Abstract
The process dissociation procedure (PDP) for moral cognition was created to separately measure two dispositions of moral judgment based on the dual-process theory of moral reasoning: deontological and utilitarian inclinations. In this paper we raise some concerns from a psychometrics perspective regarding the structure, reliability, and validity of the moral PDP as a measure of individual differences. Using two simulation studies as well as a real sample of N = 1,010, we investigate the psychometric properties of the moral PDP. We present novel evidence showing that (1) some correlations between PDP parameters are mathematical artifacts, and as such cannot be taken as evidence in support of a theory, (2) there are severe response inconsistencies within dilemma batteries, and (3) reliability estimates for these scores seem to be far below the accepted standards. We discuss some potential theoretical and content-related reasons for these statistical issues and their implications. We conclude that in their current form, PDP measures of utilitarian and deontological tendencies are sub-optimal for assessing individual differences.
Highlights
Valid and accurate measurement is one of the cornerstones of scientific inquiry
Regardless, we argue that at least some of the issues we have brought up here do not stand or fall based on how well a given result with the process dissociation procedure (PDP) replicates
While we found that mathematically speaking, things such as factor analysis can be applied to the U parameter of the moral PDP, it is not as clear that this makes sense from a substance perspective
Summary
The psychological sciences have had concerns about how measurement instruments are created (Hedge et al, 2018), evaluated (Flake et al, 2017), and used (Flake and Fried, 2019) This has resulted in questioning the validity of both custom-made scales (see Flake and Fried, 2019) and more established instruments (Hussey and Hughes, 2020), as well as having likely contributed to the ongoing replication crisis (Loken and Gelman, 2017). In the present paper we raise some potential pitfalls in a measure of individual differences in utilitarian and deontological moral inclinations, the moral process dissociation procedure (PDP) developed by Conway and Gawronski (2013); from here on referenced as C&G. Insufficient justification for scale structure: lack of psychometric work to examine if items function well together and whether they should be combined
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