Moral emotions in early childhood: Validation of the Chinese moral emotion questionnaire

Abstract

Moral emotions such as pride, guilt and shame play an important role in the social-emotional development of preschool children. However, there are not many instruments available for measuring moral emotions in the preschool age. Moreover, relatively few research had examined cross-cultural validity of measures for moral emotions. The present study tested the Chinese version of the Moral emotion questionnaire (MEQ) upon a group of (N = 182) Chinese preschool children aged from 2 to 6 years. The Chinese MEQ is a parent-report translated from Dutch, assessing behavioural responses of pride, guilt and shame in preschool children. Confirmatory factor analysis showed satisfactory goodness-of-fit indexes for a three-factor structure (Pride, Guilt, Shame) with 15 loading items. For concurrent relations, the results suggested an adaptive role of pride and guilt and a maladaptive role of shame in the social-emotional development of preschool children. We could conclude that the 15-item Chinese MEQ is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring pride, guilt, and shame in 2–6-year-old children in the Chinese context.