Description of the Questionnaire

The Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ-30) is a brief, standardized psychometric tool developed by Haidt, Graham, and colleagues within the framework of Moral Foundations Theory. Its purpose is to measure how individuals evaluate moral issues based on five core moral dimensions: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation. The MFQ-30 includes a total of 30 items, 15 of which assess the perceived relevance of various moral concerns, and 15 that measure the level of agreement with specific moral statements. Each moral foundation is assessed through six items: three relevance questions and three agreement questions.

Purpose

The purpose of the MFQ-30 is to identify patterns of moral thinking that guide individuals’ moral judgments and decisions. It is widely used in psychological, sociological, and political research to understand cultural and ideological differences in moral reasoning. The questionnaire enables the comparison of moral profiles across individuals, groups, or populations and supports the creation of moral profiles based on which foundations are most important to each respondent.

Analysis and Use of Data

Responses are given using a Likert-type scale, typically ranging from 0 to 5 or from 1 to 6, depending on the version. For each foundation, the average score of the six relevant items—three relevance and three agreement—is calculated. The data can be analyzed statistically to identify differences across demographic groups, political ideologies, or cultural contexts. The results can be used to evaluate the distribution and strength of moral values that guide individual attitudes and behaviors.

Scoring

The MFQ-30 has been validated through numerous reliability and validity studies across various languages and cultural settings. The reliability indices (Cronbach’s alpha) for each foundation typically exceed 0.70. Scoring is based on the average values for each foundation, with higher scores indicating greater importance of that specific moral foundation in the respondent’s thinking. Empirical findings suggest that individuals with liberal ideologies tend to place higher importance on the Care and Fairness foundations, while those with conservative orientations tend to give relatively equal weight to all five foundations.

References

Graham, J., Haidt, J., & Nosek, B. A. (2009). Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(5), 1029–1046. Graham, J., Haidt, J., Koleva, S., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S., & Ditto, P. H. (2013). Moral foundations theory: The pragmatic validity of moral pluralism. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 55–130. Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Pantheon. Also available at www.moralfoundations.org, where questionnaires, translations, and user guidelines can be found.