| Description |
Moral injury encompasses the negative behavioral, psychological, social, and spiritual consequences that arise after an individual experiences events that violate his or her deeply held moral beliefs, whether by commission, omission, or witnessing such an action by another individual. To date, moral injury and the only measure used to assess moral injury have only been studied with military populations and within the context of traumatic transgressions. In the current study, we first address the applicability of moral injury to youth populations and nontraumatic transgression. Secondly, we present the development and initial psychometric properties of the Moral Injury Perpetration, Self forgiveness, and Atonement Scales for Youth (MIPSASY) in a sample of emerging adults. Participants included 379 primarily female, Caucasian undergraduates recruited factor analysis and parallel analysis indicated that the moral injury subscales of the MIPSASY have a five-factor latent structure. Further, results indicated that the MIPSASY scales demonstrate good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent and divergent validity, and that the factor structure is invariant across genders. Future research will need to continue to validate the MIPSASY in youth populations given that moral injury is an important construct to include in the study of moral development and elucidates how harm may come from harm. Our study adds to the growing literature on moral injury and is the first study to describe how moral injury may be implicated in youths' transgressions. |
