The Role of Empathy and Alexithymia in Moral Reasoning of Psychopaths

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by affective, interpersonal, and behavioural problems. The current study aims to examine the role of psychopaths’ emotional deficiencies in their moral reasoning. We hypothesized that psychopathy severity predicts utilitarian decisions (1), empathy (2), and alexithymia (3) and that the relationship between psychopathy severity and utilitarian decision-making is mediated by empathy (4) and alexithymia (5). A total of 20 PCL-R confirmed psychopaths psychiatric inpatients were recruited from five different psychiatric hospitals in the Netherlands. Empathy and alexithymia were measured using the IRI and TAS-20 questionnaires. Each participant was shown 12 fictional moral dilemmas to which a utilitarian (greater good-sacrificial) or deontological (harm-avoiding) action had to be chosen. Contrary to expectations (1), results showed that psychopathy severity was negatively related to utilitarian decision-making (β = -.49, p = .030), with...Show morePsychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by affective, interpersonal, and behavioural problems. The current study aims to examine the role of psychopaths’ emotional deficiencies in their moral reasoning. We hypothesized that psychopathy severity predicts utilitarian decisions (1), empathy (2), and alexithymia (3) and that the relationship between psychopathy severity and utilitarian decision-making is mediated by empathy (4) and alexithymia (5). A total of 20 PCL-R confirmed psychopaths psychiatric inpatients were recruited from five different psychiatric hospitals in the Netherlands. Empathy and alexithymia were measured using the IRI and TAS-20 questionnaires. Each participant was shown 12 fictional moral dilemmas to which a utilitarian (greater good-sacrificial) or deontological (harm-avoiding) action had to be chosen. Contrary to expectations (1), results showed that psychopathy severity was negatively related to utilitarian decision-making (β = -.49, p = .030), with higher PCL-R scores reflecting lower percentages of utilitarian decisions on moral dilemmas. All other hypotheses were not supported, as psychopathy severity was not related to any empathy subscale (2) β ranging from <∣.01∣ to ∣.35∣, p > .05) or alexithymia subscale (3) (β ranging from ∣.16∣ to ∣.30∣, p > .05), and no mediation effects were found for either empathy (4) (β ranging from <∣.01∣ to ∣.23∣, BCIs contain 0) or alexithymia (5) (β ranging from ∣.01∣ to ∣.04∣, BCIs contain 0). A possible explanation for the contradictory finding that higher scoring psychopaths make fewer utilitarian decisions is the study setting. Despite the study data being used solely for academic purposes, participants might feel a need to ‘’fake good’’ to nonetheless avoid any negative evaluations that might affect their sentence. Furthermore, the inability to detect any mediative effects might be due to the current studies limited sample size. This made it unfeasible for analyses to differentiate the variables psychopathy and moral reasoning into potentially meaningful subcategories. Future studies should examine how these subcategories relate to moral decision-making. Additionally, it is recommended to make further efforts to minimize the perceived need to fake good, to further investigate the counterintuitive finding that higher scoring psychopaths display more harm-avoiding moral reasoning than lower scoring psychopaths.Show less

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The Role of Empathy and Alexithymia in Moral Reasoning of Psychopaths