Recent research has documented a small but significant correlation between psychopathic capacities and utilitarian moral judgment, although the findings are generally inconsistent and unclear. We propose that one way to make sense of mixed findings is to consider variation in perspective-taking capacities of psychopathic individuals. With this in mind, we had criminal offenders (n = 60), who varied in their psychopathy levels according to the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), respond to common sacrificial moral dilemmas (e.g., trolley dilemmas) under different conditions. In a baseline condition, participants simply responded to the sacrificial moral dilemmas as is typically done in previous research. In an “emotion-salient” condition, participants had to reason about the emotions of another person after solving moral dilemmas (deliberative processing). In the “emotion-ambiguous” condition, participants saw images of people in distress, after solving moral dilemmas, but did not have to explicitly reason about such emotions (spontaneous processing). The four PCL-R facets predicted distinct interference effects depending on spontaneous versus deliberative processing of hypothetical victim's emotions. The findings suggest that the use of a multi-faceted approach to account for cognitive and moral correlates of psychopathy may help address previously mixed results. Implications and future directions for theory and research are discussed.

中文翻译：

---

理性、感性，还是两者兼而有之？精神病的子组成部分预测相反的道德决定


最近的研究记录了心理变态能力和功利主义道德判断之间存在微小但显着的相关性，尽管研究结果通常不一致且不清楚。我们建议，理解混合研究结果的一种方法是考虑精神病患者的观点采择能力的差异。考虑到这一点，我们有刑事犯罪者（ n = 60），根据精神病态检查表修订版（PCL-R），他们的精神病态水平有所不同，在不同的条件下对常见的牺牲道德困境（例如，电车困境）做出反应。在基线条件下，参与者只是像以前的研究中通常所做的那样对牺牲道德困境做出反应。在“情绪突出”的情况下，参与者在解决道德困境后必须推理另一个人的情绪（深思熟虑的处理）。在“情绪模糊”的情况下，参与者在解决道德困境后看到陷入困境的人的图像，但不必明确地推理这种情绪（自发处理）。 PCL-R 的四个方面预测了不同的干扰效应，具体取决于假设受害者情绪的自发处理与深思熟虑的处理。研究结果表明，使用多方面的方法来解释精神病态的认知和道德相关性可能有助于解决以前混合的结果。讨论了理论和研究的意义和未来方向。