An index of specific behaviors in the moral domain

Abstract

Studies on attribution in the moral domain often involve the use of specific behavior examples. To make valid comparisons across trait dimensions (such as honesty and friendliness), it is important to equate the intensities of the specific behaviors used. Pretesting specific behaviors can be a costly effort, but it is often necessary for research in social psychology. Our study provides a rich source of such pretested behaviors. Positive and negative examples of behaviors in the categories of honesty, loyalty, friendliness, charitableness, and cooperativeness were solicited from participants and then rated on the relevant trait dimension by an independent group. The result is data representing rankings, raw scores, and z-scores in an index of 500 behaviors across 10 trait categories that can be used by researchers to study moral and immoral behaviors. The full index of behaviors is available at www.psychonomic.org/archive/. Copyright 2006 Psychonomic Society, Inc.