Conscience Measure

Abstract

The Conscience Measure (Schutt & Exline, 2023) is an inventory/questionnaire designed to assess an individual’s beliefs about what constitutes their inner feeling or voice guiding moral behavior. This 16-item instrument evaluates how frequently individuals report following their conscience and the extent to which they perceive their conscience as important and reliable. The scale’s content draws upon previous measures, such as the Stilwell Conscience Interview (Stilwell & Galvin, 1985). The instrument was validated using a sample of U.S. adult Mechanical Turk workers, with reported results for factor analysis, reliability, and validity.

Keywords

Conscience Beliefs; Following; Importance; Reliability; Attitude Measures; Attitudes; Conscience; Morality

Authors

Schutt, William A.; Exline, Julie J.

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Purpose

The primary purpose of the Conscience Measure is to quantify specific beliefs concerning an individual’s inner feeling or voice that is understood to guide moral behavior.

Validity

Convergent and Discriminant Validity: Preliminary evidence indicates good convergent and discriminant validity for the multi-item conscience measures. These measures demonstrated expected correlations with their respective slider items (Schutt & Exline, 2023), relevant items from the Perceptions of Conscience Questionnaire (PCQ; Dahlqvist et al., 2007), and with conscientiousness.

Reliability

Internal Consistency: The Conscience Measure exhibits strong internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .86 to .94 across its subscales.

Factor Analysis

Exploratory Factor Analysis: For the “Following” subscale, exploratory factor analysis revealed two distinct factors. Factor 1 (eigenvalue = 4.18, accounting for 52% of variance) comprised the positively worded items, while Factor 2 (eigenvalue = 1.4, accounting for 17% of variance) included the three negatively worded items. For both the “Importance” and “Reliability” subscales, factor analysis confirmed that all items loaded onto a single factor.

Instrument

• Test Type: Original Inventory/Questionnaire

• Format:

  • Following: Rated on a 5-point Likert scale: 1 (never), 2 (rarely), 3 (sometimes), 4 (often), and 5 (always).

  • Importance: Rated on a 5-point Likert scale: 1 (not at all), 2 (a little bit), 3 (moderately), 4 (quite a bit), and 5 (extremely).

  • Reliability: Rated on a 5-point Likert scale: 1 (not at all), 2 (a little bit), 3 (moderately), 4 (quite a bit), and 5 (extremely).

• Language Available: English

• Population Group: Human (Male; Female)

• Age Group: Adulthood (18 years & older)

• Population Details: The sample consisted of adult Mechanical Turk workers located in the United States.

• Test Methodology: Test Validity, Convergent Validity, Discriminant Validity, Test Reliability, Internal Consistency, Factor Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis.

Keywords

Conscience Beliefs; Following; Importance; Reliability

Authors

• Author ORCID Identifier:

  • Schutt, William A.: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0473-1380

• Affiliation:

  • Schutt, William A.: Case Western Reserve University, Department of Psychological Sciences

  • Exline, Julie J.: Case Western Reserve University, Department of Psychological Sciences

• Email addresses:

  • Schutt, William A.: [email protected]

• Correspondence Address:

  • Schutt, William A.: Case Western Reserve University, Department of Psychological Sciences, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, United States, 44106-7123, [email protected]

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Permissions: May be used for Research/Teaching purposes.

• Commercial Use: No

• Fee: No

• Test Year: 2023

References

Schutt, W. A., & Exline, J. J. (2025). Do adults believe that god or the devil can influence their conscience? Links between religion/spirituality, beliefs about the conscience, and attempts to follow one’s conscience. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 12(1), 98–113. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000320

Items of the Conscience Measure

No data is Available

Conscience Measure

Items

Following One’s Conscience

When making decisions, how often do you:

Importance of One’s Conscience

To what extent do you think your conscience is:

Reliability of One’s Conscience

To what extent do you think your conscience is: