The development and validation of a measure of moral intuition salience for children and adolescents: The Moral Intuitions and Development Scale

Abstract

In this article, we create and validate a measure of moral intuition salience developmentally appropriate for use among children and adolescents. This measure allows researchers to apply moral foundations theory and the model of intuitive morality and exemplars to child and adolescent moral development and media use, an important addition to the literature, as to date, this theory and its measurement have generally only been used among college-aged and adult participants. Following five pilot tests (total N = 713) that demonstrated face, concurrent, and predictive validity of our measure among young adults, we present validation data from 8- to 17-year-olds (N = 577), demonstrating the developmental nature of these moral intuitions and linking them with media use. This measure can be used to understand how children’s moral intuition salience relates to their media and content choices, as well as how media relates to the moral intuitions most salient to the child.