Developmental Psychology

Moral Identity as Moral Ideal Self: Links to Adolescent Outcomes

Sam A. Hardy, Lawrence J. Walker, Joseph A. Olsen, Ryan D. Woodbury, and Jacob R. Hickman Online First Publication, July 29, 2013. doi: 10.1037/a0033598

CITATION Hardy, S. A., Walker, L. J., Olsen, J. A., Woodbury, R. D., & Hickman, J. R. (2013, July 29). Moral Identity as Moral Ideal Self: Links to Adolescent Outcomes. Developmental Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0033598

Developmental Psychology 2013, Vol. 49, No. 9, 000

2013 American Psychological Association 0012-1649/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0033598

Moral Identity as Moral Ideal Self: Links to Adolescent Outcomes

Sam A. Hardy
Brigham Young University

Lawrence J. Walker
University of British Columbia

Joseph A. Olsen, Ryan D. Woodbury, and Jacob R. Hickman

Brigham Young University
The purposes of this study were to conceptualize moral identity as moral ideal self, to develop a measure of this construct, to test for age and gender differences, to examine links between moral ideal self and adolescent outcomes, and to assess purpose and social responsibility as mediators of the relations between moral ideal self and outcomes. Data came from a local school sample (Data Set 1: N 510 adolescents; 10 18 years of age) and a national online sample (Data Set 2: N 383 adolescents; 1518 years of age) of adolescents and their parents. All outcome measures were parent-report (Data Set 1: altruism, moral personality, aggression, and cheating; Data Set 2: environmentalism, school engagement, internalizing, and externalizing), whereas other variables were adolescent-report. The 20-item Moral Ideal Self Scale showed good reliability, factor structure, and validity. Structural equation models demonstrated that, even after accounting for moral identity internalization, in Data Set 1 moral ideal self positively predicted altruism and moral personality and negatively predicted aggression, whereas in Data Set 2 moral ideal self positively predicted environmentalism and negatively predicted internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Further, purpose and social responsibility mediated most relations between moral ideal self and the outcomes in Data Set 2. Moral ideal self was unrelated to age but differentially predicted some outcomes across age. Girls had higher levels of moral ideal self than boys, although moral identity did not differentially predict outcomes between genders. Thus, moral ideal self is a salient element of moral identity and may play a role in morally relevant adolescent outcomes. Keywords: moral identity, ideal self, moral development, moral motivation, adolescent

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Scholars of morality are seeking to understand predictors of moral action or what are sometimes regarded as bridges of the moral judgmentaction gap (Walker, 2004). In this quest for the causes of moral action, some have turned to the concept of moral identity (for reviews, see Hardy & Carlo, 2011a, 2011b; Hart, 2005; Lapsley, 2008; Walker, in press). The notion is that, beyond just knowing what is morally right (moral judgment), people are more likely to actually do the right thing when doing so is an

important part of who they are as a person (i.e., their identity). However, it is still unclear what moral identity entails and how to capture it empirically. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to propose a new conceptualization of moral identity as moral ideal self, to develop a measure of moral ideal self, to empirically assess how moral ideal self may differ across adolescent age and gender, to examine how moral ideal self predicts positive and negative adolescent behaviors, and to test mediators of these links.

Prior Work on Moral Identity

Four important components necessary for moral action include being sensitive to moral situations, being competent at moral judgment, being motivated to do what is moral, and having the capacity to follow through in doing so (Rest, 1983). The role of moral identity in moral development and behavior is as a source of moral motivationlinking moral judgment to action (Blasi, 2004; Hardy & Carlo, 2011a; Walker, in press). It refers to the extent to which people identify with, and are invested in, being a moral person and doing what is moral. The development of moral identity likely involves the merging of moral and identity development, rather than a unique developmental system (Bergman, 2004; Hart, 2005). In fact, moral identity may be the goal of both moral and identity development (Moshman, 2011). Although moral understanding is important to moral development and behavior in its own right, integration with identity may yield greater moral motivation (Blasi, 2004). Moreover, while identity can form around a variety of issues, the more it is
1

Sam A. Hardy, Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University; Lawrence J. Walker, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Joseph A. Olsen, College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences, Brigham Young University; Ryan D. Woodbury, Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University; Jacob R. Hickman, Department of Anthropology, Brigham Young University. Funding for this project came from the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences (through the Mary Lou Fulton Chair) and the Family Studies Center, both at Brigham Young University. We thank Lucian Alexandrin, Chauncy Brinton, Alexander Gray, Martha Harper, Shelly Powell, Jonathan Skalski, Will Stallworth, and Devan Stevens for assistance with data collection, entry, and analysis; we also thank Ryan Funk for help with editing drafts of the article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sam A. Hardy, Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University, 1040 SWKT, Provo, UT 84602. E-mail: sam_hardy@byu.edu

HARDY, WALKER, OLSEN, WOODBURY, AND HICKMAN

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

centered on morality the better it is for individual well-being and relationships (Hardy et al., 2013). The integration of morality and identity is possible in adolescence as both systems transition from being more self-focused and externally based to being more interpersonal and ideological (Moshman, 2011). Studies using a variety of methods have found links between moral identity and behaviors. Interviews with moral exemplars reveal extensive integration of self and moral goals in adult exemplars (Colby & Damon, 1992) and show that adolescent moral exemplars describe their self-concept using moral terms more than comparison youths (Reimer, DeWitt Goudelock, & Walker, 2009). The salience of moral identity in adolescent life narratives is predictive of later community service (Pratt, Arnold, & Lawford, 2009). Moral identity assessed using scales is similarly predictive of higher prosocial behavior (Pratt, Hunsberger, Pancer, & Alisat, 2003) and lower antisocial behavior (Barriga, Morrison, Liau, & Gibbs, 2001) in adolescence, and higher prosocial behavior (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Hardy, 2006) and lower health risk behaviors (i.e., alcohol use and sexual risk-taking; Hardy et al., 2013) among young adults.

A New Possibility: Moral Identity as Moral Ideal Self

One way identity may provide motivation is through the concept of possible selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986). Possible selves are self-schemas that serve as mental representations of ourselves in the past, present, and future. These might include the type of person we want to become (ideal self) and the type of person we want to avoid becoming (feared self). Possible selves can guide decision-making and behavior (Markus & Nurius, 1986; Oyserman & James, 2011). When selfschemas are activated in our minds, they conjure up mental images of who we might become along with all the attending affect. Thus, we regard our ideal self fondly and desire to move our life in that direction. Additionally, when used as contexts for the current self, discrepancies likely emerge between who we are now and who we do or do not want to become. Discrepancies between current and ideal selves are accompanied by negative affect as they signal that we are not who we want to be (Higgins, 2012). And, accordingly, as we approach our ideal selves we feel better about ourselves. Most work on possible selves has been with adults, so less is known about adolescent possible selves. This is both surprising and problematic, given that adolescence is an active period in the development of identity (Moshman, 2011), and the generation and pursuit of possible selves may play an important role in identity formation (Dunkel & Anthis, 2001). An initial study of adolescent possible selves found that, compared to delinquent youths, nondelinquent youths had possible selves focused more on achievement (Oyserman & Markus, 1990). More recently, achievementrelated possible selves were related to various indices of academic achievement and school engagement (Oyserman, Bybee, Terry, & Hart-Johnson, 2004). In fact, interventions targeted at changing adolescents academic possible selves can improve academic achievement (Oyserman, Bybee, & Terry, 2006). This work on possible selves has potential for furthering understanding of moral identity. One facet of moral identity may be the degree to which our possible selves are morally relevant. In other words, if the type of person one wants to become has moral qualities, that would indicate a strong moral ideal self, whereas if

what one wants to become has little to do with morality (e.g., is primarily focused on hedonistic concerns), one probably has a weaker moral ideal self. While this does not fully capture moral identity, it may be a salient dimension. There is debate in the field about how to define morality (Frimer & Walker, 2008). Often the focus is on third-person perspectives of social scientists and philosophers, although there has been some interest in first-person perspectives of the actor (e.g., Hardy, Walker, Olsen, Skalski, & Basinger, 2011). Although the present study relies primarily on the ways in which adolescents define morality, it is important that these views are evaluated from third-person perspectives as well in an effort to avoid relativity and what Moshman (2011) calls false moral identity, which is a concern for morality that is not grounded in a valid view of morality. Moral ideal self, as a dimension of moral identity, should increase across adolescence as the moral and self systems become integrated. Further, since issues of ideology and morality become more salient across adolescence, those issues might increasingly illuminate ideal selves with age (Dunkel & Anthis, 2001). Similarly, through adolescence, possible selves become more based on family members and local role models, rather than on celebrities (Oyserman & James, 2011). Thus, we hypothesize that late adolescents will show a stronger moral ideal self than early adolescents. Unfortunately, there is little longitudinal research on moral identity, and, to date, the evidence points to stability across adolescence (Krettenauer, 2011; Pratt et al., 2003). It is also anticipated that females will be stronger in moral ideal self than males. Although evidence suggests minimal gender differences in moral judgment (Walker, 2006), females are more moral than males on a number of other dimensions (Tangney & Dearing, 2002) such as empathy, guilt, and some types of prosocial behavior. Thus, perhaps females are more predisposed or socialized to be morally motivated, to self-attribute moral values, and to see morality as personally important. Most studies of moral identity have not examined gender differences, but those that have sometimes find females to be higher on moral identity than males (e.g., Hardy, 2006), and sometimes the studies find no differences (e.g., Aquino & Reed, 2002). Little is known about mechanisms linking moral identity to action. Moral ideal self might influence adolescent outcomes by providing purpose (Damon & Bronk, 2007). Having a clear sense of identity results in greater purpose in life (Schwartz, Luyckx, & Vignoles, 2011). However, basing identity on moral issues may be more personally fulfilling and more predictive of positive outcomes such as life meaning (Hardy et al., 2013). Thus, the more a persons ideal self is morally tinged, the more it might provide a sense of purpose in life. Moral ideal self might play a role in adolescent outcomes through generating a sense of social responsibility (Damon & Bronk, 2007). Anything that becomes a part of our identity will lead to feelings of responsibility to act (Blasi, 1993). So, when self-defining issues are moral, we feel personally obligated to help others and have a positive impact on the world (Schlenker, Miller, & Johnson, 2009). As evidence of this, Youniss and Yates (1997) showed that, as youths spent time at a soup kitchen, helping others became more important to how they defined themselves, and they felt more obligated to expand their positive influence. Therefore, the more people are committed to being a moral person (i.e., they

MORAL IDENTITY AS MORAL IDEAL SELF

have a moral ideal self), the more responsibility they will feel for having a moral impact on others.

The Present Study

The first purpose of the present study was to develop a survey measure of moral ideal self for use in quantitative studies such as research involving large samples, longitudinal design, or latent variable modeling. Possible selves have been assessed in various ways, such as using interviews, open-ended questions, Q-sorts, and ratings. The present study used a ratings approach in order to facilitate more efficient data collection and improve consistency across studies. Analyses will examine reliability, factor structure, and validity (convergent, discriminant, and construct). The second purpose of this study was to examine possible age and gender differences in moral ideal self. It was hypothesized that moral ideal self would be higher in older adolescents and girls. The third purpose was to demonstrate that operationalizing moral identity as moral ideal self captures a facet of moral identity that is predictive of morally relevant action, even beyond an existing measure. The fourth purpose was to examine mediators of the relations between moral ideal self and behaviors. It was hypothesized that links between moral ideal self and outcomes would be mediated by purpose and social responsibility.

Method
This study involved data from two different samples of adolescents and their parents. For some of the preliminary analyses the two data sets were combined. Thus, the two samples are described here in a combined Method section.

Data Set 1: Local School Sample

Participants. The sample included 510 adolescents 10 18 years of age (M 14.2, SD 2.1; 51% male; 69% European American, 18% Hispanic, 13% other ethnic groups), recruited from public and private secondary schools in the western region of the United States. Students were offered $10 for participation and an additional $5 for each completed parent survey they returned. Procedures. The data for the present study came from the third phase of a larger three-phase project regarding adolescent conceptions of morality (for more details on the study design, see Hardy et al., 2011). In the first phase, 200 adolescents were asked to freely list the characteristics of a highly moral person. This generated 1,446 responses, which were filtered down to 106 nonredundant traits. In the second phase, 199 adolescents were given this list of 106 traits and were asked to rate each trait according to how well it describes a highly moral person. The third phase, from which the data for the present study were derived, involved only the 50 traits rated as most descriptive of a moral person by early adolescents (those 10 14 years of age) and the 50 traits rated as most descriptive by late adolescents (those 1518 years of age) in the second phase. Across the two age groups, 40 of the traits were in common. In this third phase, participants were recruited from classes at public and private secondary schools (middle and high schools). Interested students were provided a packet that included a letter of explanation for the parent(s), consent forms (parental consent for

adolescent participation and parental self-consent), and parentreport measures. Adolescent-report data were collected online in computer labs on school grounds during or after school hours. Measures. The predictors (moral ideal self and moral identity) were adolescent-report, whereas the outcomes (moral personality, altruism, aggression, and cheating) were parent-report (data were obtained from both parents when possible). Moral ideal self. Participants were presented the 50 traits (e.g., honest, caring, and knows right from wrong) most descriptive of a moral person for their age group (from the second phase), intermixed with 10 neutral descriptors (e.g., energetic and organized) as distractors, and were instructed to rate each trait . . . according to how much it describes the type of person [they] really want to be. Traits were rated on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). The instructions and response scale were based on prior research (Bybee, Luthar, Zigler, & Merisca, 1997; Stein, Roeser, & Markus, 1998), and pilot data, and were designed to invoke the adolescents ideal self while reducing skewness and patterned responding. The present analyses involved only the 40 traits ( .96) in common across early and late adolescents (see Hardy et al., 2011, for details). Moral identity internalization. As an existing measure of moral identity, we used Aquino and Reeds (2002) five-item ( .80) moral identity internalization subscale. The symbolization subscale was omitted because it is less consistent with conceptualizations of moral identity in the literature and is less frequently predictive of moral outcomes. Respondents were presented a list of nine moral character traits (e.g., caring) and were asked to picture a person with those traits while responding to five statements on a scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree; sample item: Being someone who has these characteristics is an important part of who I am). In the primary analyses, these five items were used as indicators for a latent moral identity internalization variable. Moral personality. Parents rated their adolescent on the 50 moral person traits for their childs age group, as well as the 10 neutral traits, using a scale from 1 (does not describe him/her at all) to 7 (describes him/her very well). The present analyses only involved the 40 traits in common across the two age groups. For each trait, the mother and father ratings were averaged (for the 40 composites, .97). To reduce the number of indicators needed to form a latent moral personality variable, item parcels were created based on the five facets of morality identified previously among late adolescents (as part of the larger project from which these data were drawn, adolescents rating the degree to which these 50 traits describe a moral person, and the underlying dimensions of the moral person schema were identified; Hardy et al., 2011). Altruism. Altruism was assessed by having parents rate their adolescent on 10 items (sample item: is concerned about others) adapted from the altruism personality subscale of the International Personality Item Pool (ipip.ori.org; Goldberg et al., 2006). The original self-report scale was adapted for parent-report use. Items were rated from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very well). For each item, mother and father ratings were averaged ( .82). In the primary analyses, the 10 items were used as indicators of a latent altruism variable. Aggression. Aggression was measured using the Child Behavior Checklist (School-Age Version) aggression items (Achenbach

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

HARDY, WALKER, OLSEN, WOODBURY, AND HICKMAN

& Rescorla, 2001). Parents rated their adolescent on 12 items (sample item: She/he is mean to others) using a scale from 1 (not true) to 3 (very true or often true). For each item, the mother and father ratings were averaged. In the primary analyses, the 12 items ( .86) were used as indicators of a latent aggression variable. Cheating. Cheating was assessed using a single item from each parent, How often in the last year has your teen been in trouble at school for cheating or being dishonest in his/her school work? Responses ranged from 1 (never) to 5 (very often). These two responses were significantly correlated at r .40 (p .0001). In the primary analyses, the two items were used as indicators of a latent cheating variable.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Data Set 2: National Online Sample

Participants. The sample consisted of 383 adolescents (1518 years of age, M 16.3, SD 1.0; 57% male; 70% European American, 12% African American, 10% Hispanic, 8% other ethnic groups; 27% Protestant, 20% Catholic, 20% nondenominational Christian, 19% no affiliation, 8% agnostic or atheist, 6% other). Additionally, roughly 54% of the adolescents were living with both of their biological or adoptive parents, and 53% of the families had annual household incomes under $50,000 (the median for families in the United States in recent years has been around $50,000). Adolescents came from 44 of the 50 states in the United States, with 27% from urban areas, 51% from suburban areas, and 22% from rural areas. Thus, with all these demographic factors considered, the sample is fairly representative of the U.S. population in general. Procedures. Adults with adolescent children between 15 and 18 years of age were invited to participate through an e-mail sent by Survey Sampling International (SSI). SSI recruits participants from websites, social media, survey panels, and other sources. The e-mail invitation sent by SSI to the adolescents parents included a link to the survey administered through Qualtrics, where parents (one parent in each family) were directed to a web page providing information about the study and asking for permission for their adolescent to participate. If parental permission was given, the parent was asked to have their adolescent take his or her portion of the survey. Adolescents were directed to a Youth Assent page with information about the study and where they could indicate their consent. If adolescents consented, they were taken to the beginning of their survey. Upon completion of the survey, they were asked to have their parent (the initial contact) take the parent survey. Parents then consented to their own participation and completed the survey. Participants were compensated approximately $5$15 per family, depending on how they were accessed and their degree of completion. Measures. The predictors (moral ideal self and moral identity internalization), covariates (aspects of identity, contingencies of self-worth, and possible selves), and mediators (social responsibility and purpose) were adolescent-report; the outcomes (environmentalism, school engagement, internalizing symptoms, and externalizing symptoms) were parent-report (one parent per family). Moral ideal self. The measure of moral ideal self was the same as that used with Data Set 1 (described above), with the exception that we used only the 40 moral traits ( .97) that were in common across early and late adolescents (see Hardy et al.,

2011, for details). Participants rated the traits from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much) in terms of how much they describe the type of person they want to be. Moral identity internalization. Aquino and Reeds (2002) five-item ( .80) internalization subscale, described earlier, was again used as an existing measure of moral identity. In the primary analyses, the five items were used as indicators for a latent moral identity internalization variable. Aspects of identity. To examine convergent and discriminant validity, two items were used from the Aspects of Identity QuestionnaireIV (Cheek, Smith, & Tropp, 2002), which assessed the relative importance of various issues to a persons identity. The two items used were My personal values and moral standards and My attractiveness to other people. These items were rated from 1 (not important to my sense of who I am) to 5 (extremely important to my sense of who I am). The two items were used as individual items in the primary analyses. Contingencies of self-worth. To examine convergent and discriminant validity, 10 items from the Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale (Crocker, Luhtanen, Cooper, & Bouvrette, 2003) were used to assess the degree to which self-worth is based on virtue (five items; .81) and appearance (five items; .78). The items were responded to on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). In the primary analyses, these items were used as indicators for the two latent variables of virtue and appearance as contingencies of self-worth. Possible selves. To assess construct validity, possible selves were captured using an open-ended format similar to that used to capture possible selves in prior studies (Oyserman et al., 2006). Adolescents were asked to list the most important traits, characteristics, or qualities of the type of person you would really like to be (in other words, your ideal self). They entered responses into five textboxes labeled most important trait to fifth most important trait. To create an index of the frequency with which moral traits appeared in these possible selves, the responses were first cleaned (including fixing typographical errors). Then, the responses were subject to categorization using a content dictionary based on the 40 moral trait terms from Data Set 1. This content analysis categorized respondents traits into moral and non-moral categories, based on whether each description of their ideal self corresponded with a concept in the content dictionary. The total percentage of responses (out of 15 total responses) that were moral was calculated. While data cleaning was performed manually, the content analysis based on the moral terms content dictionary was performed using qualitative data analysis software (QDA Miner Version 4.0.4 and Wordstat Version 6.1.7). Purpose. Adolescents sense of purpose was measured using five adolescent-report items ( .91) from the identified subscale of the Center on Adolescence Purpose Scale (Bundick et al., 2006). Adolescents responded to the items using a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree; sample item: My life has a clear sense of purpose). These five items were used as indicators of a latent purpose variable in the primary analyses. Social responsibility. Adolescents sense of social responsibility was assessed using the 10-item ( .86) short form of the Youth Social Responsibility Scale (Pancer, Pratt, Hunsberger, & Alisat, 2007), rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree; sample item: Young people have an important

MORAL IDENTITY AS MORAL IDEAL SELF

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

role to play in making the world a better place). These 10 items were used as indicators of a latent social responsibility variable in the primary analyses. Environmentalism. Adolescents involvement in environmentalist activities was assessed using six items ( .85) from the Environmental Inventory of Involvement scale (Matsuba et al., 2012) that were adapted for parent report. Parents rated the frequency with which their adolescent had engaged in various activities (sample item: recycled newspapers, glass, or other items) in the past year, on a scale from 1 (your adolescent never did this) to 5 (your adolescent did this a lot). The six items were used as indicators of a latent environmentalism variable in the primary analyses. School engagement. Adolescents engagement in academics was assessed using four parent-report items ( .83) adapted from the National Survey of Americas Families (Ehrle & Moore, 1999). Parents rated the items on a scale from 1 (none of the time) to 4 (all of the time; sample item: My adolescent cares about doing well in school). The four items were used as indicators of a latent school-engagement variable in the primary analyses. Internalizing. Internalizing symptoms were assessed using 13 parent-report items ( .84) from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) designed to assess anxiety (sample item: too fearful or anxious) and depression (sample item: feels worthless or inferior). In the CBCL, items are rated on a scale from 0 (not true [as far as you know]) to 2 (very true or often true). These 13 items were used as indicators of a latent internalizing variable in the primary analyses. Externalizing. Externalizing symptoms were assessed using five parent-report items ( .68) from the CBCL. These items are those identified in prior research as a short scale for delinquency (Lizotte, Chard-Wierschem, Loeber, & Stern, 1992; although one suggested item was omitted in the present study due to overlap with the measure of school engagement). These five items were used as indicators of a latent externalizing variable in the primary analyses.

The second sub-section of the Results reports structural equation models of relations between moral ideal self, moral identity internalization, and four adolescent outcomes (altruism, moral personality, aggression, and cheating) in Data Set 1. These analyses were also conducted using Mplus (Version 6); however, parameters were estimated using full information maximum likelihood robust estimation (MLR), which accounts for non-normal variable distributions. The third sub-section of the Results reports structural equation models of relations between moral ideal self, moral identity internalization, and four adolescent outcomes (environmentalism, school engagement, internalizing, and externalizing) in Data Set 2. Additional analyses assessed purpose and social responsibility as mediators of relations between moral ideal self and the four adolescent outcomes. Again, all models were conducted using Mplus (Version 6), with parameters being estimated using MLR.

Moral Ideal Self Scale Development

Moral ideal self was assessed in both data sets using 40 items; however, it is often impractical to use this many items in data collection and analysis. Thus, several pieces of information were used to reduce the number of items. First, we obtained means, standard deviations, and values for skewness and kurtosis, separately for each data set, and for both combined. Attention was paid to excessive skewness ( .2) and kurtosis ( .3) values. Second, we noted the moral person prototype ratings for these traits reported in prior research, as well as the trait clusters each trait represented (Hardy et al., 2011). Third, we conducted multi-group confirmatory factor analyses to examine factorial invariance across the two data sets, across gender (in the merged data set), and across the two age groups in Data Set 1. For each group variable, we compared the model fit of a two-group model where all factor loadings were constrained to be equal across groups to a two-group model where all factor loadings were free to vary across groups. In all cases, the models differed significantly. Thus, for each group variable, we conducted a series of models freeing one factor loading at a time, and comparing that model to the fully constrained model. Fourth, we similarly conducted multi-group models to assess invariance of the item intercepts. In selecting the best items, primary emphasis was given to items with higher factor loadings in Data Set 2 (all items selected had factor loadings above .70). Secondary emphasis was placed on items that remained invariant across gender. Additionally, we sought items that met the above criteria but also had minimal non-normality and higher moral person prototype ratings. Lastly, in order to fully capture the construct, we made sure to select items in all of the five facets of morality found among late adolescents in prior research (Hardy et al., 2011). This process resulted in the selection of 20 items ( .96; see Table 1 and the Appendix). A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the 20 items (using the merged data set) fit the data moderately well, 2(170) 923.64, p .0001; CFI .93; RMSEA .072. We also repeated the multi-group factorial invariance models described above to compare across data set, gender (in the merged data set), and age group (in Data Set 1), using just the final 20 items (factor loadings are reported in Table 1). By gender, the model freeing all factor loadings did not fit significantly better

Results Analysis Plan

The Results section has three major sub-sections. First, the process is reported whereby a 20-item scale for assessing moral ideal self was developed and validated. Many of these analyses involved a merged data set that included all participants from both Data Set 1 and Data Set 2 (the exceptions are the analyses of age differences which only involved Data Set 1, since it contained early and late adolescent sub-samples). Descriptive statistics were obtained using SPSS (Version 20), while the confirmatory factor analyses were conducted using Mplus (Version 6). Model parameters in Mplus were estimated using full information maximum likelihood estimation. Indicators of model fit were the chi-square (2) statistic, the root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA; values below .05 indicate good fit, below .08 indicate moderate fit, and below .10 indicating mediocre fit), and the comparative fit index (CFI; values above .95 indicate good fit, and values above .90 indicate moderate fit). Additionally, 2 difference tests were used to assess the relative fit of nested models.

HARDY, WALKER, OLSEN, WOODBURY, AND HICKMAN

Table 1 Means and Standard Deviations for Moral Ideal Self Items and Standardized Factor Loadings by Groupings
Data set Overall (n 865) Item Generous Good example Respectful Truthful Stands up for his/her beliefs Makes good choices Responsible Follows values True Loyal Does good actions Understanding Thankful Compassionate Has good values Loving Forgiving Considerate Caring Helpful M 6.04 6.12 6.30 6.29 6.27 6.30 6.35 6.15 6.24 6.28 6.18 6.23 6.26 6.18 6.32 6.35 6.14 6.21 6.27 6.22 SD 1.14 1.13 0.98 1.01 1.11 1.01 0.98 1.11 1.00 1.00 1.05 1.01 1.01 1.06 0.98 1.00 1.11 1.01 1.02 1.03 Data Set 1 (n 497) M 6.08 6.17 6.33 6.30 6.27 6.32 6.36 6.16 6.25 6.26 6.18 6.27 6.36 6.18 6.32 6.42 6.21 6.21 6.28 6.26 FL .69 .75b .73b .73b .58 .71b .66 .60 .72 .64b .72b .73b .66 .70 .70b .68 .63 .77b .73b .69 Data Set 2 (n 368) M 5.99 6.05 6.27 6.28 6.27 6.28 6.33 6.15 6.23 6.30 6.19 6.17 6.13 6.18 6.32 6.25 6.05 6.21 6.24 6.18 FL .73 .79b .73b .78b .71 .72b .77 .77 .81 .71b .80b .76b .75 .82 .74b .80 .74 .85b .80b .83 Age cohorta Early (n 224) M 6.14 6.14 6.27 6.23 6.23 6.33 6.25 6.11 6.16 6.20 6.14 6.15 6.30 6.06 6.34 6.38 6.30 6.17 6.35 6.25 FL .67 .72c .74 .76 .68 .77 .69 .67 .80 .72 .77 .78 .67 .67c .67c .69c .67c .72c .69 .65c
c

Gender Male (n 468) M 5.96 6.04 6.23 6.20 6.20 6.23 6.29 6.10 6.16 6.19 6.10 6.12 6.16 6.08 6.28 6.24 6.10 6.14 6.20 6.13
d

Late (n 235) M 6.02 6.21 6.37 6.40 6.36 6.31 6.45 6.25 6.33 6.34 6.22 6.37 6.41 6.27 6.32 6.44 6.09 6.26 6.20 6.26 FL .69 .74c .65 .65 .41 .60 .56 .47 .58 .57 .69 .65 .60 .68c .64c .66c .56c .74c .79 .69c
c

Female (n 391) M 6.14 6.21 6.40 6.40 6.35 6.40 6.43 6.22 6.33 6.37 6.28 6.35 6.39 6.30 6.37 6.47 6.18 6.29 6.34 6.34 FL .72d .80d .72d .77d .66d .74d .74d .72d .76d .68d .76d .77d .73d .76d .71d .74d .69d .81d .74d .78d

FL .69 .73d .73d .72d .61d .69d .70d .64d .75d .66d .74d .71d .68d .74d .71d .73d .68d .79d .76d .74d
d

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Note. All means, standard deviations, and factor loadings are from the confirmatory factor models. FL factor loading. a Only used data from Data Set 1. b Factor loadings invariant across data sets. c Factor loadings invariant across age cohort. across gender.

Factor loadings invariant

than the constrained model, so the loadings are considered invariant across gender. However, the models for data set and age group did differ significantly. The factor loadings of 10 items were found to vary across data sets, with all 10 being higher in Data Set 2. The factor loadings of 12 items were found to vary by age group, with 11 being higher among early adolescents and one (Caring) being higher among late adolescents. Other findings of interest from these multi-group models by data set, gender, and age pertain to the latent variable means across groups. We did not estimate the mean structure, as it was not our primary concern, but the multi-group models provide a test of the difference between the group means. However, in order to interpret the tests of latent variable means, we conducted a series of multi-group models to examine invariance of the item intercepts. We then specified partial-invariance models for data set, gender, and age cohort with the appropriate factor loadings and item intercepts freed or constrained. In these models, the latent moral ideal self means differed across gender (in the merged data set) but not across data sets or Data Set 1 age groups. Specifically, the female mean was .18 higher than the male mean (p .01). Lastly, for the purpose of the primary analyses reported below, it seemed impractical to use all 20 items as indicators of a latent moral ideal self variable in subsequent structural equation modeling analyses, as the optimal number of indicators per latent variable is closer to three (Little, Cunningham, Shahar, & Widaman, 2002). Thus, we created five parcels ( .92) based on five facets of morality identified previously (Hardy et al., 2011; see the Appendix). In many cases, item parcels have numerous psychometric benefits over items, such as better model fit (Little et al., 2002). A confirmatory factor analysis with these five parcels as

indicators had a good fit to the data based on the CFI and moderate fit based on the RMSEA, 2(5) 27.96, p .0001; CFI .99; RMSEA .073.

Data Set 1 Structural Equation Models Predicting Adolescent Outcomes

Measurement model. First, we conducted a CFA to assess the measurement model for the structural equation models involving Data Set 1 (see Table 2 for descriptives on all latent variable indicators). A model was specified including latent variables for moral ideal self, moral identity internalization, moral personality, altruism, aggression, and cheating, as well as covariances between these latent variables. To improve model fit, we added correlated errors between all reverse-worded items (that had been reversecoded) within the moral identity internalization scale (1) and within the altruism scale (10), as item wording can be a source of method variance leading to model misfit. This model fit the data moderately well based on the CFI and well based on the RMSEA, 2(676) 1,399.90, p .0001; CFI .90; RMSEA .046. To further improve model fit, we dropped the five items having the lowest factor loadings (below .40; one aggression and four altruism items were dropped) and added five correlated errors (starting with that suggested by the largest modification index) pertaining to indicators with similar wording or meaning. We stopped when subsequent modification indices suggested the addition of correlated errors without a reasonable theoretical justification. Each modification resulted in a significant improvement in model fit based on chi-square difference tests, with the final model fitting the data moderately well based on the CFI and well based on the

MORAL IDENTITY AS MORAL IDEAL SELF

7
M 0.19 0.20 0.04 0.08 0.10 SD 0.44 0.46 0.22 0.31 0.32 Range 02 02 02 02 02

Table 2 Descriptive Statistics for Observed Latent Variable Indicators

Data set Data Set 1 Moral ideal selfParcel 1 Moral ideal selfParcel 2 Moral ideal selfParcel 3 Moral ideal selfParcel 4 Moral ideal selfParcel 5 Moral identity internalizationItem 1 Moral identity internalizationItem 2 Moral identity internalizationItem 3 Moral identity internalizationItem 4 Moral identity internalizationItem 5 Moral personalityLoving/caring Moral personalityHonest/true Moral personalityIntegrity Moral personalityVirtuous Moral personalityKnows/chooses right Altruism Item 1 Altruism Item 2 Altruism Item 3 Altruism Item 4 Altruism Item 5 Altruism Item 6 Aggression Item 1 Aggression Item 2 Aggression Item 3 Aggression Item 4 Aggression Item 5 Aggression Item 6 Aggression Item 7 Aggression Item 8 Aggression Item 9 Aggression Item 10 Aggression Item 11 CheatingFather-report CheatingMother-report Data Set 2 Moral ideal selfParcel 1 Moral ideal selfParcel 2 Moral ideal selfParcel 3 Moral Ideal selfParcel 4 Moral ideal selfParcel 5 Moral identity internalizationItem 1 Moral identity internalizationItem 2 Moral identity internalizationItem 3 Moral identity internalizationItem 4 Moral identity internalizationItem 5 Environmentalism Item 1 Environmentalism Item 2 Environmentalism Item 3 Environmentalism Item 4 Environmentalism Item 5 Environmentalism Item 6 School engagement Item 1 School engagement Item 2 School engagement Item 3 School engagement Item 4 Internalizing Item 1 Internalizing Item 2 Internalizing Item 3 Internalizing Item 4 Internalizing Item 5 Internalizing Item 6 Internalizing Item 7 Internalizing Item 8 Internalizing Item 9 Internalizing Item 10 M 6.25 6.27 6.21 6.34 6.25 6.19 5.82 6.17 5.78 5.78 5.41 5.81 5.70 5.69 6.07 4.51 5.35 5.55 4.83 5.50 6.36 1.42 1.30 1.51 1.25 1.12 1.47 1.28 1.57 1.52 1.36 1.12 1.31 1.36 6.16 6.27 6.21 6.30 6.21 6.17 5.84 6.32 6.12 5.99 1.95 1.94 2.30 2.54 2.94 3.34 3.25 3.43 3.17 3.29 0.12 0.15 0.07 0.19 0.19 0.18 0.17 0.40 0.05 0.57 SD 0.77 0.85 1.00 0.82 0.84 1.25 1.27 1.55 1.66 1.56 0.83 0.80 0.77 0.84 0.67 1.40 1.23 1.19 1.24 1.23 0.93 0.53 0.44 0.53 0.42 0.33 0.53 0.47 0.56 0.53 0.50 0.35 0.73 0.72 Range 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 15 15 Externalizing Externalizing Externalizing Externalizing Externalizing

Data set Item Item Item Item Item 1 2 3 4 5

Note. Data Set 1 sample sizes range: n 360 497. Data Set 2 sample sizes range: n 321368. Items numbers do not necessarily correspond with item numbers on the original measures.

0.88 17 0.86 17 0.96 17 0.92 17 0.89 17 1.13 17 1.25 17 1.40 17 1.34 17 1.23 17 1.27 15 1.26 15 1.33 15 1.31 15 1.43 15 1.48 15 0.88 14 0.79 14 0.98 14 0.82 14 0.40 02 0.39 02 0.29 02 0.44 02 0.45 02 0.46 02 0.44 02 0.60 02 0.26 02 0.65 02 (table continues)

RMSEA, 2(506) 996.60, p .0001; CFI .93; RMSEA .044. In this model (see Table 3), the two measures of moral identity (moral ideal self and moral identity internalization) were positively correlated (r .51), and both correlated negatively with aggression and positively with altruism and moral personality (but were not significantly correlated with cheating). We then ran this final CFA again, this time including age and gender to assess their correlations with the variables. Age was positively correlated with moral identity internalization and cheating, while gender was positively correlated with moral ideal self and altruism (meaning females were higher on both). Thus, age and gender were included as controls in the primary analyses reported below, or were used as grouping variables in multi-group analyses. Models of moral ideal self predicting adolescent outcomes. The full models built on the final CFA model reported above, but specified regression paths from moral ideal self and moral identity internalization to each of the four outcomes (moral personality, altruism, aggression, and cheating), as well as regression paths from age and gender to the outcomes (see Table 4 for unstandardized coefficients). Moral ideal self was negatively predictive of aggression ( .25) and was positively predictive of altruism ( .34) and moral personality ( .31). Moral identity internalization did not uniquely contribute to any of the four outcomes. Multi-group models by gender and age. Multi-group models were conducted to test for gender and age differences in factor structure, intercepts, and regression paths. Structural equation models were specified with moral ideal self and moral identity internalization predicting the four outcomes. For gender, a model freeing all parameters (but fixing latent means to 0) did not fit better than one constraining factor loadings. However, a model constraining factor loadings and intercepts fit more poorly than one just constraining loadings. Subsequent model comparisons were conducted constraining factor loadings and only intercepts for indicators of one latent variable at a time. Intercepts for moral ideal self, cheating, and moral personality did not differ significantly across gender. Lastly, a model constraining all factor loadings as well as intercepts for these three variables was compared to one also constraining all regression paths. The models did not differ significantly in model fit, suggesting structural invariance across gender. Similar model comparisons were conducted to compare across early and late adolescent age groups. The model constraining factor loadings fit significantly worse than the model with all parameters free. Thus, we conducted a series of models constraining the factor loadings for one latent variable at a time. This led to a partial-invariance model with factor loadings constrained for aggression, cheating, altruism, and moral personality. The loadings

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

HARDY, WALKER, OLSEN, WOODBURY, AND HICKMAN

Table 3 Bivariate Correlations Among Latent Variables

Data Set 1 (n 510) Moral ideal self Moral identity Aggression Cheating Altruism Moral personality Data Set 2 (n 373) Moral ideal self Moral identity Internalizing Externalizing Environmentalism School engagement

Moral ideal self .51 .24 .15 .35 .33 Moral ideal self .48 .25 .31 .23 .29

Moral identity .14 .15 .17 .21 Moral identity .23 .33 .22 .45

Aggression

Cheating

Altruism

.26 .46 .52 Internalizing

.05 .24 Externalizing

.73 Environmentalism

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

.86 .16 .50

.19 .58

.37

p .05.

p .01.

for the two moral identity scale varied by age. This model was then compared to one where the intercepts were also constrained across age. The model constraining the intercepts fit worse than the partial-invariance model. Thus, we conducted a series of models constraining the intercepts for one latent variable at a time (only for those with factorial invariance). This led to a model with factor loadings constrained for the four outcome variables, and intercepts also constrained for cheating and altruism. This model was compared to one where the regression paths were also constrained. The model with regression paths constrained fit significantly worse. Thus, a series of models were conducted constraining only one regression path at a time. Regression paths differed by age for the paths from moral ideal self and moral identity internalization to aggression and cheating. In the final model, for early adolescents, moral ideal self predicted aggression, altruism, and moral personality, but not cheating (moral identity internalization predicted none of the outcomes), and for late adolescents, moral ideal self predicted altruism and moral personality, while moral identity internalization predicted aggression.

Data Set 2 Structural Equation Models Predicting Adolescent Outcomes

Models to assess validity of moral ideal self measure. To assess convergent, discriminant, and construct validity, a structural equation model was conducted with latent variables for moral ideal

self (using the five parcels), virtue as a contingency of self-worth, and appearance as a contingency of self-worth, as well as observed variables for values and moral standards as an aspect of identity, attractiveness as an aspect of identity, and the frequency with which moral traits occurred in freely generated possible selves, as well as covariances between all of these variables. Positive correlations of moral ideal self with virtue as a contingency of selfworth (r .48) and moral standards as an aspect of identity (r .46) serve as evidence for convergent validity, negative correlations or null correlations with appearance as a contingency of self-worth (r .13) and attractiveness as an aspect of identity (r .04) provide evidence of discriminant validity, and positive correlations with the moral trait count from possible selves provide evidence of construct validity (r .21). Measurement model. We conducted a CFA to assess the measurement model for the structural equation models involving Data Set 2 (see Table 2 for descriptives on all latent variable indicators). A model was specified including latent variables for moral ideal self, moral identity internalization, environmentalism, school engagement, internalizing, and externalizing, as well as covariances between these latent variables. To improve model fit, we added correlated errors between reverse-worded items in the moral identity internalization scale (one) and the school engagement scale (one). This model fit the data moderately well based on the CFI and well based on the RMSEA, 2(648) 1,069.50, p

Table 4 Unstandardized Regression Coefficients From Structural Equation Models

Data Set 1 (n 496) Aggression Variable b (SE) Cheating b (SE) Altruism b (SE) Data Set 2 (n 373) Moral personality Internalizing Externalizing Environmentalism School engagement b (SE) 0.03 (0.02) 0.07 (0.07) 0.32( 0.07) 0.04 (0.04) b (SE) b (SE) b (SE) 0.05 (0.11) 0.18( 0.08) 0.15 (0.08) b (SE) 1.36( 0.61) 0.51 (0.47) 1.95( 0.64)

Age 0.01 (0.01) 0.02 (0.01) 0.03 (0.02) Gender 0.06( 0.04) 0.04 (0.04) 0.16( 0.07) Moral ideal self 0.09( 0.03) 0.04 (0.05) 0.38( 0.08) Moral identity 0.01 (0.02) 0.03 (0.05) 0.01 (0.04)

0.32 (0.30) 0.02 (0.27) 0.58( 0.23) 0.46 (0.24) 0.21 (0.22) 0.41 (0.25)

p .05.

p .01.

MORAL IDENTITY AS MORAL IDEAL SELF

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

.0001; CFI .91; RMSEA .042. To further improve model fit we dropped three items with factor loadings below .40 (three internalizing items); although the loading for one moral identity internalization item was .38, we retained it to maintain the meaning of this important covariate. These modifications significantly improved model fit based on chi-square difference tests, and the model fit the data moderately well based on the CFI and well based on the RMSEA, 2(543) 850.07, p .0001; CFI .93; RMSEA .039. The two measures of moral identity were positively correlated (r .48), and both were correlated negatively with internalizing and externalizing and positively with environmentalism and school engagement (see Table 3). We then ran this CFA again, adding in age and gender to assess their correlations with the variables. Age was not significantly correlated with any variables in the model, while gender was only correlated with school engagement (with females being higher than males). Thus, gender was included as a control variable in the structural equation models reported below. Models of moral ideal self predicting adolescent outcomes. Two of the outcome measures (internalizing and externalizing) had only three response options, while one (school engagement) had only four; hence, to improve estimation of parameters and standard errors, we specified these items as ordinal (using the categorical statement in Mplus). The full models built on the final CFA model reported above, but specified regression paths from moral ideal self and moral identity internalization to the four outcomes (environmentalism, school engagement, internalizing, and externalizing), as well as regression paths from gender to the outcomes (see Table 4 for all unstandardized coefficients). Moral ideal self predicted internalizing ( .23), externalizing ( .22), and environmentalism ( .16; the link to school engagement was non-significant at .09), while moral identity internalization predicted school engagement ( .40). Models of mediators of relations between moral ideal self and outcomes. To assess purpose and social responsibility as potential mediators of relations between moral ideal self and adolescent outcomes, a model was specified with moral ideal self predicting purpose and social responsibility, and with purpose and social responsibility in turn predicting the four outcomes (inter-

nalizing, externalizing, environmentalism, and school engagement; in these models the internalizing, externalizing, and school engagement items were specified as ordinal). Indirect paths were computed as the product of the regression coefficients linking a predictor to a mediator and a mediator to an outcome (tested using the model constraint procedure in Mplus). Of the eight mediation paths assessed, seven were significant (the exception was the path through social responsibility to internalizing; see Figure 1), with standardized coefficients ranging from .10 to .22 in size (absolute value). Thus, in almost all cases, purpose and social responsibility functioned as mediators accounting for a significant amount of the associations between moral ideal self and the outcomes.

Discussion
The purposes of this article were to present a conceptual model of moral identity in terms of possible selves, to create a measure of moral ideal self, to examine age and gender trends in moral ideal self, to assess relationships between moral ideal self and morally relevant behaviors, and to test mediators linking moral ideal self to outcomes. The new moral ideal self measure held up well empirically and predicted numerous youth outcomes even beyond an existing measure of moral identity; further, these relations were often mediated by adolescents sense of purpose and social responsibility. Although females tended to be higher on moral ideal self, relations to outcomes were similar across gender. No age differences were found in moral ideal self, but some differences emerged in terms of relations between moral ideal self and outcomes. Most importantly, the present findings suggest one facet of moral identity may be the degree to which one hopes to be a moral person. In fact, although both aspects of moral identity (moral ideal self and moral identity internalization) were bivariately associated with most outcome variables in expected ways, moral ideal self was more frequently a unique predictor of the outcomes when both were considered together. Thus, the moral ideal self measure not only tapped something unique from the other measure of moral identity, it tapped something perhaps more salient to many morally relevant adolescent outcomes. Perhaps the

Figure 1. Mediation model of moral ideal self latent variable through purpose and social responsibility to outcomes. n 376; p .01. Coefficients are standardized regression paths (betas). a indirect path from moral ideal self through purpose; b indirect path from moral ideal self through social responsibility.

10

HARDY, WALKER, OLSEN, WOODBURY, AND HICKMAN

reason moral ideal self so successfully predicted adolescent outcomes is that, as possible selves theory suggests (Markus & Nurius, 1986), it is capturing an important motivational dimension of the self. Our image of the type of person we want to be serves as a goal pulling us forward. Links between moral ideal self and adolescent outcomes in the present study were often mediated by adolescents sense of purpose and social responsibility. This was one of the first examinations of processes by which moral identity might lead to positive youth outcomes. During the process of identity formation, the more adolescents commit to being moral people the more they might gain a sense of purpose in life (Hardy et al., 2012), which in turn can improve their behavior, well-being, and interactions with others. Additionally, such identity commitments to moral personhood can generate a sense of social responsibility (Damon & Bronk, 2007), which can prompt youths to engage in moral causes (Youniss & Yates, 1997). Thus, purpose and social responsibility may be key to the motivating power of moral identity. The present study also allowed a peek at possible developmental patterns in moral ideal self, which can inform our thinking about moral identity development more broadly. However, age differences were not found in Data Set 1, nor was the moral ideal self correlated with age in either data set. Thus, the present analyses yielded no evidence for developmental increases in moral ideal self across adolescence. This is surprising given how consistently moral identity theory has argued for adolescence being an important time when morality and identity come together (Hardy & Carlo, 2011b). Nevertheless, in terms of empirical data, two prior studies similarly found no evidence for age trends in moral identity (Krettenauer, 2011; Pratt et al., 2003). Such lack of evidence across studies requires explanation. First, perhaps the measures used were not sensitive to developmental changes in moral identity. Or, given the skewness inherent in the self-report moral identity measures, perhaps there is a ceiling effect hampering the ability to detect increased levels of moral identity at later ages. Second, moral identity may develop as theorized but just not during the adolescent period. Perhaps, in contemporary society, these shifts are more apt to take place later in emerging adulthood. Blasi (1993) speculated that the type of maturity necessary for a moral identity capable of powerfully driving behavior may rarely be reached prior to adulthood. Third, perhaps moral identity does not really develop as theorized. Rather than the formation of moral identity being a developmental sequence most people move through across the years of adolescence and emerging adulthood, it may be something that varies across individuals, across time (within individuals), and across contexts. There is evidence from social (Monin & Jordan, 2009) and cultural (Heine & Buchtel, 2009) psychology to support such a dynamic view. Fourth, the moral ideal self measure may be capturing an aspect of identity that shows less developmental progression, at least in adolescence. This is suggested by the fact that, in the present data, moral ideal self was not linked to age, while moral identity internalization was. Although the present analysis did not find evidence for developmental trends in moral identity, the results from Data Set 1 do indicate that the role of moral identity in adolescent outcomes may shift across adolescence. In fact, the relative roles of moral ideal self and moral identity internalization were different for early and late adolescents. Perhaps these measures capture facets of moral

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

identity involving different developmental processes and timelines, and that are more or less salient to different outcomes at different points during adolescence. The present analyses revealed two key findings regarding gender and moral ideal self. First of all, females seem to exhibit higher levels of moral ideal self than males (as evidenced by gender differences in the merged data set and a correlation with gender in Data Set 1; however, gender was not linked to moral ideal self in Data Set 2). This is congruent with some prior studies of moral identity (Hardy, 2006) but not with others (Aquino & Reed, 2002). Again, it may be that the different measures of moral identity tap different aspects of moral identitywith the moral ideal self measure capturing a facet of moral identity that varies more across gender. Second, links between moral ideal self and outcomes did not differ across gender. Thus, to the extent that one has a moral ideal self, it should be linked to adolescent outcomes similarly regardless of gender. This coincides with other studies showing similar processes linking protective factors to adolescent outcomes for males and females (Hardy, Steelman, Coyne, & Ridge, 2013). Lastly, one key purpose of the present study was to develop a measure of moral ideal self. The resultant measure has a number of noteworthy strengths. The items were reliable, with a good factor structure that was largely invariant across data sets, gender, and age. Further, the instrument passed a number of validity tests, suggesting it is capturing something akin to what it is intended to. This relatively short measure is particularly well-suited for use with large samples or longitudinal designs, and the item parcels can be used when creating latent variables. Lastly, although the analyses in the present study assumed moral identity is a monolithic entity, the Moral Ideal Self Scale could be used to explore qualitative distinctions between various types of moral identities, as it taps a range of moral personality characteristics.

Limitations
Some limitations of the present research should be acknowledged. First, the data were cross-sectional and correlational, thus limiting the ability to establish the causal nature of links between moral ideal self and behaviors. Future research involving longitudinal or experimental designs is needed. Second, the present study focused on American adolescents, so it is unclear to what extent the present findings generalize to other cultural contexts. Prior cross-cultural research suggests important differences between cultures on morality and identity (Heine & Buchtel, 2009). Third, although the present measure includes neutral and negative trait items to reduce socially desirable responding, like most other measures of moral identity, it yielded negatively skewed data. Further improvements are needed in moral identity measurement to yield more normally distributed dataperhaps using projective measures (e.g., Frimer & Walker, 2009). Fourth, all outcomes were parentreport, and parents may have an overly positive view of their own children. Nevertheless, using parent reports reduces concerns over common method variance between predictors and outcomes, and there is evidence that parent reports can be valid and are not uniformly positive (Lewis et al., 2012).

MORAL IDENTITY AS MORAL IDEAL SELF

11

Conclusions
Despite their currency in the contemporary study of moral development, conceptual models and measures of moral identity are relatively few (Hardy & Carlo, 2011a; Narvaez & Lapsley, 2009; Walker, in press). Thus, present study contributes to moral identity theory and measurement, drawing on the possible selves paradigm (Markus & Nurius, 1986). The present findings also add further evidence for links between moral identity and morally relevant behaviors, and the importance of moral identity in adolescent functioning. Additionally, the pattern of results comparing moral ideal self and Aquino and Reeds (2002) moral identity internalization attests to the potential richness of the moral identity construct, and the difficulty of fully capturing its meaning. It is hoped that the theoretical and empirical work presented here will help energize and guide future research on the moral dimensions of human personality. Ideally, this research will also inform youth development, prevention, and intervention efforts, as other work on possible selves (e.g., Oyserman et al., 2006) has fruitfully done.

References
Achenbach, T. M., & Rescorla, L. A. (2001). Manual for ASEBA SchoolAge Forms and Profiles. Burlington: University of Vermont, Research Center for Children, Youth, and Families. Aquino, K., & Reed, A., II. (2002). The self-importance of moral identity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 14231440. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.83.6.1423 Barriga, A. Q., Morrison, E. M., Liau, A. K., & Gibbs, J. C. (2001). Moral cognition: Explaining the gender difference in antisocial behavior. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 47, 532562. doi:10.1353/mpq.2001.0020 Bergman, R. (2004). Identity as motivation: Toward a theory of the moral self. In D. K. Lapsley & D. Narvaez (Eds.), Moral development, self, and identity (pp. 21 46). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Blasi, A. (1993). The development of identity: Some implications for moral functioning. In G. G. Noam & T. E. Wren (Eds.), The moral self (pp. 99 122). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Blasi, A. (2004). Moral functioning: Moral understanding and personality. In D. K. Lapsley & D. Narvaez (Eds.), Moral development, self, and identity (pp. 335347). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Bundick, M., Andrews, M., Jones, A., Mariano, J. M., Bronk, K. C., & Damon, W. (2006). Revised Youth Purpose Survey. Unpublished instrument, Stanford University Center on Adolescence, Stanford, CA. Bybee, J., Luthar, S., Zigler, E., & Merisca, R. (1997). The fantasy, ideal, and ought selves: Content, relationships to mental health, and functions. Social Cognition, 15, 3753. doi:10.1521/soco.1997.15.1.37 Cheek, J. M., Smith, S. M., & Tropp, L. R. (2002, February). Relational identity orientation: A fourth scale for the AIQ. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Savannah, GA. Colby, A., & Damon, W. (1992). Some do care: Contemporary lives of moral commitment. New York, NY: Free Press. Crocker, J., Luhtanen, R., Cooper, M. L., & Bouvrette, S. A. (2003). Contingencies of self-worth in college students: Measurement and theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 894 908. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.85.5.894 Damon, W., & Bronk, K. C. (2007). Taking ultimate responsibility. In H. Gardner (Ed.), Responsibility at work: How leading professionals act (or dont act) responsibly (pp. 21 42). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Dunkel, C. S., & Anthis, K. S. (2001). The role of possible selves in identity formation: A short-term longitudinal study. Journal of Adolescence, 24, 765776. doi:10.1006/jado.2001.0433

Ehrle, J., & Moore, K. A. (1999). 1997 NSAF Benchmarking Measure of Child and Family Well-Being (Report No. 6). Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Frimer, J. A., & Walker, L. J. (2008). Toward a new paradigm of moral personhood. Journal of Moral Education, 37, 333356. doi:10.1080/ 03057240802227494 Frimer, J. A., & Walker, L. J. (2009). Reconciling the self and morality: An empirical model of moral centrality development. Developmental Psychology, 45, 1669 1681. doi:10.1037/a0017418 Goldberg, L. R., Johnson, J. A., Eber, H. W., Hogan, R., Ashton, M. C., Cloninger, C. R., & Gough, H. G. (2006). The international personality item pool and the future of public-domain personality measures. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 84 96. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2005.08.007 Hardy, S. A. (2006). Identity, reasoning, and emotion: An empirical comparison of three sources of moral motivation. Motivation and Emotion, 30, 205213. doi:10.1007/s11031-006-9034-9 Hardy, S. A., & Carlo, G. (2011a). Moral identity. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research (Vol. 2, pp. 495513). doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-7988-9_19 Hardy, S. A., & Carlo, G. (2011b). Moral identity: What is it, how does it develop, and is it linked to moral action? Child Development Perspectives, 5, 212218. doi:10.1111/j.1750-8606.2011.00189.x Hardy, S. A., Francis, S. W., Zamboanga, B. L., Kim, S. Y., Anderson, S. G., & Forthun, L. F. (2013). The roles of identity formation and moral identity in college student mental health, health risk behaviors, and psychological well-being. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69, 364 382. doi:10.1002/jclp.21913 Hardy, S. A., Steelman, M. A., Coyne, S. M., & Ridge, R. D. (2013). Adolescent religiousness as a protective factor against adolescent pornography use. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 34, 131 139. doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2012.12.002 Hardy, S. A., Walker, L. J., Olsen, J. A., Skalski, J. E., & Basinger, J. C. (2011). Adolescent naturalistic conceptions of moral maturity. Social Development, 20, 562586. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2010.00590.x Hart, D. (2005). The development of moral identity. In G. Carlo & C. P. Edwards (Eds.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation: Moral development through the lifespan: Theory, research, and application (pp. 165 196). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Heine, S. J., & Buchtel, E. E. (2009). Personality: The universal and the culturally specific. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 369 394. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163655 Higgins, E. T. (2012). Regulatory focus theory. In P. A. M. Van Lange, A. W. Kruglanski, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of theories of social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 483504). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Krettenauer, T. (2011). The dual moral self: Moral centrality and internal moral motivation. The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development, 172, 309 328. doi:10.1080/00221325 .2010.538451 Lapsley, D. K. (2008). Moral self-identity as the aim of education. In L. P. Nucci & D. Narvaez (Eds.), Handbook of moral and character education (pp. 30 52). New York, NY: Routledge. Lewis, K. J. S., Mars, B., Lewis, G., Rice, F., Sellers, R., Thapar, A. K., . . . Thapar, A. (2012). Do parents know best? Parent-reported vs. child-reported depression symptoms as predictors of future child mood disorder in a high-risk sample. Journal of Affective Disorders, 141, 233236. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2012.03.008 Little, T. D., Cunningham, W. A., Shahar, G., & Widaman, K. F. (2002). To parcel or not to parcel: Exploring the question, weighing the merits. Structural Equation Modeling, 9, 151173. doi:10.1207/ S15328007SEM0902_1 Lizotte, A. J., Chard-Wierschem, D. J., Loeber, R., & Stern, S. B. (1992). A shortened child behavior checklist for delinquency studies. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 8, 233245. doi:10.1007/BF01066746

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

12

HARDY, WALKER, OLSEN, WOODBURY, AND HICKMAN Pratt, M. W., Hunsberger, B., Pancer, S. M., & Alisat, S. (2003). A longitudinal analysis of personal values socialization: Correlates of a moral self-ideal in late adolescence. Social Development, 12, 563585. doi:10.1111/1467-9507.00249 Reimer, K., Dewitt Goudelock, B. M., & Walker, L. J. (2009). Developing conceptions of moral maturity: Traits and identity in adolescent personality. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4, 372388. doi:10.1080/ 17439760902992431 Rest, J. R. (1983). Morality. In P. Mussen, J. Flavell, & E. Markman (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3: Cognitive development (4th ed., pp. 556 628). New York, NY: Wiley. Schlenker, B. R., Miller, M. L., & Johnson, R. M. (2009). Moral identity, integrity, and personal responsibility. In D. Narvaez & D. K. Lapsley (Eds.), Personality, identity, and character: Explorations in moral psychology (pp. 316 340). doi:10.1017/CBO9780511627125 .015 Schwartz, S. J., Luyckx, K., & Vignoles, V. L. (Eds.). (2011). Handbook of identity theory and research (Vols. 12). doi:10.1007/978-1-44197988-9 Stein, K. F., Roeser, R., & Markus, H. R. (1998). Self-schemas and possible selves as predictors and outcomes of risky behaviors in adolescents. Nursing Research, 47, 96 106. doi:10.1097/00006199199803000-00008 Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Gender differences in morality. In R. F. Bornstein & J. M. Masling (Eds.), The psychodynamics of gender and gender role (pp. 251269). doi:10.1037/10450-007 Walker, L. J. (2004). Gus in the gap: Bridging the judgmentaction gap in moral functioning. In D. K. Lapsley & D. Narvaez (Eds.), Moral development, self, and identity (pp. 120). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Walker, L. J. (2006). Gender and morality. In M. Killen & J. G. Smetana (Eds.), Handbook of moral development (pp. 93115). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Walker, L. J. (in press). Moral personality, motivation, and identity. In M. Killen & J. G. Smetana (Eds.), Handbook of moral development (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. Youniss, J., & Yates, M. (1997). Community service and social responsibility in youth. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954 969. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.41.9.954 Matsuba, M. K., Pratt, M. W., Norris, J. E., Mohle, E., Alisat, S., & McAdams, D. P. (2012). Environmentalism as a context for expressing identity and generativity: Patterns among activist and uninvolved youth and midlife adults. Journal of Personality, 80, 10911115. doi:10.1111/ j.1467-6494.2012.00765.x Monin, B., & Jordan, A. H. (2009). The dynamic moral self: A social psychological perspective. In D. Narvaez & D. K. Lapsley (Eds.), Personality, identity, and character: Explorations in moral psychology (pp. 341354). doi:10.1017/CBO9780511627125.016 Moshman, D. (2011). Adolescent rationality and development: Cognition, morality, and identity (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Narvaez, D., & Lapsley, D. K. (2009). Moral personality: Themes, questions, futures. In D. Narvaez & D. K. Lapsley (Eds.), Personality, identity, and character: Explorations in moral psychology (pp. 441 448). doi:10.1017/CBO9780511627125.020 Oyserman, D., Bybee, D., & Terry, K. (2006). Possible selves and academic outcomes: How and when possible selves impel action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 188 204. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.91.1.188 Oyserman, D., Bybee, D., Terry, K., & Hart-Johnson, T. (2004). Possible selves as roadmaps. Journal of Research in Personality, 38, 130 149. doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00057-6 Oyserman, D., & James, L. (2011). Possible identities. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research (Vol. 1, pp. 117145). doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-7988-9_6 Oyserman, D., & Markus, H. R. (1990). Possible selves and delinquency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 112125. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.59.1.112 Pancer, S. M., Pratt, M., Hunsberger, B., & Alisat, S. (2007). Community and political involvement in adolescence: What distinguishes the activists from the uninvolved? Journal of Community Psychology, 35, 741 759. doi:10.1002/jcop.20176 Pratt, M. W., Arnold, M. L., & Lawford, H. (2009). Growing towards care: A narrative approach to prosocial moral identity and generativity of personality in emerging adulthood. In D. Narvaez & D. K. Lapsley (Eds.), Personality, identity, and character: Explorations in moral psychology (pp. 295315). doi:10.1017/CBO9780511627125.014

(Appendix follows)

MORAL IDENTITY AS MORAL IDEAL SELF

13

Appendix Moral Ideal Self Scale (20 Items)

Directions: When you think about the future, what do you want yourself to be like? This could be how you want to be later in your life, how you want to be next year, or even how you want to be tomorrow. With this in mind, rate each trait below according to how much it describes the type of person you really want to be. You should use a range of responses to show which traits most describe what you want to be like, and which traits least describe what you want to be like. In other words, you should try using most of the numbers on the scale from 1 to 7 at least some of the time, rather than putting the same number every time. Items Generous Good example Respectful Truthful Stands up for his/her beliefs Makes good choices Responsible Follows values True Loyal Does good actions Understanding Thankful Compassionate Has good values Loving Forgiving Considerate Caring Helpful 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 1 (Not at all) 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 Scale 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much) 7 (Very much)

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Suggested Distractor Items (to be embedded in the scale above to reduce self-report bias) Depressed Arrogant Disorganized Quiet Easily upset Critical of others Self-centered Uncreative Anxious Careless

Suggested Item Parcels (five parcels based on trait clusters) Loving/Caring (9 items): Honest/True (3 items): Integrity (2 items): Virtuous (2 items): Knows/Chooses Right (4 items): Generous, Understanding, Thankful, Compassionate, Loving, Forgiving, Considerate, Caring, Helpful Truthful, True, Loyal Stands up for his/her beliefs, Follows values Respectful, Responsible Good example, Makes good choices, Does good actions, Has good values

Note. Parcels are created by computing the mean of the items within a parcel.

Received August 30, 2012 Revision received April 5, 2013 Accepted April 12, 2013