Findings on the Revised Morally Debatable Behaviors Scale

Abstract

Abstract The Morally Debatable Behaviors Scale (Harding & Phillips, 1986; MDBS) was developed in Europe in the mid-1980s to measure the justifiability of morally contestable behaviors. For the present study, we used a revised version of the MDBS (the MDBS-R) to gather data from 156 adults. Principal component analysis revealed three primary factors related to honesty-dishonesty morality, personal-sexual morality, and legal-punitive morality. Women showed less tolerance for illegal acts but more tolerance for personal and sexual freedom than did men. Moral tolerance was unrelated to self-esteem, but individuals with strong religious and authoritarian beliefs were usually more dogmatic in their attitudes. Political liberalism was predictive of increased moral tolerance and flexibility. Generally speaking, the respondents were least tolerant of behaviors that were illegal or dishonest (e.g., stealing a car, welfare fraud) and showed the most disagreement over behaviors that were controversial, often sexual i...