Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ)

1. Abstract

The Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ), formulated by social psychologist Donelson R. Forsyth in 1980, is an established psychometric instrument designed to assess individual variations in moral philosophy. Grounded in normative ethics and social-cognitive psychology, the EPQ posits that personal moral philosophies can be comprehensively operationalized across two orthogonal, non-developmental dimensions: Idealism and Relativism. Idealism describes the extent to which an individual inherently assumes that desirable outcomes can always be attained without inflicting harm upon others, reflecting a fundamental commitment to the absolute welfare of people. Relativism describes the extent to which an individual rejects universal, invariant moral principles, favoring instead contextual, situational, and personalized evaluations of moral dilemmas. The instrument comprises 20 self-report items—divided evenly into two 10-item subscales—traditionally evaluated on a 9-point Likert-type response continuum, though 5-point variants are frequently deployed in applied research.

Crossing high and low manifestations of these two continuous dimensions generates Forsyth’s influential 2×2 taxonomy of ethical ideologies: Situationism (high idealism, high relativism), Absolutism (high idealism, low relativism), Subjectivism (low idealism, high relativism), and Exceptionism (low idealism, low relativism). Extensive empirical investigations across four decades confirm that the EPQ exhibits robust psychometric properties. Internal consistency reliability typically ranges from α = .73 to .85 across both subscales in international adult and collegiate samples. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses robustly support the hypothesized two-factor orthogonal structure across diverse cross-cultural settings. Furthermore, the EPQ exhibits solid discriminant validity against constructs such as social desirability and cognitive moral development (as indexed by Kohlbergian stage measures and Rest’s Defining Issues Test), while demonstrating exceptional criterion-related and predictive validity across organizational behavior, clinical ethics, academic integrity, consumer decision-making, and bioethics.

2. Keywords

Ethics Position Questionnaire, EPQ, Donelson Forsyth, Moral Philosophy, Idealism, Relativism, Ethical Ideology, Situationism, Absolutism, Subjectivism, Exceptionism, Behavioral Ethics, Moral Judgment

3. Authors

The Ethics Position Questionnaire was conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically validated by Donelson R. Forsyth, Ph.D.

• Current Academic Affiliation: Professor of Leadership Studies and the Colonel Leo K. and Gaylee Thorsness Chair in Ethical Leadership at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond, Virginia, United States.
• Historical Academic Affiliation (at scale inception): Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States.
• Scholarly Contributions: Dr. Forsyth is an internationally recognized social and behavioral psychologist renowned for his pioneering work in moral psychology, ethical decision-making, group dynamics, and leadership ethics. His seminal 1980 treatise in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology laid the groundwork for contemporary empirical investigations into lay moral philosophies and their behavioral consequences.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Ethics Position Questionnaire is to measure individual differences in moral judgment frameworks without imposing normative evaluative hierarchies. Prior to Forsyth’s formulation, psychological investigations of morality were predominantly dominated by the cognitive-developmental paradigm championed by Lawrence Kohlberg and subsequently refined by James Rest. This developmental perspective assumed an invariant, universal trajectory of moral growth culminating in post-conventional, principled reasoning grounded in abstract justice. However, this model was criticized for conflating moral capacity with specific philosophical orientations and failing to predict actual behavioral deviance or situational moral choices across mundane and high-stakes contexts.

Forsyth developed the EPQ to capture systematic, stable differences in the content and meta-ethical assumptions of personal moral philosophies rather than cognitive moral maturity or developmental capacity. The scale is designed to ascertain:

• How strongly an individual adheres to the humanitarian imperative that moral actions must never produce harm, irrespective of perceived utility (Idealism).
• The degree to which an individual views moral rules as universal and absolute versus culturally contingent, individualistic, and context-dependent (Relativism).

In applied and empirical contexts, the EPQ serves extensive multidisciplinary purposes:

• Organizational and Business Ethics: Quantifying how personal moral ideologies predict corporate misconduct, whistleblowing intentions, constructive deviance, perceived social responsibility, toxic leadership endorsement, and ethical climate perceptions.
• Clinical and Medical Ethics: Evaluating how healthcare practitioners, psychiatric personnel, and institutional review board members negotiate bioethical controversies, including end-of-life decisions, genetic editing, organ allocation, and triage protocols.
• Educational Research and Academic Integrity: Investigating the propensity of students to engage in academic dishonesty, plagiarism, examination cheating, and collaborative misconduct.
• Legal and Forensic Psychology: Assessing juror decision-making, punitive attribution, blameworthiness appraisals, and evaluations of legal transgressions.
• Consumer Behavior: Disentangling ethical consumer choices, reactions to greenwashing, sustainable purchasing patterns, and tolerance of digital intellectual property theft.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct underlying the Ethics Position Questionnaire is Personal Ethical Ideology. Forsyth conceptualized this construct as an integrated, relatively stable cognitive schema that guides how individuals perceive, categorize, deliberate upon, and resolve ethical dilemmas. Unlike discrete transient attitudes, an ethical ideology represents an epistemic foundation shaping moral judgments, moral emotions, and attribution of blame. The construct is defined by two continuous, orthogonal sub-dimensions:

Idealism

Idealism refers to an individual’s fundamental presumption regarding the consequences of actions on human welfare. Highly idealistic individuals believe that moral behaviors always produce positive consequences; they operate under the optimistic ethical conviction that harming another human being is intrinsically avoidable and entirely impermissible. When confronted with an ethical dilemma, high idealists categorically reject utilitarian calculations that justify harm to a minority to achieve a greater aggregate good. They hold that an act causing harm to an innocent party cannot be deemed morally virtuous, regardless of the overarching benefits. Conversely, low idealists hold a pragmatic or consequentialist view of human interactions; they accept that in an imperfect world, beneficial outcomes often necessitate collateral injury, trade-offs, or the sacrifice of certain individuals’ welfare for collective survival or utility.

Relativism

Relativism refers to an individual’s stance regarding the epistemic status of moral rules. Highly relativistic individuals reject universal, invariant moral maxims (such as Kantian categorical imperatives or divinely ordained commandments). They believe that morality is intrinsically pluralistic, contextual, subjective, and culturally bounded. For the high relativist, what constitutes ethical conduct cannot be established a priori; it must be continually renegotiated based on the idiosyncratic parameters of the immediate situation, personal feelings, and local cultural norms. In contrast, low relativists (moral universalists or absolutists) assert that objective, universal ethical principles exist, apply unconditionally across space and time, and should form the foundation of any legitimate moral framework or legal code.

The 2×2 Taxonomy of Ethical Ideologies

By conducting a median split or standard score categorization across the Idealism and Relativism axes, Forsyth derived four distinct ethical ideologies, each possessing unique cognitive appraisal mechanisms and behavioral tendencies:

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the EPQ synthesizes centuries of normative philosophical inquiry with contemporary social cognition. Forsyth drew extensively upon established traditions in meta-ethics, specifically contrasting Deontological ethics, Teleological ethics (consequentialism), and Moral Relativism.

Philosophical Foundations

• Deontology (Immanuel Kant): The low-relativism end of Forsyth’s continuum reflects the Kantian premise that moral duties are universalizable imperatives. From a deontological perspective, acts like lying, breaking contracts, or murder are categorically immoral regardless of circumstances or outcomes. The EPQ’s relativism subscale directly gauges the rejection of this philosophical paradigm.
• Consequentialism and Utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill): The idealism subscale operationalizes psychological resistance to utilitarian calculus. While classical utilitarianism mandates selecting the course of action that maximizes net utility—even if it requires actively harming a specific individual—high idealism rejects this cost-benefit trade-off as inherently immoral, mirroring an absolute duty of non-maleficence.
• Situation Ethics (Joseph Fletcher): Forsyth was notably influenced by Joseph Fletcher’s 1966 formulation of situation ethics, which argued that love and humanitarian welfare are the sole intrinsic goods, requiring individuals to set aside rigid moral codes to address the concrete demands of love in specific contexts. This framework directly underpins the Situationist ideology.

Integration with Psychological Theory

Forsyth formulated the EPQ to challenge the developmental hegemony of Kohlberg’s cognitive moral development model. Kohlberg proposed a rigid six-stage sequence wherein individuals progress from pre-conventional egoism to post-conventional adherence to abstract justice principles. Forsyth demonstrated that mature, cognitively complex adults nonetheless diverge systematically in their underlying philosophical orientations. By decoupling moral judgment from cognitive developmental capacity, the EPQ framework explains why two individuals functioning at the highest levels of cognitive sophistication can arrive at diametrically opposed ethical conclusions when evaluating identical scenarios (e.g., embryonic stem-cell research or whistleblowing against one’s employer).

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the EPQ has been subjected to rigorous empirical evaluation across thousands of participants in dozens of countries, demonstrating high construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Construct validity was initially established by Forsyth (1980) through exploratory factor analyses showing that the Idealism and Relativism items load onto distinct, orthogonal factors. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) across numerous independent samples has reaffirmed this two-dimensional structure. Across studies, the correlation between the Idealism and Relativism subscales consistently approaches zero ($r = -.05$ to $-.15$), confirming their empirical and conceptual independence.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity is supported by systematic correlations with established psychological inventories measuring personality traits, ideological leanings, and value orientations:

• Survey of Ethical Attitudes (SEA): In Forsyth’s original 1980 validation, the Relativism subscale correlated substantially ($r = -.45$ to $-.52$) with Hogan’s Survey of Ethical Attitudes, which captures an individual’s orientation toward moral rules and legal institutions.
• Machiavellianism: Relativism correlates positively with the Mach IV scale ($r = .30$ to $.45$), indicating that individuals who reject universal moral rules often endorse more pragmatic, manipulative interpersonal tactics. Idealism consistently displays a negative correlation with Machiavellianism ($r = -.25$ to $-.38$).
• The Big Five Personality Inventory: Meta-analytic syntheses demonstrate that Idealism is moderately to strongly associated with Agreeableness ($r = .35$ to $.45$) and Empathic Concern, whereas Relativism shows negative correlations with Conscientiousness ($r = -.20$ to $-.30$) and Agreeableness ($r = -.15$ to $-.25$).

Discriminant Validity

Importantly, the EPQ does not assess cognitive moral capacity or intellectual sophistication. Empirically, EPQ scores demonstrate non-significant correlations with James Rest’s Defining Issues Test (DIT) $P$-scores (principled moral reasoning), confirming that idealism and relativism are distinct from cognitive moral development. Furthermore, Forsyth (1980) demonstrated that neither the Idealism ($r = .08$) nor the Relativism ($r = -.04$) subscales correlate significantly with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, indicating that respondents do not merely select answers that reflect public social favorability.

Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

The EPQ demonstrates robust predictive validity across diverse behavioral domains:

• Moral Blame and Punishment: Absolutists (high idealism, low relativism) consistently impose the harshest moral blame and demand the strictest punishments for transgressors, regardless of mitigating intentions. Situationists, while condemning harmful outcomes, exhibit leniency when transgressions are motivated by benevolent contextual intentions.
• Workplace Deviance and Whistleblowing: Henle, Giacalone, and Jurkiewicz (2005) demonstrated that employee relativism significantly predicts increased organizational deviance (e.g., theft, sabotage, time misuse), whereas employee idealism significantly attenuates deviance. Idealism reliably predicts whistleblowing intentions when employees witness organizational malfeasance.
• Academic Dishonesty: In collegiate and secondary education settings, subjectivists and high relativists display the highest self-reported rates of cheating, contract cheating, and unauthorized collaboration, justifying these actions on situational or pragmatic grounds.

8. Reliability

The Ethics Position Questionnaire exhibits strong and consistent reliability estimates across both original and adapted versions in various demographic, cultural, and professional contexts.

Internal Consistency

In Forsyth’s (1980) initial validation study involving undergraduate students, the internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) were:

• Idealism Subscale: α = .80
• Relativism Subscale: α = .73

Subsequent psychometric investigations have affirmed these values. In a comprehensive psychometric evaluation by Davis, Andersen, and Curtis (2001) involving business professionals and university cohorts, Cronbach’s alpha values ranged from .81 to .85 for Idealism and from .78 to .84 for Relativism. A cross-cultural meta-analysis encompassing 139 independent samples across 29 nations (Forsyth, O’Boyle, & McDaniel, 2008) documented mean internal consistency reliabilities of α = .81 for Idealism and α = .79 for Relativism. Composite reliability ($
ho_c$) and McDonald’s \omega ($omega$) metrics derived from structural equation modeling consistently exceed the standard .80 threshold across international literature.

Test-Retest Reliability

Temporal stability assessments have demonstrated that the personal ethical ideologies assessed by the EPQ function as enduring cognitive dispositions rather than fluctuating emotional states. Forsyth (1980) reported test-retest reliability correlations over a two-week interval of $r = .67$ for Idealism and $r = .66$ for Relativism. Subsequent longitudinal studies across intervals ranging from four to twelve weeks have reported test-retest coefficients between $r = .71$ and $r = .78$, indicating stable rank-order consistency over time.

9. Factor Analysis

The factorial validity of the EPQ has been confirmed through both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) techniques across diverse populations.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In the original scale derivation, Forsyth administered an initial pool of 40 potential items to 272 undergraduate students. A principal components factor analysis with varimax orthogonal rotation yielded two dominant factors that accounted for the largest portions of common variance, with eigenvalues exceeding 1.5. Items loading ≥ .40 on their primary factor and demonstrating negligible cross-loadings (≤ .20) were retained, yielding the final 20-item instrument (10 items per dimension). The two rotated factors demonstrated clean separation:

• Factor 1 (Idealism): All 10 items explicitly capture beliefs regarding harm avoidance, the moral necessity of preserving human dignity, and the refusal to sacrifice individuals for aggregate benefits (item loadings ranged from .43 to .71).
• Factor 2 (Relativism): All 10 items capture the rejection of universal ethical mandates, skepticism toward rigid moral codes, and the conviction that ethical criteria vary across situations, societies, and individuals (item loadings ranged from .41 to .74).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Model Fit

Subsequent structural investigations utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM) have systematically tested the theoretical two-factor model against competing structures (e.g., unidimensional models, hierarchical models, or four-factor structures dividing idealism and relativism into individualistic vs. systemic components). Multiple CFA studies (e.g., Davis et al., 2001; Forsyth et al., 2008) demonstrate that the correlated or orthogonal two-factor model fits empirical data adequately:

• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Values consistently range between .045 and .062, indicating acceptable to good model fit.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Ranges between .91 and .96 across diverse standard samples.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Typically reports values between .90 and .95.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Observed between .042 and .058.

In some cross-cultural studies, researchers have noted slight residual covariance between specific item pairs (such as Items 19 and 20, which both address ethical rules concerning lying), but the broad two-factor configuration remains stable across languages and cultures.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ)
• Author: Donelson R. Forsyth
• Publication Year: 1980
• Measurement Format: 20-item self-report questionnaire
• Constructs / Subscales:
  • Idealism Subscale: Items 1 through 10 (assessing non-maleficence, harm avoidance, and teleological optimism).
  • Relativism Subscale: Items 11 through 20 (assessing rejection of universal moral absolutes and endorsement of moral contextualism).
• Original Response Continuum: 9-point Likert-type scale:
  • 1 = Completely disagree
  • 2 = Largely disagree
  • 3 = Moderately disagree
  • 4 = Slightly disagree
  • 5 = Neither agree nor disagree
  • 6 = Slightly agree
  • 7 = Moderately agree
  • 8 = Largely agree
  • 9 = Completely agree
• Alternative / Shortened Formats: Researchers frequently utilize a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree). When utilizing the 5-point scale, mean scores are typically computed rather than sums to facilitate direct psychometric comparability.
• Scoring and Computational Rules:
  • Idealism Score: Sum of ratings for Items 1 through 10 (Theoretical range: 10 to 90 on a 9-point scale; 10 to 50 on a 5-point scale). None of these items are reverse-coded.
  • Relativism Score: Sum of ratings for Items 11 through 20 (Theoretical range: 10 to 90 on a 9-point scale; 10 to 50 on a 5-point scale). None of these items are reverse-coded.
  • Typological Classification: Participants can be categorized into Forsyth’s 2×2 taxonomy (Situationists, Absolutists, Subjectivists, Exceptionists) by executing a median split (or sample mean split) across the Idealism and Relativism distributions. Alternatively, researchers are encouraged to retain continuous scores in multiple regression or structural equation modeling to avoid loss of statistical power.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Publication Year: 1980 (First published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology).
• Copyright & Licensing: Dr. Donelson R. Forsyth has placed the Ethics Position Questionnaire in the public domain for academic, non-commercial research, and educational purposes. As documented in the Measurement Instrument Database for the Social Sciences (MIDSS), the scale is accessible under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) license.
• User Fees: Free of charge for academic researchers, educators, and clinicians for non-commercial investigative purposes. Commercial deployment (e.g., proprietary corporate recruitment, fee-for-service consulting) requires formal licensing and direct authorization from the copyright holder.

12. References

• Davis, M. A., Andersen, M. G., & Curtis, M. B. (2001). Measuring ethical ideology in business ethics: A critical analysis of the Ethics Position Questionnaire. Journal of Business Ethics, 32(1), 35–53. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010706806558
• Forsyth, D. R. (1980). A taxonomy of ethical ideologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(1), 175–184. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.39.1.175
• Forsyth, D. R. (1981). Moral judgment: The influence of ethical ideology. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 7(2), 218–223. https://doi.org/10.1177/014616728172007
• Forsyth, D. R. (1985). Ethics Position Questionnaire. In J. D. Keyser & R. C. Sweetland (Eds.), Test Critiques (Vol. 2, pp. 293–298). Test Corporation of America.
• Forsyth, D. R., O’Boyle, E. H., & McDaniel, M. A. (2008). East meets west: A meta-analytic investigation of cultural variations in idealism and relativism. Journal of Business Ethics, 83(4), 813–833. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9667-6
• Henle, C. A., Giacalone, R. A., & Jurkiewicz, C. L. (2005). The role of ethical ideology in workplace deviance. Journal of Business Ethics, 56(3), 219–230. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-004-2779-8
• Hogan, R. (1970). A dimension of moral judgment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 35(2), 205–212. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0030104
• Rest, J. R. (1986). Moral development: Advances in research and theory. Praeger Publishers.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)