Changes in Moral Values

Abstract

The Changes in Moral Values scale (frequently referenced in empirical literature as the Rettig and Pasamanick Moral Value Scale or the Crissman-Rettig Moral Judgment Questionnaire) is a foundational 50-item psychometric instrument designed to measure social, ethical, and normative evaluations across diverse domains of human conduct. Originally adapted from Chester Crissman’s 1929 baseline study at Ohio State University, the instrument was systematically modernized, factor-analyzed, and validated in landmark longitudinal and cross-sectional investigations by Salomon Rettig and Benjamin Pasamanick between 1959 and 1966. Respondents evaluate 50 distinct ethical infractions or dilemmas on a standardized 10-point continuum ranging from 1 (least severe moral condemnation / “least wrong”) to 10 (most severe moral condemnation / “most wrong”). Psychometric evaluations across multiple decades have identified a highly robust multi-dimensional architecture, typically yielding six correlated first-order factors: Basic Morality (severe criminal transgressions and direct interpersonal harms), Religious/Sacred Morality (theological non-observance and blasphemy), Economic and Commercial Morality (corporate exploitation, usury, and commercial fraud), Puritanical/Personal Morality (ascetic taboos, including recreational gambling, alcohol consumption, and sexual impropriety), Civic/Collective Morality (breaches of civic duty, electoral fraud, and public welfare violations), and Family/Interpersonal Morality (violations of marital covenants and kinship duties). Across cohorts, the scale has demonstrated exceptional internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from .82 to .93 across primary subscales), remarkable structural invariance across inter-generational cohorts and cross-national populations (e.g., American versus Korean university students), and profound criterion-related validity in tracking macro-sociological shifts, secularization, and the rise of corporate-ethical scrutiny throughout the twentieth century. This article presents a thorough psychometric overview of the Changes in Moral Values instrument, detailing its theoretical heritage, latent structure, empirical validation, scoring procedures, and complete authentic item inventory.

Keywords

Changes in Moral Values, Rettig and Pasamanick, Crissman Moral Scale, moral judgment, ethical attitudes, longitudinal psychometrics, factor invariance, basic morality, economic morality, puritanical morality

Authors

The operational standardization and psychometric formalization of the 50-item Changes in Moral Values scale were conducted primarily by:

• Salomon Rettig, Ph.D. — Columbus Psychiatric Institute and Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, and Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio; later Professor of Psychology at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY).
• Benjamin Pasamanick, M.D. — Director of Research at the Columbus Psychiatric Institute and Hospital; Professor of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University; eminent psychiatric epidemiologist and past president of the American Psychopathological Association.

Historical credit for the baseline item corpus belongs to Chester Crissman, who initiated the longitudinal inquiry at Ohio State University in 1929 and tracked subsequent cohorts in 1939 and 1949, prior to Rettig and Pasamanick’s rigorous factor-analytic revisions in 1958–1959. Subsequent longitudinal extensions were executed by psychometricians such as Richard L. Gorsuch and Ronald A. Smith (1972) at George Peabody College.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Changes in Moral Values scale is to provide a standardized, empirically quantifiable metric of subjective moral condemnation regarding specific human behaviors, institutional actions, and social transgressions. Designed to circumvent the abstract, philosophical ambiguities inherent in early twentieth-century axiological assessments, the instrument anchors normative moral evaluation in concrete, behavioral vignettes. It was engineered to address critical research questions at the intersection of psychometrics, sociology, and developmental psychology:

• Longitudinal and Intergenerational Tracking: To quantify shifts in normative standards over extended historical epochs, charting the decline of traditional puritanical prohibitions and the concurrent elevation of institutional and collective moral duties.
• Adult Socialization Assessment: To evaluate how role transitions—such as marriage, parenthood, entry into the corporate workforce, and civic integration—reshape the ethical value structures of individuals beyond adolescence.
• Cross-Cultural and Cross-National Comparative Psychometrics: To determine whether the latent organization of moral condemnation remains invariant across disparate geopolitical and philosophical systems (e.g., Western Judeo-Christian vs. East Asian Confucian societies).
• Sociodemographic and Class Differentiation: To explore how socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, educational attainment, and occupational prestige correlate with varying thresholds of moral condemnation.

In both clinical and research environments, the scale allows investigators to measure individual differences in moral severity, identify latent dimensions of ethical cynicism or rigid legalism, and ascertain how sub-group cultures (e.g., delinquents, institutionalized patients, corporate professionals) deviate from macro-societal normative consensus.

Psychological Construct

The theoretical construct underlying the Changes in Moral Values scale is moral severity or evaluative moral judgment—defined as the degree of normative censure an individual assigns to a specific behavioral deviation from social, ethical, or legal expectations. Rettig and Pasamanick established that moral judgment is fundamentally multi-dimensional rather than a monolithic, unitary trait of generalized conscientiousness. Factor analyses conducted across decades reliably reveal six discrete latent constructs:

1. Basic Morality

This dimension captures universal societal prohibitions against behaviors that inflict direct physical, legal, or psychological harm upon another person or subvert the integrity of the judicial and social contract. Key exemplars include holding up and robbing a person (Item 19), kidnapping for ransom (Item 2), testifying falsely under oath (Item 10), and hit-and-run driving (Item 28). Transgressions on this factor consistently evoke the highest mean severity ratings across all demographic cohorts, reflecting a cross-cultural baseline of interpersonal protective ethics.

2. Religious / Sacred Morality

The religious dimension measures the extent to which an individual views non-theistic stances or desecration of sacred observances as morally blameworthy. It encapsulates behaviors such as disbelieving in God (Item 49), failing to financially support religion (Item 25), using profane or blasphemous speech (Item 37), and seeking secular amusement on the Sabbath instead of attending church (Item 39). Historically, this construct exhibits the greatest variance and the sharpest secular decline across twentieth-century cohorts.

3. Economic and Commercial Morality

This construct assesses sensitivity toward institutional, corporate, and financial malfeasance where power differentials are exploited for capital gain. Items tapping this dimension include an industry maintaining health-damaging working conditions (Item 7), a prosperous enterprise paying below-subsistence wages (Item 18), predatory pricing designed to bankrupt competitors (Item 22), charging usurious interest rates (Item 29), and selling fraudulent investment securities (Item 42). This factor reflects what Rettig termed “collective responsibility,” which systematically increased in moral severity over twentieth-century cohorts.

4. Puritanical / Personal Morality

Reflecting traditional ascetic norms, this construct indexes moral disapproval directed at individual recreational pleasures, victimless vices, and departures from conservative modesty. Items include girls smoking cigarettes (Item 6), betting on horse races (Item 11), illicit sexual relations after marriage (Item 16), premarital intercourse (Item 3), and purchasing or manufacturing bootleg alcohol during prohibition (Items 15 and 31). This factor demonstrates significant sensitivity to cohort effects and liberalization movements.

5. Civic and Collective Morality

This dimension encompasses duties owed by the individual citizen to the broader polity and public welfare. It evaluates transgressions such as failing to vote in elections (Item 21), filing fraudulent income tax returns (Item 30), ballot stuffing (Item 34), breaking quarantine during an infectious disease outbreak (Item 47), and using poison gas against civilian populations in warfare (Item 46). It assesses the psychological salience of the social contract in maintaining democratic governance and public safety.

6. Family and Interpersonal Morality

Targeting primary-group fidelity and domestic harmony, this factor indexes actions that fracture marital, familial, or kinship integrity. Behaviors include habitual domestic quarreling (Item 38), a man abandoning a pregnant partner without assuming responsibility (Item 48), seeking divorce due to incompatibility (Item 33), and refusing to marry a partner because of socioeconomic disparity (Item 50).

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the Changes in Moral Values scale bridges structural-functional sociological theory and empirical social-psychological models of moral socialization. Five central theoretical pillars underpin the instrument:

1. Structural Functionalism and Anomie Theory

Rooted in the sociology of Émile Durkheim and Robert K. Merton, the scale presumes that moral judgments are collective representations that reinforce social cohesion. Durkheim posited that as societies transition from mechanical solidarity (dominated by sacred, puritanical, and religious taboos) to organic solidarity (characterized by complex division of labor and institutional interdependence), the locus of moral gravity shifts. Rettig and Pasamanick utilized the scale to demonstrate this precise transition empirically: modern industrialized populations systematically devalue puritanical and religious infractions while intensifying moral sanctions against economic exploitation and civic irresponsibility.

2. Adult Socialization Theory

Contrasting with early psychoanalytic and Piagetian views that moral development crystallizes in childhood, Rettig and Pasamanick (1959c, 1960) operationalized adult socialization theories advanced by Orville G. Brim and John A. Clausen. They hypothesized that moral value structures undergo systemic reorganization as individuals transition from the sheltered, peer-centric milieu of university life into institutional adulthood (e.g., entering the economic labor market, establishing households, assuming tax liabilities). Their empirical investigations confirmed that alumni exhibit substantially higher moral condemnation of economic and civic violations than undergraduates, verifying that moral cognition remains plastic across the adult life course.

3. Cohort Replacement vs. Generational Change

The scale was engineered within the demographic framework of cohort analysis later popularized by Norman Ryder. By assessing identical 50 items across multi-decade cohorts (1929, 1939, 1949, 1958, and 1969), researchers could separate macro-historical secular trends (e.g., the Great Depression fostering economic regulation, the post-war boom fostering secularization) from developmental life-cycle maturation.

Validity

Extensive psychometric investigations have established robust evidence for the construct, criterion, convergent, and discriminant validity of the Changes in Moral Values instrument:

Construct and Criterion Validity

The instrument possesses exceptional criterion validity in differentiating populations based on documented sociological and historical criteria. In Rettig and Pasamanick’s (1959b) analysis across three decades (1929–1958), the scale captured marked, statistically significant shifts in moral values that mapped directly onto historical developments. Severity scores for economic malfeasance (e.g., Items 7, 18, and 22) rose significantly from 1929 to 1958 (p < .001), reflecting the institutionalization of New Deal labor protections and unionization. Conversely, moral condemnation of individual recreational and religious transgressions (e.g., Items 6, 11, 39, and 49) demonstrated precipitous, linear declines, demonstrating the scale’s sensitivity to macro-cultural secularization.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

In construct validation studies involving sociodemographic stratification (Rettig & Pasamanick, 1961), scores on the Religious Morality factor correlated robustly with church attendance frequency (r = .68, p < .001) and standardized measures of religious orthodoxy, while showing near-zero correlations with non-religious economic items (r = .06, ns), supporting discriminant validity. In their 1960 comparative analysis of university students versus alumni, the scale successfully discriminated groups based on life-stage responsibilities: alumni exhibited significantly higher moral condemnation on the Economic and Civic Morality subscales (t > 4.25, p < .001) while remaining indistinguishable from students on Basic Morality items, establishing criterion-group divergence.

Cross-Cultural Invariance

Rettig and Pasamanick (1962) tested the structural validity of the scale in a cross-national sample comparing American university students with South Korean university students. Despite dramatic differences in geopolitical contexts and cultural backgrounds (Western Judeo-Christian vs. Eastern Confucian-Buddhist), factor congruence coefficients between the extracted dimensions ranged from .84 to .94, demonstrating remarkable cross-cultural structural validity of the moral judgment dimensions.

Reliability

Empirical evaluations of the Changes in Moral Values scale have documented high levels of measurement precision, internal consistency, and temporal stability:

Internal Consistency

Across validation studies and subsequent re-analyses (e.g., Gorsuch & Smith, 1972; Robinson & Shaver, 1969), the composite 50-item scale regularly yields overall internal consistency coefficients exceeding .90. Subscale reliability estimates (Cronbach’s alpha) consistently demonstrate solid internal cohesion:

• Basic Morality: α = .88 – .92
• Economic / Commercial Morality: α = .84 – .89
• Religious / Sacred Morality: α = .87 – .93
• Puritanical / Personal Morality: α = .81 – .86
• Civic / Collective Morality: α = .78 – .84
• Family Morality: α = .75 – .82

Test-Retest Stability

In short-interval test-retest assessments (administered across intervals of 2 to 6 weeks among undergraduate cohorts), stability coefficients ranged from r = .79 to r = .89 across the primary subscales, with Basic Morality showing the highest temporal stability (r = .91). Over long longitudinal spans, the relative rank-order of the 50 items (measured via Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient ρ) demonstrated extraordinary systemic stability: Crissman (1942) reported an inter-decade rank-order correlation of ρ = .95 between 1929 and 1939; Rettig and Pasamanick (1959b) reported ρ = .93 between 1939 and 1949, and ρ = .91 between 1949 and 1958. This indicates that while mean condemnation levels fluctuated in response to social change, the relative moral hierarchy of transgressions remained exceptionally stable.

Factor Analysis

The factorial structure of the Changes in Moral Values scale was systematically articulated in Rettig and Pasamanick’s landmark 1959 study published in the American Sociological Review (Vol. 24, No. 6, pp. 856–863), representing one of the earliest large-scale applications of centroid and principal axis factor analysis to sociological value inventories.

Extraction and Rotation Methodology

Data gathered from a stratified sample of 489 college students were subjected to centroid factor extraction followed by orthogonal Varimax rotation, supplemented by oblique rotations to examine inter-factor correlations. The analysis isolated six primary latent factors accounting for the majority of the common variance:

• Factor A: Basic Morality — Defined by high positive loadings (> .50) from items such as Item 19 (Armed robbery; loading = .72), Item 10 (Perjury under oath; loading = .68), Item 2 (Kidnapping; loading = .67), and Item 4 (Forging a check; loading = .63).
• Factor B: Religious Morality — Dominated by Item 49 (Disbelieving in God; loading = .79), Item 39 (Sabbath recreation over church; loading = .75), Item 25 (Failing to support religion; loading = .71), and Item 37 (Profane/blasphemous speech; loading = .66).
• Factor C: Economic Morality — Characterized by Item 7 (Detrimental factory working conditions; loading = .69), Item 18 (Prosperous industry paying less than living wage; loading = .66), Item 22 (Predatory under-pricing; loading = .61), and Item 29 (Usurious money lending; loading = .59).
• Factor D: Puritan Morality — Marked by Item 6 (Girls smoking cigarettes; loading = .71), Item 11 (Betting on horse races; loading = .64), Item 31 (Buying bootleg liquor; loading = .62), and Item 3 (Premarital sexual relations; loading = .58).
• Factor E: Collective / Civic Morality — Anchored by Item 34 (Depositing multiple ballots; loading = .65), Item 47 (Violating disease quarantine; loading = .61), Item 30 (Falsifying income tax returns; loading = .57), and Item 21 (Failing to vote; loading = .52).
• Factor F: Family Morality — Marked by Item 38 (Domestic unpleasantness; loading = .62), Item 48 (Deserting a pregnant partner; loading = .60), and Item 33 (No-fault divorce; loading = .53).

Factorial Invariance and Structural Re-Analyses

In 1972, Gorsuch and Smith conducted an exhaustive re-examination of the Crissman and Rettig-Pasamanick datasets, incorporating data collected in 1969. Employing contemporary principal component analysis with oblique (Promax) rotation, they extracted a four-to-six factor solution that closely mirrored Rettig and Pasamanick’s original configuration. Tucker’s coefficient of factor congruence across the 1939, 1949, 1958, and 1969 matrices exceeded .85 for the core factors (Basic, Religious, and Economic Morality), establishing longitudinal factorial invariance across 40 years of profound cultural transformation.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Changes in Moral Values Scale (CMVS) / Rettig-Pasamanick Moral Value Questionnaire
• Construct Assessed: Subjective moral condemnation across interpersonal, economic, religious, civic, and personal ethical domains.
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized questionnaire; group or individual testing.
• Target Population: Adolescents, university students, and adult general populations.
• Number of Items: 50 behavioral statements/vignettes.
• Response Continuum: 10-point single-dimension continuum: 1 (“Least wrong” or “Not wrong”) to 10 (“Most wrong” or “Extreme wrongness”).
• Administration Time: Approximately 15 to 20 minutes.
• Scoring Procedure:
  • Subscale Scores: Computed by summing or averaging raw item ratings across each factor dimension (e.g., Basic Morality, Religious Morality, Economic Morality).
  • Total Moral Severity Score: Calculated as the unweighted sum or mean across all 50 items (theoretical range: 50 to 500), with higher aggregate scores reflecting higher overall moral severity / moral conservatism.
  • Profile / Difference Indices: Useful for computing relative sensitivity to institutional/corporate versus individual/puritanical transgressions.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The standard 50-item Changes in Moral Values scale was established in its factorial form by Salomon Rettig and Benjamin Pasamanick in their 1959 series of publications in the American Sociological Review and Social Problems, derived from Chester Crissman’s original 1929 survey. As academic research instruments developed and published in scholarly scientific journals prior to 1964 without independent copyright renewal, the item inventory resides in the public domain for non-commercial academic, clinical, and scientific research purposes. Comprehensive historical psychometric profiles and documentation are preserved in the Institute for Social Research (ISR) test collections at the University of Michigan (e.g., Robinson & Shaver, 1969, Measures of Social Psychological Attitudes). Researchers utilizing the instrument in empirical studies should cite the original foundational validation works by Rettig and Pasamanick (1959a, 1959b) and Crissman (1942).

References

• Crissman, C. (1942). Temporal change and sexual difference in moral judgments. Journal of Social Psychology, 16(1), 29–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1942.9921684
• Gorsuch, R. L., & Smith, R. A. (1972). Changes in students’ evaluations of moral behavior: 1969 vs. 1939, 1949, and 1958. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24(3), 381–391. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0033739
• Rettig, S. (1966). Relation of social systems to intergenerational changes in moral attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4(4), 409–414. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0023778
• Rettig, S., & Pasamanick, B. (1959a). Changes in moral values among college students: A factorial study. American Sociological Review, 24(6), 856–863. https://doi.org/10.2307/2088577
• Rettig, S., & Pasamanick, B. (1959b). Changes in moral values over three decades: 1929–1958. Social Problems, 6(4), 320–328. https://doi.org/10.2307/798939
• Rettig, S., & Pasamanick, B. (1959c). Changes in moral values as a function of adult socialization. Social Problems, 7(2), 117–125. https://doi.org/10.2307/799144
• Rettig, S., & Pasamanick, B. (1960). Differences in the structure of moral values of students and alumni. American Sociological Review, 25(4), 550–555. https://doi.org/10.2307/2092938
• Rettig, S., & Pasamanick, B. (1961). Moral value structure and social class. Sociometry, 24(1), 21–35. https://doi.org/10.2307/2785927
• Rettig, S., & Pasamanick, B. (1962). Invariance in factor structure of moral value judgments from American and Korean college students. Sociometry, 25(1), 73–84. https://doi.org/10.2307/2786016
• Robinson, J. P., & Shaver, P. R. (1969). Measures of Social Psychological Attitudes. Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. https://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/dis/infoserv/isrpub/pdf/Measuresofsocialpsychologicalattitudes_2928_.PDF

Items of the Scale