Assessment of Anticipated Emotions in Moral Transgressions

This paper describes the reliability and validity of the assessment of anticipated emotions in the context of moral transgressions in a sample of 1,179 children aged 6-13 years (M = 9.1; SD = 1.8, 49.0% girls), with a special interest in the domain and developmental specificity of the instrument. To evaluate the concurrent and predictive validity, we also examined the relation between anticipated emotions and antisocial and prosocial tendencies and sympathy at two time points. The instrument consisted of six transgression scenarios covering three domains: unfairness (not winning fairly, not keeping word), omission of a prosocial duty (not sharing, not helping), and victimization (verbal bullying, relational bullying). Results show sufficient internal consistency and a one-factor structure of the anticipated emotions, indicating a lack of domain variability of the assessment of anticipated emotions. Additionally, emotions following hypothetical moral transgressions showed some developmental variability. Whereas no relation was found between anticipated emotions and antisocial tendencies, anticipated negative emotions following the moral transgressions were positively related to prosocial tendencies and sympathy. This provides preliminary evidence for the concurrent and predictive validity of the instrument.