Social Psychology Commons^™

The Relationships Between Psychopathy, Empathy, And Everyday Moral Decision Making In An Undergraduate Sample, Justin D. Kemple

Honors College Theses

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by interpersonal manipulation, callous affect, erratic lifestyle, and criminal tendencies. Past research has shown that individuals high in psychopathy feel less empathy than those lower in psychopathy, and that individuals higher in psychopathy sometimes show impaired morality on moral decision making tasks. This study examined the relationships between psychopathy, empathy, and everyday moral decision making; it was hypothesized that individuals higher in total psychopathy, interpersonal manipulation, and callous affect would score lower on empathic concern and feelings of wrongness and guilt when completing a moral dilemma task. To test this hypothesis, 190 undergraduate participants …