Evaluating the efficacy of a vignette-based approach to measuring online/offline discrepancies in moral decision making among social media users

Abstract

Prior studies of discrepancies in moral decision making across online/offline contexts have been limited by a lack of transparency in the vignette development process. The present study sought to amend this issue by developing and evaluating the efficacy of an original series of 12 pairs of online/offline vignettes. 203 participants completed an online questionnaire in which they reported on morally relevant aspects of the vignette pairs using Likert-type scales. These dependent variables included imageability, emotional response, size of effect, social harm, and moral wrongness. A combination of network modelling and inferential analyses were used to evaluate the efficacy of vignettes for use in subsequent studies. Based on these findings, a small selection of the original 12 vignette pairs were deemed to be reliable enough for future use, and a range of considerations for transparent and rigorous vignette-based approaches to this topic are explored.