<p>The Characteristics of Moral Judgment of Psychopaths: The Mediating Effect of the Deontological Tendency</p>

Abstract

Purpose: Many studies explore the relationship between moral judgment and psychopathy in western culture, but the mechanism underlying this relationship remains unclear. By far, no research about this topic in the background of Chinese culture exists. In the current study, we adopt one of the creative process-dissociation approaches to explore the relationship between the psychopath and moral judgment. Methods: Adopt the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathic Scale, the Chinese version of Interpersonal Reactivity and Process-dissociation approach to explore the relationship between the psychopath and moral judgment. Results: Traditional utilitarian moral score of the high psychopathy group are significantly higher than that of low psychopathy group (t= 2.97, p<0.05), people with high psychopathy utilitarian tendency U factor score and people with low psychopathy have no significant difference (F= 0.85, p = 0.36). Conclusion: Individuals with high psychopathy tend to make fewer deontological moral judgments because of their decreased deontological tendencies rather than their increased utilitarian tendencies. They may make more acceptance choices not to increase the wellbeing of the majority of people, but because of their increased acceptance of hurting others in the moral dilemma.

Effect of subclinical depression on moral judgment dilemmas: a process dissociation approach

“…This evidence supports that a bias to utilitarian consideration contributes to moral judgment as the brain’s emotional system is impaired 11 . Similar findings have been reported in subclinical populations with emotional deficits that predict utilitarian judgement 12 , such as individuals with high levels of alexithymia 13 .…”

Would you? Effects of oxytocin on moral choices in forensic psychopathic patients

“…It is argued that these deficiencies diminish the automatic emotional processes, causing a bias towards the controlled cognitive processes, favoring utilitarian choices. This is however only confirmed in relation to psychopathic traits in community samples [ [29] , [30] , [31] ] while studies in confirmed psychopathic individuals show mixed results [ 32 , 33 ], which is arguably due to the different levels of emotion associated with utilitarian behavior in these studies.…”