Moral emotions in early childhood: Validation of the Chinese moral emotion questionnaire

Moral emotions such as pride, guilt and shame play an important role in the social-emotional development of preschool children. However, there are not many instruments available for measuring moral age. Moreover, relatively few research had examined cross-cultural validity measures emotions. The present study tested Chinese version emotion questionnaire (MEQ) upon a group (N = 182) children aged from 2 to 6 years. MEQ is parent-report translated Dutch, assessing behavioural responses Confirmatory factor analysis showed satisfactory goodness-of-fit indexes three-factor structure (Pride, Guilt, Shame) with 15 loading items. For concurrent relations, results suggested adaptive pride maladaptive We could conclude that 15-item valid reliable instrument guilt, 2–6-year-old context.