Forty-eight classical moral dilemmas in Persian language: A validation and cultural adaptation study

Abstract

Moral dilemmas are a useful tool to investigate empirically, which parameters of a given situation modulate participants’ moral judgment, and in what way. In an effort to provide moral judgment data from a non-WEIRD culture, we provide the translation and validation of 48 classical moral dilemmas in Persian language. The translated dilemma set was submitted to a validation experiment with N=82 Iranian participants. Data from Iranian participants confirmed the four-factor structure of this dilemma set including Personal Force (Personal, Impersonal), Benefit Recipient (Self, Other), Evitability (Avoidable, Inevitable), and Intentionality (Accidental, Instrumental). When comparing moral judgments of Iranian participants to those of Spanish and Italian participants’ from previous research with the same dilemma set, differences emerged. Iranian participants’ moral judgments were more deontological (i.e., they refrained from harm), than Spanish and Italian participants. Religiosity made participants’ moral judgments more deontological, and also dysphoric mood resulted in a more deontological response style.