Adaptation and validation into Spanish of the moral outrage scale ( Adaptación y validación de la Escala de Indignación Moral al español )

Abstract

Moral outrage, as an emotional reaction to the perception of injustices, is a key predictor of actions to reduce inequality. It is also a relevant construct for understanding system-justification and moral judgement–appraisal processes. However, studies in regions characterized by high social inequality, such as Latin America, are limited partly because there is no Spanish scale to measure moral outrage. In this study we seek to adapt and obtain validity evidence for a moral outrage scale for Spanish-speaking countries, using two samples from different provinces in Argentina. After exploratory and confirmatory analyses, the proposed scale includes some, but not all, of the items of the original version with adequate reliability. Convergent validity analysis further shows a correlation between measured moral outrage and other relevant variables such as existential guilt, social dominance orientation and support for public policies. By proposing this Spanish-language scale, we hope to provide a tool for future research which could help to clarify system-justification processes and motivation for prosocial behaviours within a broader set of social contexts.