E-ISSN : 2733-4538
The purpose of this study was to understand cognitive and emotional processes related to unethical behaviors of psychopaths. This study conducted experiments to verify the hypothesis that the degree of unethical decision making would differ depending on strength of moral emotions and cues of moral disengagement people with psychopathic tendency may experience in the situation of moral dilemmas. The psychopathic tendency group and the control group participated in an experiment. After identifying a psychopathic tendency group and a normal control group, the authors assigned these two groups with examination of moral dilemmas that strength of moral emotions and the cues of moral disengagement are controlled. The major findings of this study were as follows. First, there were main effects of group, strength of moral emotions, and cues of moral disengagement. Second, the three-way interaction effect of group (psychopathic tendency vs normal control), strength of moral emotions (stronger vs weaker), and condition of moral disengagement cues (present vs absent) were identified. Finally, on the basis of the above results, the implications and limitations of this research were discussed and future research direction were proposed.
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