The Characteristics Of Moral Judgment And Psychological Mechanism Of Individuals With Psychopathy

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by an individual’s lack of empathy and guilt,weak emotions,and manipulative behavior.Severe psychopathy can accompany by premeditated and violent antisocial behavior.The essential distinguishing features of psychopathy are an increased risk of antisocial behavior accompanied by significant emotional deficits.Historically,psychopathy has derived from the concept of "moral madness." Early theories portrayed psychopaths as sadistic and immoral,but there is little research on the moral judgment of psychopaths.In this study,by combining relevant research,experimental research,and electrophysiological technology,we systematically discussed the moral judgment characteristics of individuals with psychopathic trait tendencies,which can be divided into five studies.In the first part of this study,the relationship between psychopathic traits and moral ability and moral judgment was investigated,and whether psychopathic traits affected the moral judgment of individuals was discussed.The second study examines the moral judgment characteristics of individuals with psychopathic traits in moral dilemmas.In the third study,the process separation technique and CNI moral model were further used to investigate the underlying psychological mechanism of moral judgment of individuals with psychopathic traits.In the fourth study,the ERP technology was used to further investigate the processing characteristics and cognitive neural mechanisms of the moral judgment of individuals with psychopathic trait tendencies.Through the above four studies,the following results are obtained:The results show that there is no significant difference in moral cognitive ability between individuals with high or low psychopathic trait tendency groups and there is a significant difference in moral emotional ability.Psychopathy(LPRS),primary psychopathy,and secondary psychopathy have no significant relationship with moral cognitive ability but have a significant negative correlation with moral emotion score.In the five basic areas of morality,psychopathic traits were significantly negatively correlated with caring/harm,fairness/deception,loyalty/betrayal,authority/disintegration,and the interaction between psychopathic traits and moral emotional ability affected the individual’s moral judgment of harm field.Second,in this study 2A,individuals with high psychopathic traits tend to make looser moral judgments when they are involved in moral dilemmas of low self.Psychopathic traits were significantly negatively correlated with empathy,viewpoint selection,imagination,compassion,and care,and significantly positively correlated with the dimension of personal pain.The fantasy factor in empathy affects the moral judgment of individuals with psychopathic traits on the ambiguous injury dilemma.In this study 2B,individuals with high psychopathic traits tend to accept more hurtful behaviors in moral dilemmas involving high self and make more utilitarian judgments in moral dilemmas,especially in non-personal dilemmas.In the third study,the process dissociation technique(PD)was used to further investigate the underlying psychological mechanism of moral judgment in individuals with psychopathic trait tendencies.The results further verified that individuals with high psychopathic traits tend to make more utilitarian moral judgments in moral dilemmas.Second,we found that the high psychopathic trait tendency group had significantly lower PD deontological tendency D(emotional response to injury)scores than the low psychopathic trait tendency group.There was no significant difference between the two groups in the U coefficient of PD utilitarianism(concern for moral outcome maximization).Studies have shown that individuals with high psychopathic traits tend to make more utilitarian judgments because their emotional response to harm is reduced and they do not pay more attention to moral outcome maximization.It further explains the contradictory results of the second study.The trait of high psychopathy tends to be influenced only by the weakened emotional response to harm,which increases the moral judgment of utilitarianism unintentionally.In the traditional moral dilemmas,individuals with high psychopathic traits did not increase their sensitivity to moral outcome maximization and inadvertently increased their rating of immoral behavior and made "more severe" moral judgments.Polynomial modeling was used to investigate the psychological mechanism behind the moral judgment of individuals with high psychopathic trait tendencies.A more comprehensive moral dilemma material is used,including both the normative prohibition of the dilemma and the normative permission of the dilemma,while separating out the influence factor of behavioral tendency.It was found that individuals with high psychopathic traits were less sensitive to moral norms(N)than individuals with a low psychopathic trait.There was no significant difference between the two groups in outcome sensitivity(C)and overall preference for act and omission(I).Individuals with high psychopathic trait tendencies did not increase their attention to moral results,and their general preference for act and omission was the same.Meanwhile,the reliability of the CNI moral judgment model was further verified.In the fourth study,ERP technology was used to further explore the time-processing characteristics of individuals with psychopathic traits to moral judgment.The results showed that the high psychopathic trait tendency group could accurately identify and process unethical and neutral words in the early 70～120 ms and 120～200ms in the process of moral judgment,and had the characteristics of non-specific moral judgment processing.P3 is associated with complex cognitive control processing.There are significant differences in the late positive components of moral judgment processing between the groups with high and low psychopathic trait tendency,and the average amplitude of electrode points in the prefrontal brain region of the group with low psychopathic trait tendency is significantly larger than that of the group with high psychopathic trait tendency.This result reflects on the neurophysiological level that individuals with high psychopathic traits tend to be less capable of suppressing irrelevant information than those with low inclination,which is also consistent with the behavioral manifestations of significant differences in error rate and response time in moral judgment tasks between the two groups.Individuals with high psychopathic traits have abnormal inhibitory and control abilities in the prefrontal cortex.The results show that psychopathy affects the moral judgment of individuals,but their specific manifestations have different characteristics.High psychopathic traits individuals tend to be more influenced by moral emotional factors in moral judgments.In moral dilemmas,individuals with high psychopathic traits individuals tend to be less disturbed by emotional responses to hurting others(deontological tendencies are reduced)and make more utilitarian moral judgments.From the level of cognitive nerve,it is also found that individuals with high psychopathic trait tendencies have abnormal inhibitory control ability in the prefrontal cortex.Individuals with high psychopathic trait tendencies can distinguish right from wrong,but there are certain abnormal manifestations in moral fine processing.Anyhow,psychopathic traits not only affect an individual’s judgment of immoral behavior may also influence their own choice.Cognitive neuroscience found psychopathic traits individuals also have the same brain abnormal inhibitory control ability,frontal brain regions may be the neural mechanisms underlying moral judgment affect the psychopathic traits subjects.Individuals with high psychopathic traits tended to have less connection with immoral behaviors and negative emotions.Our study confirms the high sub-clinical psychopathy traits individual prefrontal area may also exist inhibitory control ability and the abnormal emotion regulation may lead to the moral judgment of unethical behavior produce looser,less affected by negative emotional distress at the same time make the more utilitarian tendency to accept more hurting behavior.Frontal lobe dysfunction may influence the moral judgments of individuals with high psychopathic trait tendencies and lead them to be more likely to engage in unethical behavior in real life.This study provides some empirical evidence for the moral judgment of individuals with psychopathic trait tendencies.Schools and related intervention institutions should pay attention to screening persons with sub-clinical high psychopathic trait tendencies and promote the development of their moral judgment through moral emotion training.