The scale you completed was created by Pete Meindl, Kate Johnson, and Jesse Graham at USC. Our team developed this scale because we are interested in learning more about what motivates people to act morally.

The scale is designed to measure individual differences in the importance people place on various morally-relevant actions and how the level of importance people place on these actions differs depending on whether actions are framed in terms of traits (e.g., "How important to you is it that you are someone who keeps promises?") or in terms of single actions (e.g., "How important to you is it that you keep promises?"). The scale is also designed to test whether the level of importance people place on these actions depends on whether they are framed prescriptively (i.e., what we should do) or proscriptively (i.e., what we should not do).

The idea behind the scale is to begin to determine if people are more motivated to act morally (or prosocially) by attempting to perform certain moral actions (or avoid performing certain immoral actions) or by attempting to be the type of person who performs (or does not perform) these actions. The distinction is subtle, but the impact on morality might be extremely important.

The graph below gives you a sense of the importance you place on morally-relevant behaviors. The graph also allows you to compare your scores to those of the average man and woman.