Morality, Risk-Taking and Psychopathic Tendencies: An Empirical Study

Frontiers in Psychology

Veljko Dubljević¹  Joseph Simons-Rudolph²  Sam Cacace³ 

[1] Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, United States;Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, United States;Department of Public Health Sciences, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States;

关键词: moral decision-making;    moral precepts;    risk-taking;    psychopathy;    preference for precepts implied in moral theories (PPIMT);   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2022.834734

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Research in empirical moral psychology has consistently found negative correlations between morality and both risk-taking, as well as psychopathic tendencies. However, prior research did not sufficiently explore intervening or moderating factors. Additionally, prior measures of moral preference (e.g., sacrificial dilemmas) have a pronounced lack of ecological validity. This study seeks to address these two gaps in the literature. First, this study used Preference for Precepts Implied in Moral Theories (PPIMT), which offers a novel, more nuanced and ecologically valid measure of moral judgment. Second, the current study examined if risk taking moderates the relationships between psychopathic tendencies and moral judgment. Results indicated that models which incorporated risk-taking as a moderator between psychopathic tendencies and moral judgment were a better fit to the data than those that incorporated psychopathic tendencies and risk-taking as exogenous variables, suggesting that the association between psychopathic tendencies and moral judgment is influenced by level of risk-taking. Therefore, future research investigating linkages between psychopathic tendencies and moral precepts may do well to incorporate risk-taking and risky behaviors to further strengthen the understanding of moral judgment in these individuals.

【 授权许可】

Unknown