Exploring the relationship between morality and offending through the use of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire

Thompson, RK; Newton, A; Reeves, C

Abstract

This study applies the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) to examine the relationship between morality and self-reported offending, captured using a questionnaire (N= 184). One hundred and forty-one respondents (77%) reported previously committing an offence. Identified measures of morality revealed no statistically significant differences between self-reported offenders and non-offenders, challenging commonly held presumptions that offending is associated with lower levels of morality. Moreover, this pattern was consistent across a range of offence types and offence severities. Using the MFQ, morality was broken down by individual MFQ foundations (sub-domains). A consistent although non-significant pattern emerged: scores for the in-group/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity foundations were lower than the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity foundations for all respondents. This highlights the importance of future research into morality and offending moving beyond the use of single metric measures of morality, and deconstructing this further into sub-domain measures, such as those offered by the MFQ.

Citation

Thompson, R., Newton, A., & Reeves, C. (2021). Exploring the relationship between morality and offending through the use of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. Crime Prevention and Community Safety, 23(4), 381-399. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41300-021-00126-w

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 25, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Sep 13, 2021
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: May 24, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 13, 2022
• Journal: Crime Prevention and Community Safety
• Print ISSN: 1460-3780
• Electronic ISSN: 1743-4629
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 381-399
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41300-021-00126-w
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41300-021-00126-w
• Related Public URLs: https://www.palgrave.com/gb/journal/41300
• Additional Information: Access Information : This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Crime Prevention and Community Safety. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Thompson, R., Newton, A. & Reeves, C. Exploring the relationship between morality and offending through the use of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. Crime Prev Community Saf (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41300-021-00126-w is available online at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41300-021-00126-w Use of the Accepted Manuscript is subject to an embargo period and Springer's AM terms of use, which permit users to view, print, copy, download and text and data-mine the content, for the purposes of academic research, subject always to the full conditions of use.