TY - JOUR
T1 - Moral expansiveness short form
T2 - Validity and reliability of the MESx
AU - Crimston, Charlie R.
AU - Hornsey, Matthew J.
AU - Bain, Paul G.
AU - Bastian, Brock
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Crimston et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2018/10
Y1 - 2018/10
N2 - Moral expansiveness refers to the range of entities (human and non-human) deemed worthy of moral concern and treatment. Previous research has established that the Moral Expansiveness Scale (MES) is a powerful predictor of altruistic moral decision-making and captures a unique dimension of moral cognition. However, the length of the full MES may be restrictive for some researchers. Here we establish the reliability and validity of a reduced moral expansiveness scale, the MESx. Consistent with the full version, the MESx is strongly associated with (but not reducible to) theoretically related consSavetructs, such as endorsement of universalism values, identification with all humanity, and connectedness to nature. The MESx also predicted measures of altruistic moral decision-making to the same degree as the full MES. Further, the MESx passed tests of discriminant validity, was unrelated to political conservatism (unlike the full MES), only mildly associated with the tendency to provide socially desirable responses, and produced moderate reliability over time. We conclude that the MESx is a psychometrically valid alternative for researchers requiring a short measure of moral expansiveness.
AB - Moral expansiveness refers to the range of entities (human and non-human) deemed worthy of moral concern and treatment. Previous research has established that the Moral Expansiveness Scale (MES) is a powerful predictor of altruistic moral decision-making and captures a unique dimension of moral cognition. However, the length of the full MES may be restrictive for some researchers. Here we establish the reliability and validity of a reduced moral expansiveness scale, the MESx. Consistent with the full version, the MESx is strongly associated with (but not reducible to) theoretically related consSavetructs, such as endorsement of universalism values, identification with all humanity, and connectedness to nature. The MESx also predicted measures of altruistic moral decision-making to the same degree as the full MES. Further, the MESx passed tests of discriminant validity, was unrelated to political conservatism (unlike the full MES), only mildly associated with the tendency to provide socially desirable responses, and produced moderate reliability over time. We conclude that the MESx is a psychometrically valid alternative for researchers requiring a short measure of moral expansiveness.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85055079973&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0205373
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0205373
M3 - Article
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 13
SP - 1
EP - 10
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 10
M1 - e0205373
ER -