How is the Moral Disengagement scale scored?

Score it as the mean or sum of its items, keeping the original response anchors, and re-estimate reliability (Cronbach's alpha) in your own sample.

Where do I find the full validated items?

In the original publication cited on this page - always administer the validated item wording rather than paraphrases.

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Moral Disengagement (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara & Pastorelli)

Ethics & CSRReliability: alpha 0.823 sample items

About this scale

A 32-item measure of eight cognitive mechanisms by which people justify harmful behaviour: moral justification, euphemistic labelling, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, distortion of consequences, dehumanization, and attribution of blame. Foundational measure for ethics and UPB research.

Sample item(s)

“It is alright to fight to protect your friends. (moral justification)”

“It is okay to insult a classmate because beating him/her is worse. (advantageous comparison)”

“If kids are living under bad conditions they cannot be blamed for behaving aggressively. (displacement)”

Reliability

Reported internal consistency: alpha 0.82. As a rule of thumb, Cronbach’s α ≥ .70 is considered acceptable, ≥ .80 good, and ≥ .90 excellent for established measures.

Notes

Moore, Detert, Treviño, Baker & Mayer (2012) developed an 8-item adult Propensity to Morally Disengage scale for organizational research.

Source & citation

Bandura, A., Barbaranelli, C., Caprara, G. V., & Pastorelli, C. (1996): Mechanisms of moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 71, No. 2, pp. 364–374.

Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara & Pastorelli (1996): Moral disengagement. JPSP, 71(2), 364–374.

Source. Scale details are summarised from the publication cited above. Always consult the original source for the full item set, scoring, and permission to use.

How to administer & score it

All 32 items are typically rated on a Likert-type agreement scale (check the original article for the exact anchors — keeping them unchanged preserves comparability with published findings). Score the scale as the mean (or sum) of its items so results stay comparable across studies that use different response ranges. Include at least one attention check in longer surveys, and randomise item order within the scale block to reduce position effects.

In the original validation, reported internal consistency was alpha 0. Always re-estimate reliability in your own sample: report Cronbach's α (and, if you run CFA/SEM, composite reliability and AVE). An α noticeably below the published range usually signals a translation issue, careless responding, or a mis-scored reverse-coded item — not necessarily a bad scale.

Adapting this scale? A 5-point validity checklist

Keep the response anchors. Changing a 7-point scale to 5 points changes the psychometrics; only do it with a reason you can defend.
Translate properly. Use forward and back translation with bilingual reviewers, and pilot the translated version before full data collection.
Change the referent, not the meaning. Adapting "my organisation" to "my university" is fine; rewording items until they measure something else is not.
Report every change. Reviewers accept adaptations that are documented and justified; silent modifications are a rejection risk.
Re-test validity. After any adaptation, re-check reliability and discriminant validity (Fornell–Larcker, HTMT) — our reliability & validity guide walks through the thresholds.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use the Moral Disengagement scale in my research for free?
Most academic scales are free for non-commercial research use with proper citation, but permission terms belong to the original authors/publisher — check the source article (cited above) and request permission where indicated.

Do I need the full item wording?
Yes — always work from the original publication's item set rather than paraphrases, so your instrument matches the validated version. This page summarises the scale; the citation above is the authoritative source.

How do I build a questionnaire with this scale?
You can assemble it (with consent text, demographics, and attention checks) in the free SmartForm builder, then verify reliability live as responses arrive, and test your full model in SmartSEM.

Use it in your research

Need to check the reliability or psychometrics of this scale in your own data? Use the free DrAIStudio research tools:

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