Psychopathy, moral emotions, and aggression: The moderating role of moral disengagement.

Objective: Psychopathic traits (callousness, egocentricity, and antisociality) have been long associated with aggression, but these relationships may vary depending on the type of aggression (proactive or reactive). Additionally, the experience of guilt, shame, and moral disengagement may help explain these associations. The present study examined whether the evaluative and action tendency components of guilt and shame explained the relationships between psychopathic traits and aggression subtypes, and if moral disengagement moderated these relationships. Moral disengagement was expected to strengthen the relationships between psychopathic traits and aggression both (a) directly and (b) indirectly by strengthening the negative association between psychopathic traits and moral emotions. Method: For this cross-sectional study, 333 general community participants (Mage = 31.5) were recruited, and they completed an online Qualtrics survey. Parallel mediation (Model 4) and moderated mediation models (Model 8) were tested with PROCESS macro. Results: Callousness and egocentricity were linked to proactive aggression, with these relationships strengthening as moral disengagement increased. Conversely, these traits were primarily related to reactive aggression at high levels of moral disengagement. Antisocial traits were positively linked to both types of aggression, with moral disengagement specifically enhancing the association with proactive aggression. Mostly shame, as opposed to guilt, explained the associations between psychopathic traits and both proactive and reactive aggression, with some variations depending on the specific facet. Conclusions: These findings indicate that psychopathic traits have varying associations with different types of aggression and that these relationships may be differentially facilitated and explained by morally relevant constructs.