Development and Validation of the miniMAC: A Psychometric Instrument for Assessing the Moral Domains of the Morality-as-Cooperation (MAC) Theory in Children

In moral psychology, developmental research shows that, from an early age, children can understand moral issues and engage in cooperative behavior. In recent decades, evolutionary approaches have gained prominence in the field, among them the Morality-as- Cooperation (MAC) theory, which understands morality as a set of solutions to cooperative problems, distributed across (at least) seven moral domains. Although MAC has robust evidence in adults and a validated instrument, the Morality-as-Cooperation Questionnaire (MAC-Q), there is still no adequate measure for children. This project, developed through international collaboration, aims to construct, validate, and apply the miniMAC, a child- adapted version of the MAC-Q, in approximately 640 children aged 8 to 12 years in Brazil and the United Kingdom. The study will follow a mixed-methods design, involving a literature review, item development and adaptation, expert evaluation, cognitive interviews, a pilot study, and psychometric validation. Data collection will take place in schools or online, with individual administration. The analyses will include qualitative and quantitative procedures, such as exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, reliability indices, and tests of cross-cultural invariance. The expected outcome is the availability of a novel instrument (in English and Portuguese) for the scientific community, empirical evidence on moral development, and data that may support the formulation of pedagogical practices and interventions in moral education.