Development and Validation of Moral Concern for Robot Scale (MCRS)

This study discusses the moral concern exhibited toward the robots that are being introduced into society. Although much debate has focused on whether robots should be granted moral status, some of us do show concern for them as moral patients. We conducted three surveys in creating and validating a new scale called Moral Concern for Robot Scale (MCRS), designed to measure such concern. In Study 1, we created an initial version of MCRS, confirmed its content validity by experts, and explored its factor structure with 500 participants. We verified the three-factor structure derived in Study 1 by a confirmatory factor analysis in Study 2 (n = 500). Study 2 also confirmed construct validity by authenticating correlations with other measures that were predicted to be theoretically relevant. Study 3 (n = 500) confirmed predictive validity using experimental vignette methodology. Specifically, MCRS positively influenced the willingness to engage in prosocial behavior toward a robot and better predicted it than other relevant scales. From the overall results, MCRS is demonstrated to be a valid and reliable instrument.