition. This theory has specified six foundations of care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty as underlying morality concerns. The present study aimed to examine the characteristics of these foundations ...
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Aims: Moral Foundations Theory is among the latest theories of moral judgement in social cognition. This theory has specified six foundations of care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty as underlying morality concerns. The present study aimed to examine the characteristics of these foundations in Iranian moral mentality and compared them against foreign findings and predictions, particularly the recent debate between two leading theorists in this field, i.e. Graham and Janoff-Bulman. Method: Participants were 172 Iranians who were questioned about ideal society and moral and immoral behaviors. Responses were examined and categorized based on belongingness to foundations. Accordingly, foundation exemplars and their motivational weight and relational context were determined. To determine the grouping of foundations, exploratory factor analysis; to compare foundations regarding motivational weight, analysis of variance; and to compare the frequency of foundation exemplars between relational contexts, chi-square test was used. Results: The number of extracted factors from the foundations was three in the contxt of each of the three questions. Foundations were found to differ regarding motivational weight; however, almost all of them had exemplars from both motivational orientations. Moreover, despite the focus of each foundation on one or two particular relational contexts, almost all foundations had exemplars referring to all three relational contexts. Conclusion: Findings provided support for the three-folded super-structure of morality. Results also indicated that Janoff-Bulman has drawn a narrow image of the motivational orientation of foundations, just as assumptions of moral foundation theorists underestimate the variability in relational contexts of foundations.
