Trait psychopathy and utilitarian moral judgement: The mediating role of action aversion

Patil, Indrajeet

doi:10.1080/20445911.2015.1004334

Cited by 103 publications

(127 citation statements)

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“…Recent reports indicate that political conservatives are more likely to condemn the sacrifice of an innocent victim when it is motivated by the greater good (Graham et al, 2017;Piazza & Sousa, 2014). This result is straightforwardly predicted by a structural approach, since the moral condemnation of these canonically harmful actions rests on an aversion to the action of causing upclose personal harm (Miller et al, 2014;Patil, 2015). Critically, we also examined participants' concern for each of the five moral foundations.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 94%

“…In other words, we evaluate whether an action is right or wrong for somebody else by considering our feelings about performing the action ourselves, a process which we have termed "evaluative simulation" (Hannikainen, 2014;Miller & Cushman, 2013). Consistent with this proposal, past research finds that the condemnation of thirdparty behavior is driven by individual differences in the aversion to the equivalent first-person action (Lieberman & Lobel, 2012;Miller et al, 2014;Patil, 2015). We predict that conservative participants will report greater reliance on this approach to moral judgment than will liberal participants.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Act versus Impact: Conservatives and liberals exhibit different structural emphases in moral judgment

Hannikainen¹

2017

Preprint

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Conservatives and liberals disagree sharply on matters of morality and public policy. We propose a novel account of the psychological basis of these differences. Specifically, we find that conservatives tend to emphasize the intrinsic value of actions during moral judgment, in part by mentally simulating themselves performing those actions, while liberals instead emphasize the value of the expected outcomes of the action. We then demonstrate that a structural emphasis on actions is linked to the condemnation of victimless crimes, a distinctive feature of conservative morality. Next, we find that the conservative and liberal structural approaches to moral judgment are associated with their corresponding patterns of reliance on distinct moral foundations. In addition, the structural approach uniquely predicts that conservatives will be more opposed to harm in circumstances like the wellknown trolley problem, a result which we replicate. Finally, we show that the structural approaches of conservatives and liberals are partly linked to underlying cognitive styles (intuitive versus deliberative). Collectively, these findings forge a link between two important yet previously independent lines of research in political psychology: cognitive style and moral foundations theory.

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Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Act versus Impact: Conservatives and liberals exhibit different structural emphases in moral judgment

Hannikainen¹

2017

Preprint

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“…When confronted with Footbridge‐like and Trolley‐like dilemmas, individuals with high psychopathy traits report they would perform the action of sacrificing one person to a greater extent than individuals with low psychopathy traits (Bartels & Pizarro, ; Glenn, Koleva, & Iyer, ; Koenigs, Kruepke, Zeier, & Newman, ; Tassy, Deruelle, Mancini, Leistedt, & Wicker, ), a result that is consistent with the assumption that the aversive emotional response to harmful acts is weak or even absent in these participants. Moral judgements, instead, do not seem to be affected by psychopathy levels, as participants with high trait psychopathy do not judge sacrificing one person as more morally acceptable than participants with low trait psychopathy (Cima, Tonnaer, & Hauser, ; Glenn, Raine, Schug, Young, & Hauser, ; Tassy, Deruelle, et al ., ; but see Patil, ). Such results could be explained by hypothesizing that with no emotional response informing on the rightness of action, individuals with psychopathy would produce altered choice of action, but normal moral judgement through preserved perspective‐taking processes (Glenn et al ., ; Tassy, Deruelle, et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Pletti

Lotto

Buodo

et al. 2016

British J of Psychology

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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.

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“…23 That is, males may be more likely to seek out causing harm whereas females may allow harm to happen but do not look for opportunities to harm. In addition, recent research has found that individuals higher in psychopathy (particularly affective traits) have reduced aversion to performing harmful actions (action aversion), 24 potentially due to problems in reinforcement learning. 2 Women in general report higher aversion to engaging in harmful action compared with men, 24,25 which further suggests that the relationship between psychopathy and the harm foundation might be different between genders.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of gender on the relationship between psychopathy and five moral foundations

Efferson

Glenn

Remmel

et al. 2017

Personality and Mental Health

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Previous research has demonstrated that individuals higher in psychopathy are less concerned about preventing harm and preserving fairness than individuals lower in psychopathy, yet it is unclear whether this is true for both genders. Females have been shown to be more concerned about moral issues related to preventing harm, being fair and maintaining purity, and males are more concerned about in-group loyalty and respecting authority. In addition, females on average are more empathic, less willing to cause harm and may be less sensitive to fairness. The goal of this study was to examine gender's influence on the relationship between psychopathy and five moral foundations. In a large online sample, we found that although gender moderated the relationship between psychopathy and harm and fairness, the magnitude of these interactions was small. The main effects of gender and of psychopathy support previous research. Overall, females were more concerned than males about preventing harm. Both males and females scoring higher in psychopathy were less concerned about harm and fairness than those lower in psychopathy. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Trait psychopathy and utilitarian moral judgement: The mediating role of action aversion

Cited by 103 publications

References 109 publications

Act versus Impact: Conservatives and liberals exhibit different structural emphases in moral judgment

Act versus Impact: Conservatives and liberals exhibit different structural emphases in moral judgment

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

The influence of gender on the relationship between psychopathy and five moral foundations

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