It's immoral, but I'd do it! Psychopathy traits affect decision‐making in sacrificial dilemmas and in everyday moral situations

Abstract

This research investigated whether emotional hyporeactivity affects moral judgements and choices of action in sacrificial moral dilemmas and in everyday moral conflict situations in which harm to other's welfare is differentially involved. Twenty-six participants with high trait psychopathy (HP) and 25 with low trait psychopathy (LP) were selected based on the primary psychopathy scale of the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale. HP participants were more likely to sacrifice one person to save others in sacrificial dilemmas and to pursue a personal advantage in everyday moral situations entailing harm to another's good. While deciding in these situations, HP participants experienced lower unpleasantness as compared to LP participants. Conversely, no group differences emerged in choice of action and unpleasantness ratings for everyday moral situations that did not entail harm to others. Importantly, moral judgements did not differ in the two groups. These results suggest that high psychopathy trait affects choices of action in sacrificial dilemmas because of reduced emotional reactivity to harmful acts. The dissociation between choice of action and moral judgement suggests that the former is more closely related to emotional experience. Also, emotion seems to play a critical role in discriminating harmful from harmless acts and in driving decisions accordingly.

Will I Regret It? Anticipated Negative Emotions Modulate Choices in Moral Dilemmas

“…Furthermore, individuals with emotional hyporeactivity (e.g., participants with high psychopathy traits, or vmPFC impairments) show a higher endorsement of utilitarian options as compared to control participants (e.g., Koenigs et al, 2007, 2012; Moretto et al, 2010; Pletti et al, 2016). …”

Anticipation of guilt for everyday moral transgressions: The role of the anterior insula and the influence of interpersonal psychopathic traits

“…Yet, they do not appear to differ from individuals with low levels of these traits in relation to their moral judgment ability, i.e. the ability to judge whether an action is immoral or not3456789 (though see refs 10, 11 for exceptions). However, they do report less difficulty in making decisions when faced with moral dilemmas679 and present diminished neural responses in the amygdala and other regions typically associated with affective processing when they perform moral judgment tasks4581213.…”

“…the ability to judge whether an action is immoral or not3456789 (though see refs 10, 11 for exceptions). However, they do report less difficulty in making decisions when faced with moral dilemmas679 and present diminished neural responses in the amygdala and other regions typically associated with affective processing when they perform moral judgment tasks4581213. Atypical moral behaviour in these individuals seems to stem not from an inability to compute moral judgments, but rather from a disruption of the affective and motivational components of moral processing that may be important for adjusting one’s behaviour so as not to harm others31415.…”

Relations between forms and functions of aggression and moral judgments of aggressive transgressions

“…Studies using other moral reasoning measures, however, suggest a different pattern of effects. Studies of emerging adults have indicated that affective psychopathy is associated with utilitarian responses but not acceptability ratings in response to moral scenarios (Pletti et al, 2017; Tassy, Deruelle, Mancini, Leistedt, & Wicker, 2013). Another study of college students showed that aggression partially mediated the relation between psychopathic traits and utilitarian moral reasoning (Balash & Falkenbach, 2018).…”

“…Studies using emerging adult samples have shown mixed findings, but still provide evidence that the personality factor of psychopathy is associated with both proactive and reactive aggression, whereas the lifestyle factor of psychopathy is more strongly associated with merely reactive aggression (Falkenbach, Poythress, & Creevy, 2008;Ostrov & Houston, 2008;Reidy, Zeichner, Miller, & Martinez, 2007). In addition, previous literature has demonstrated a unique effect of the personality factor on morally relevant decisions and behaviors in young and middle-aged adults (Coyne & Thomas, 2008;Pletti, Lotto, Buodo, & Sarlo, 2017;Seara-Cardoso, Neumann, Roiser, McCrory, & Viding, 2012). We thus chose to solely focus on the personality factor of psychopathy, as the emotional desensitization inherent in the personality factor is a stable internal characteristic that may more directly be related to latent cognitive structures (e.g., worldviews) than a pattern of erratic behavior.…”