Test your own morals . . .

[william.scherk]

If you get yourself to YourMorals.org and register, you can participate in a series of online tests that purport to measure your morality on a variety of different scales. Me, I find it fascinating and am going through the tests picking the ones that seem most intriguing.

Welcome to YourMorals.org, where you can learn about your own morality while contributing to scientific research on moral psychology.

Many aspects of personality are related to morality. Many aspects of behavior are influenced by moral motives. And many conflicts and misunderstandings are driven by differences in morality. But rather than simply telling you these things, we want you to see for yourself. After each questionnaire or experiment you complete, we'll give you an immediate report on how you scored, and what your score means.

Here are the top seven questionnaires offered:

Moral Foundations Questionnaire - What underlies the virtues and issues you care about? Why do you have the political orientation that you do?

Moral Dilemmas - How would you act when confronted with difficult decisions?

Identification with Humanity Scale - What groups are you most loyal to? Whom do you identify with most?

Domain Specific Maximizing Scale - In what areas of your life do you feel pressure to make the absolute best decision?

Perceptions of Politicians - How do you feel about this politician? (For participants in the U.S. only)

Feelings About Fairness Scale - How do you feel about different 'unfair' situations?

Presidential Candidates and Morality Survey - Which candidates for President in 2008 do you prefer? What do you think about morality and politics?

-- if you click this link, you can see how I rate on the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (I hope. I am the green bars in the graph) . . . for background to the kind of research going on here, check the Edge.com article by Jonathan Haidt, "Why Do People Vote Republican" -- a provocative essay from the liberal social psychologist.

Edited September 18, 2008 by william.scherk

[Mindy Newton]

If you get yourself to YourMorals.org and register, you can participate in a series of online tests that purport to measure your morality on a variety of different scales. Me, I find it fascinating and am going through the tests picking the ones that seem most intriguing.

Welcome to YourMorals.org, where you can learn about your own morality while contributing to scientific research on moral psychology.

-- if

Why Do People Vote Republican

" -- a provocative essay from the liberal social psychologist.

I took the first one. Scores: 1.5, 3.8 1.7 2.8, and 1.0. Looks like I don't have much moral character at all!

= Mindy

[Selene]

Mindy:

The links in your post did not open for me.

This one did:

http://www.yourmorals.org/

Adam

[Mindy Newton]

Mindy:

The links in your post did not open for me.

This one did:

http://www.yourmorals.org/

Adam

I know, they didn't open for me. They were in Sherk's post, blame him. :frantics:

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You people are evil. That's why the links didn't open.

Michael

[Rich Engle]

Scherk probably crashed their server.

I want to make up one of these tests:

1. You and your woman check into a Motel Six after a two-day meth and ether road binge. The room was not cleaned properly, and the prior occupant has inadvertently left behind a 1964 L- serialed Fender Stratocaster, a quart of Chevas, and a 1/2 ounce of Norwegian Slammer Bud. Do you

A: Return the items to the front desk.

B. Check in and proceed as would make sense, given what you have to work with.

C. Fire up your laptop, sell the strat on Craig's List, dump the girl, and head off to happier pastures with the bud and the Chevas.

Moral diliemnas are not always black and white ones.

Edited September 18, 2008 by Rich Engle

[Mindy Newton]

Scherk probably crashed their server.

I want to make up one of these tests:

1. You and your woman check into a Motel Six after a two-day meth and ether road binge. The room was not cleaned properly, and the prior occupant has inadvertently left behind a 1964 L- serialed Fender Stratocaster, a quart of Chevas, and a 1/2 ounce of Norwegian Slammer Bud. Do you

A: Return the items to the front desk.

B. Check in and proceed as would make sense, given what you have to work with.

C. Fire up your laptop, sell the strat on Craig's List, dump the girl, and head off to happier pastures with the bud and the Chevas.

Moral diliemnas are not always black and white ones.

[Mindy Newton]

Scherk probably crashed their server.

I want to make up one of these tests:

1. You and your woman check into a Motel Six after a two-day meth and ether road binge. The room was not cleaned properly, and the prior occupant has inadvertently left behind a 1964 L- serialed Fender Stratocaster, a quart of Chevas, and a 1/2 ounce of Norwegian Slammer Bud. Do you

A: Return the items to the front desk.

B. Check in and proceed as would make sense, given what you have to work with.

C. Fire up your laptop, sell the strat on Craig's List, dump the girl, and head off to happier pastures with the bud and the Chevas.

Moral diliemnas are not always black and white ones.

Now now, you aren't being honest! Tsk, tsk, tsk and all that. C. Really ends: head off to happier pastures with the bud and the Chevas and the cash! (Isn't that why you were with a girl you'd dump?)

= Mindy

Edited September 18, 2008 by Mindy

[Rich Engle]

I honestly dunno, Mindy. The last time something like that happened was a couple of weeks ago and I ended up staying. But there was no girl there, see?

[Mindy Newton]

I honestly dunno, Mindy. The last time something like that happened was a couple of weeks ago and I ended up staying. But there was no girl there, see?

If things were that bad, you should have pawned the guitar and the Chivas.

= Mindy

[Rich Engle]

If things were that bad, you should have pawned the guitar and the Chivas.

Oh, if you only knew.

[syrakusos]

well... that was interesting...

Edited September 19, 2008 by Michael E. Marotta

[sbeaulieu]

I honestly dunno, Mindy. The last time something like that happened was a couple of weeks ago and I ended up staying. But there was no girl there, see?

If things were that bad, you should have pawned the guitar and the Chivas.

= Mindy

Not if the Chivas is the Century blend! I can't play the guitar, but I can sure enjoy the scotch! :drool:

~ Shane

[Rich Engle]

Yeah, but a guitar like that is worth about 25 large.

rde

Motel 6: We'll leave the red lights on fer ya'.

[Mindy Newton]

Yeah, but a guitar like that is worth about 25 large.

rde

Motel 6: We'll leave the red lights on fer ya'.

That much? So why did you dump the girl?

= Mindy

[Brant Gaede]

I tried to test my morals, but I couldn't find any.

--Brant

[Mindy Newton]

I tried to test my morals, but I couldn't find any.

--Brant

Test, or morals? Take Rich's test, above.

= Mindy

Edited September 20, 2008 by Mindy

[Brant Gaede]

I just went to the first test. The second question was whether or not someone conformed to the dictates of society. Not relevant to extremely relevant answer choices, five in all I think.

These contextless, contentless--actually valueless--tests are worthless blabber. Either extreme answer was the same for me. Some lame-brain graduate school for want-to-be psychologists trying to get computerized data for a Master's Thesis or Ph.D. Dissertation. They want to test morality without dealing with morality at all really. They're pretending and self-delusional. Adolf Hitler can come across as "highly moral" with this kind of crap. All the same to them.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

I took the second, third and fourth test by on the second checking all the first answers, on the third checking all the last choices and on the fourth checking all the answers alternately. I scored highly--I think it was highly--on the first two and wishy-washy in between for the last.

I don't have time to really take these crappy tests. But I'm happy to louse up their "data."

--Brant

nihilist

[william.scherk]

I just went to the first test. The second question was whether or not someone conformed to the dictates of society. Not relevant to extremely relevant answer choices, five in all I think.

These contextless, contentless--actually valueless--tests are worthless blabber. Either extreme answer was the same for me. Some lame-brain graduate school for want-to-be psychologists trying to get computerized data for a Master's Thesis or Ph.D. Dissertation. They want to test morality without dealing with morality at all really.

The first test is the Moral Foundations Questionnaire

Part 1. When you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking?

The second metric is "Whether or not someone did something to betray his or her group." So, when you decide if something is wrong or not, if either extreme was the same to you, then you didn't care one way or the other about group loyalty. Which is simply what it is.

If you wanted to know what the context of this test is, have a gander at the essay by Haidt I linked above. Here's a bit from the essay that gives an idea of what Haidt and colleagues hope to measure and why:

In several large internet surveys, my collaborators Jesse Graham, Brian Nosek and I have found that people who call themselves strongly liberal endorse statements related to the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity foundations, and they largely reject statements related to ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. People who call themselves strongly conservative, in contrast, endorse statements related to all five foundations more or less equally. (You can test yourself at www.YourMorals.org.) We think of the moral mind as being like an audio equalizer, with five slider switches for different parts of the moral spectrum. Democrats generally use a much smaller part of the spectrum than do Republicans. The resulting music may sound beautiful to other Democrats, but it sounds thin and incomplete to many of the swing voters that left the party in the 1980s, and whom the Democrats must recapture if they want to produce a lasting political realignment.