Understanding the Moral Attitudes Scale in International Surveys: an Exploratory Study

Several large international surveys, including the World Values Survey and the European Values Study, have been using the moral attitudes scale (MAS) to measure individual and country differences for decades. However, the validity of the instrument has been barely assessed. The current study addressed the concurrent and content validity of four popular MAS items (justifiability of homosexuality, suicide, prostitution, and euthanasia). A sample of 493 Russians completed both MAS and the four validated multi-item scales. Results demonstrated that, except for the homosexuality item, the MAS items had low concurrent validity, explaining less than 50% of the variance of the corresponding multi-item scales. The MAS items underestimated the justifiability of homosexuality, prostitution, and suicide, and overestimated the justifiability of euthanasia. The MAS homosexuality item appeared to be a precise measure of attitude towards male (but not female) homosexuality, responses to the prostitution and suicide items overlooked the positive arguments, and the euthanasia item tapped more into attitudes towards euthanasia of a dying person. The four items showed strong dependence on the overall justifiability. We conclude that separate MAS items should be used with caution, given the detected content bias and the items’ strong link to non-specific overall justifiability.