The Moral Potency Questionnaire (MPQ), is a measure of moral potency and has been validated across military and working adult samples. The MPQ is being used currently in a number of research and applied projects to predict ethical thoughts and behaviors, as well as studies assessing moral potency as an outcome of ethical and authentic leadership. MPQ self-ratings have been shown to predict various ethical attitudes and behaviors of individuals, and can be used to reflect upon yourself and your actions and help you in selecting goals and support to facilitate your growth as a moral actor. Moral Ownership, Moral Courage and Moral Efficacy can all be combined into a single higher-order construct.
Copyright © 2010 by Sean T. Hannah & Bruce J. Avolio
Features of the MPQ
Purpose: Measure moral potency
Length: 12 items
Average completion time: 5-10 minutes
Target population: Adults
Administration: For individual or group administration
Uses of the MPQ
Scales
Moral Ownership: the extent to which members feel a sense of personal agency and psychological responsibility over the ethical nature of their own actions, those of others around them, their organization, or another collective.
Moral Efficacy: an individual's belief in his or her capabilities to organize and mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, means, and courses of action needed to attain moral/ethical performance, within a given moral/ethical domain, while persisting in the face of moral adversity.
Moral Courage: a malleable character strength, that:
1. provides the requisite potency needed to commit to personal moral principles,
2. under conditions where the actor is aware of the objective danger involved in supporting those principles,
3. that enables the willing endurance of that danger,
4. in order to act ethically or resist pressure to act unethically as required to maintain those principles.
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Moral judgment capacity generally accounts for only 20% of the variance in people's actual ethical behavior. This suggests that an individual's ethical (and unethical) behavior in organizations is driven not just by the judgments they make, but also by whether they have both the desire and inner fortitude (agency) to move forward and act on their judgments.
Most individuals make many ethical judgments during the work week, and in dynamic organizations they face many challenges, distracters, and risks that may deter their "stepping up" and acting on their ethical judgments. In many instances, individuals who could have addressed an unethical act, will say, "They knew what the right choice to make was, but they didn't have the motivation to make that choice." To counter the external forces that may inhibit individuals from taking action after they have made 'the right ethical choice', people need moral potency, defined as "the capacity to generate responsibility and motivation to take moral action in the face of adversity and persevere through challenges." These capacities are developed over time by experience, observing others whom one respects, or via planned learning and training interventions.
Prior research across a number of different contexts has identified three primary moral capacities that underpin moral potency:
The capacity to feel and show a sense of responsibility to take ethical action when faced with ethical issues. This comes from one's level of moral ownership, or "the extent to which members feel a sense of personal agency and psychological responsibility over the ethical nature of their own actions, those of others around them, their organization, or another collective."
One can make a sound moral judgment and feel ownership to act, but still not act because they lack confidence in their personal capabilities to develop solutions to ethical issues or to confront a peer or superior. To do so requires moral efficacy, which is defined as "an individual's belief in his or her capabilities to organize and mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, means, and courses of action needed to attain moral/ ethical performance, within a given moral/ethical domain, while persisting in the face of moral adversity."
Finally, individuals also require the courage to face threats and overcome fears to act. Moral courage in the workplace is defined as "a malleable character strength, that
1. provides the requisite potency needed to commit to personal moral principles,
2. under conditions where the actor is aware of the objective danger involved in supporting those principles,
3. that enables the willing endurance of that danger,
4. in order to act ethically or resist pressure to act unethically as required to maintain those principles."
-- Hannah, Avolio, & May (2011); Hannah & Avolio, (2010).
Therefore, the three components that compose moral potency include Moral Ownership, Moral Efficacy, and Moral Courage.
Research has demonstrated that moral potency overall, and its individual components, has been positively related to ethical behaviors, pro-social behaviors, and intentions to report others' unethical actions; and has been negatively related to tolerance for the mistreatment of others.
We also know that one's moral potency can be enhanced by authentic and ethical leadership, as well as the ethical culture of one's organization, suggesting it is malleable or developable. Moral potency has also been shown to be degraded when followers are exposed to toxic or abusive leaders and toxic cultures.