Revised Mosher Guilt Inventory

Abstract

The Revised Mosher Guilt Inventory (RMGI) is a psychological instrument developed by Donald L. Mosher to measure three distinct aspects of the personality disposition of guilt: Sex-Guilt, Hostility-Guilt, and Guilty-Conscience (formerly Morality-Conscience). The original Mosher Guilt Inventories (1961, 1966, 1968) were based on sentence completion stems and utilized true-false or forced-choice formats, which, over time, led to a truncated range of scores, especially for sex guilt.

The RMGI represents a significant revision, retaining the original items with strong construct validity but transitioning to a 114-item, 7-point Likert-type format. This change utilizes a limited-comparison format, arranging items in pairs derived from the same sentence completion stem, thus increasing the range of response and addressing previous format complaints. The RMGI is designed for use with adult populations and continues to provide robust measures of guilt as a theoretical script.

Keywords

Psychological Inventory, Personality Assessment, Guilt, Sex-Guilt, Hostility-Guilt, Guilty-Conscience, Script Theory, Donald L. Mosher, Affect, Self-Report Scale

Authors

Donald L. Mosher

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Revised Mosher Guilt Inventory is to provide a comprehensive and psychometrically sound measure of the personality disposition of guilt. Specifically, the scale aims to differentiate and quantify three distinct dimensions of this disposition: Sex-Guilt, Hostility-Guilt, and Guilty-Conscience.

The revision was undertaken to update the original inventories by eliminating items that were uniformly rejected by modern student populations and to adopt a rating scale format that enhances the range of responses, thereby improving the scale’s sensitivity and utility for current psychological research.

Construct

The Revised Mosher Guilt Inventory conceptualizes guilt as a script, as defined by Tomkins. A script is understood as a set of internalized rules governing the interpretation, prediction, production, control, and evaluation of a co-assembled set of scenes that are amplified by affect.

The three dimensions measured are:

• Sex-Guilt: Psychologically magnified in scenes involving awareness of sexual arousal, discrete affects of interest-excitement and enjoyment-joy, and the discrete affect of shame, which is associated with moral cognitions about sexual conduct.
• Hostility-Guilt: Psychologically magnified in scenes involving the discrete affects of anger-rage and guilty affect, stemming from cognitions about the immorality of aggressive behavior or thoughts.
• Guilty-Conscience (originally Morality-Conscience): Psychologically magnified in scenes involving moral temptations or guilty affect directed toward the self concerning moral failures. This subscale was renamed to better reflect the specific items retained after item analysis.

Validity

The Mosher Guilt Inventories have historically demonstrated strong evidence supporting their construct validity as measures of guilt as a personality disposition. Mosher (1979) reviewed approximately 100 studies up to 1977, which consistently supported the construct validity of the original scales. Subsequent research has continued to affirm this validity.

Evidence for the discriminant validity of the three subscales (Sex-Guilt, Hostility-Guilt, and Morality-Conscience) was provided through the use of multitrait-multimethod matrices (Mosher, 1966, 1968). For the Revised Mosher Guilt Inventory, item selection was rigorous: 90% of the items retained showed a correlation with their own subscale that was significantly different from their correlation with the other subscale totals, further ensuring discriminant validity. Items highly correlated across subscales, particularly between Morality-Conscience and Sex-Guilt, were eliminated during the revision process.

Reliability

While the Revised Mosher Guilt Inventory was constructed for inclusion in a handbook volume before its reliability in the new format had been fully assessed, the original Mosher Guilt Inventories demonstrated high internal consistency. In past research (Mosher, 1966, 1968; Mosher & Vonderheide, 1985), split-half or alpha coefficients for the subscales consistently averaged around .90, suggesting robust reliability for the underlying constructs and item pools.

Factor Analysis

The development of the original Mosher Guilt Inventories utilized scoring manuals based on sentence completion responses. However, O’Grady and Janda (1979) performed a factor analysis on the Mosher Forced-Choice Guilt Inventory, demonstrating that a simple 1 or 0 scoring procedure (guilty vs. non-guilty responses) correlated at .99 with the original weighted system, simplifying future scoring practices.

The RMGI itself was refined through an updated item analysis conducted on 233 true-false and 151 forced-choice nonoverlapping items from the original versions, using a sample of 408 University of Connecticut undergraduates. Items for the final 114-item RMGI were selected based on correlations with subscale totals ranging from .32 to .62, with a median of .46, ensuring internal consistency within the newly established subscales.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report personality inventory

Format: 7-point Likert-type format (0 = not at all true of (for) me; 6 = extremely true of (for) me). Items are presented in a limited-comparison format, arranged in pairs based on the same sentence completion stem.

Language Available: English (Source material indicates development and testing in the US).

Population Group: Adults

Age Group: Suitable for adult populations; initially validated on university undergraduates.

Population Details: The item analysis used for the revision included 187 male and 221 female University of Connecticut undergraduates.

Test Methodology: Subjects rate each of the 114 items from 0 to 6 on machine-scoreable answer sheets. The inventory takes approximately 20 minutes to complete. Scores are summed for each subscale after reversing non-guilty alternatives, with higher scores indicating greater scripted guilt.

Keywords

Psychological Measurement, Personality Disposition, Sex-Guilt, Hostility-Guilt, Construct Validity, Discriminant Validity, Multitrait-Multimethod, Self-Report

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Not provided in source)

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A (Not provided in source)

Correspondence Address: Donald L. Mosher, University of Connecticut

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: The original inventories were developed starting in 1961. The Revised Mosher Guilt Inventory was developed and reported subsequent to 1979, based on item analysis conducted on data collected around 1990 (given the 30+ year retrospective mentioned in the description).

Permissions & Fee: Information regarding current commercial permissions and fees is not provided in the source material.

Reference’s

• Green, S. E., & Mosher, D. L. (1985). A causal model of sexual arousal to erotic fantasies. The Journal of Sex Research, 21, 1–23.

• Kelley, K. (1985). Sex, sex guilt, and authoritarianism: Differences in responses to explicit heterosexual and masturbatory slides. The Journal of Sex Research, 21, 68–85.

• Mosher, D. L. (1961). The development and validation of a sentence com- pletion measure of guilt. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University, Columbus.

• Mosher, D. L. (1966). The development and multitrait-multimethod matrix analysis of three measures of three aspects of guilt. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 30, 35–39.

• Mosher, D. L. (1968). Measurement of guilt in females by self-report inventories. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 32, 690–695.

• Mosher, D. L. (1979). The meaning and measurement of guilt. In C. E. Izard (Ed.), Emotions in personality and psychopathology. New York: Plenum.

• Mosher, D. L., & O’Grady, K. E. (1979). Sex guilt, trait anxiety, and females’ subjective sexual arousal to erotica. Motivation and Emotion, 3, 235–249.

• Mosher, D. L., & Vonderheide, S. G. (1985). Contributions of sex guilt and masturbation guilt to women’s contraceptive attitudes and use. The Journal of Sex Research, 21, 24–39.

• O’Grady, K. E., & Janda, L. H. (1979). Factor analysis of the Mosher Forced-Choice Guilt Inventory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 47, 1131–1133.

• Tomkins, S. S. (1979). Script theory: Differential magnification of affects. In H. E. Howe, Jr., & R. A. Dienstbier (Eds.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 26, pp. 201–236). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Items of the Revised Mosher Guilt Inventory

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

I punish myself . . .

1. very infrequently.

2. when I do wrong and don’t get caught. When anger builds inside me . . .

3. I let people know how I feel.

4. I’m angry myself.

   “Dirty” jokes in mixed company . . .

5. do not bother me.

6. re something that make me very uncomfortable. Masturbation . . .

7. is wrong and will ruin you.

8. helps one feel eased and relaxed. I detest myself for . . .

9. nothing, I love life.

10. for my sins and failures.

    Sex relations before marriage . . .

11. should be permitted.

12. are wrong and immoral. Sex relations before marriage . . .

13. ruin many a happy couple

14. are good in my opinion. Unusual sexual practices . . .

15. might be interesting.

16. don’t interest me.

    When I have sexual dreams . . .

17. I sometimes wake up feeling excited.

18. I try to forget them. After an outburst of anger. . .

19. I am sorry and say so.

20. I usually feel quite a bit better. When I was younger, fighting . . .

21. didn’t bother me.

22. never appealed to me. Arguments leave me feeling . . .

23. depressed and disgusted.

24. elated at winning.

    “Dirty” jokes in mixed company . . .

25. are in bad taste.

26. can be funny depending on the company. I detest myself for . . .

27. nothing at present.

28. being so self-centered. When someone swears at me . . .

29. I swear back.

30. it usually bothers me even if I don’t show it. Petting . . .

31. I am sorry to say is becoming an accepted practice.

32. is an expression of affection which is satisfying. When I was younger, fighting . . .

33. disgusted me.

34. was always a thrill. Unusual sex practices . . .

35. are not so unusual.

36. don’t interest me.

    After a childhood fight, I felt . . .

37. good if I won, bad otherwise.

38. hurt and alarmed. After an argument . . .

39. I am sorry for my actions.

40. I feel mean. Sex . . .

41. is good and enjoyable.

42. should be saved for wedlock. and childbearing. After an outburst of anger . . .

43. I usually feel quite a bit better.

44. I feel ridiculous and sorry that I showed my emotions. After an argument . . .

45. I wish that I hadn’t argued.

46. I feel proud in victory, understanding in defeat. I detest myself for . . .

47. nothing, I love life.

48. not being more nearly perfect. A guilty conscience . . .

49. is worse than a sickness to me.

50. does not bother me too much. “Dirty jokes” in mixed company . . .

51. are coarse to say the least.

52. are lots of fun.

    When I have sexual desires . . .

53. I enjoy it like all healthy human beings.

54. I fight them for I must have complete control of my body. After an argument . . .

55. I am disgusted that I allowed myself to become involved.

56. I usually feel better. Obscene literature . . .

57. helps people become sexual partners.

58. should be freely published. One should not . . .

59. lose his temper.

60. say “one should not.” Unusual sexual practices . . .

61. are unwise and lead to trouble.

62. are all in how you look at it. Unusual sexual practices . . .

63. are OK as long as they’re hetersexual

64. Usually aren’t pleasurable because you have preconceived feelings about their being wrong.

    I regret . . .

65. all of my sins.

66. getting caught, but nothing else. Sex relations before marriage . . .

67. in my opinion, should not be practiced.

68. are practiced too much to be wrong. After an outburst of anger . . .

69. my tensions are relieved.

70. I am jittery and all keyed up. As a child, sex play . . .

71. is immature and ridiculous.

72. was indulged in. I punish myself . . .

73. by denying myself a privilege.

74. for very few things. Unusual sex practices . . .

75. are dangerous to one’s health and mental condition.

76. are the business of those who carry them out and no one else’s.

    Arguments leave me feeling . . .

77. depressed and disgusted.

78. proud, they certainly are worthwhile. After an argument . . .

79. I am disgusted that I let myself become involved.

80. I feel happy if I won and still stick to my own views if I lose. When I have sexual desires . . .

81. I attempt to repress them.

82. they are quite strong. Petting . . .

83. is not a good practice until after marriage.

84. is justified with love. After a childhood fight I felt . . .

85. as if I had done wrong.

86. like I was a hero.

    Sex relations before marriage . . .

87. help people adjust.

88. should not be recommended. If I robbed a bank . . .

89. I should get caught.

90. I would live like a king. After an argument . . .

91. I am sorry and see no reason to stay mad.

92. I feel proud in victory and under-standing in defeat. Masturbation . . .

93. is wrong and a sin.

94. is a normal outlet for sexual desire. After an argument . . .

95. I am sorry for my actions.

96. if I have won, I feel great. When anger builds inside me . . .

97. I always express it.

98. I usually take it out on myself. After a fight, I felt . . .

99. relieved.

100. it should have been avoided for nothing was accomplished.

     Masturbation . . .

101. is all right.

102. is a form of self destruction. Unusual sex practices . . .

103. are awful and unthinkable.

104. are all right if both partners agree. I detest myself for . . .

105. thoughts I sometimes have.

106. nothing, and only rarely dislike myself. If I had sexual relations, I would feel . . .

107. all right, I think.

108. I was being used not loved. Arguments leave me feeling . . .

109. exhausted.

110. satisfied usually. Masturbation . . .

111. is all right.

112. should not be practiced. After an argument . . .

113. it is best to apologize to clear the air.

114. I usually feel good if I won.