Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ-30)
Psychology: Values & BeliefsReliability: alphas 0.65–0.84 across 5 foundations4 sample items
About this scale
A 30-item measure of the five moral foundations: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. Distinguishes liberal vs. conservative moral profiles.
Sample item(s)
“Whether or not someone suffered emotionally (care)”
“Whether or not some people were treated differently than others (fairness)”
“Whether or not someone showed a lack of loyalty (loyalty)”
“Whether or not someone violated standards of purity and decency (sanctity)”
Reliability
Reported internal consistency: alphas 0.65–0.84 across 5 foundations. As a rule of thumb, Cronbach’s α ≥ .70 is considered acceptable, ≥ .80 good, and ≥ .90 excellent for established measures.
Notes
Free for academic use; MFQ-2 (Atari et al. 2023) is the modern revision with 6 foundations.
Source & citation
Graham, J., Haidt, J., & Nosek, B. A. (2009): Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 96, No. 5, pp. 1029–1046.
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.
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:
Cronbach’s alpha calculator
All statistical calculators
Search the full Scale Atlas
Academic writing humanizer