title: The moral justification scale: reliability and validity of a new measure of care and justice orientations.
abstract: Research increasingly suggests that there are limitations to Kohlberg's theory of moral development. Gilligan in particular has observed that Kohlberg's theory considers abstract principled reasoning as the highest level of moral judgment, and penalizes those who focus on the interpersonal ramifications of a moral decision. Gilligan calls these justice and care orientations. The present paper describes the development of the Moral Justification Scale, an objective measure of the two orientations. The scale consists of six vignettes, of which two are justice oriented, two are care oriented, and two are mixed, incorporating both orientations. Construct validity was evaluated by expert judges and, overall, was high. Cronbach's alpha was .75 for the Care subscale and .64 for the Justice subscale, indicating adequate internal consistency. Split-half reliabilities were as follows: Care, r = .72, p < .01, and Justice, r = .60, p < .05. Regarding test-retest reliability (approximately two weeks), r = .61, p < .05, for Care; r = .69, p < .05, for Justice. Neither subscale correlated significantly with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Thus, the Moral Justification Scale shows promise as an easily administered, objectively scored measure of Gilligan's constructs of care and justice.
authors.affiliation: Psychological HealthCare, PLLC, Oswego, New York 13126, USA.
authors.forename: L S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Gump
authors.forename: R C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Baker
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Roll
mesh_terms: D000069:Acculturation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D010553:Personality Development; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology