Psychopaths know right from wrong but don’t care

Cima, Maaike; Tonnaer, Franca; Hauser, Marc D.

doi:10.1093/scan/nsp051

Cited by 362Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual OffendingPsychology of Moral and Emotional JudgmentNeural and Behavioral Psychology Studies

Psychopaths know right from wrong but don’t care

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Cima, Maaike, Tonnaer, Franca, Hauser, Marc D.·2010·Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

DOI 10.1093/scan/nsp051PMC PMC2840845

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Abstract

Adult psychopaths have deficits in emotional processing and inhibitory control, engage in morally inappropriate behavior, and generally fail to distinguish moral from conventional violations. These observations, together with a dominant tradition in the discipline which sees emotional processes as causally necessary for moral judgment, have led to the conclusion that psychopaths lack an understanding of moral rights and wrongs. We test an alternative explanation: psychopaths have normal understanding of right and wrong, but abnormal regulation of morally appropriate behavior. We presented psychopaths with moral dilemmas, contrasting their judgments with age- and sex-matched (i) healthy subjects and (ii) non-psychopathic, delinquents. Subjects in each group judged cases of personal harms (i.e. requiring physical contact) as less permissible than impersonal harms, even though both types of harms led to utilitarian gains. Importantly, however, psychopaths' pattern of judgments on different dilemmas was the same as those of the other subjects. These results force a rejection of the strong hypothesis that emotional processes are causally necessary for judgments of moral dilemmas, suggesting instead that psychopaths understand the distinction between right and wrong, but do not care about such knowledge, or the consequences that ensue from their morally inappropriate behavior.

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The experimental tasks used might only partially involve the mental processes guiding real-life moral behavior.
“That is, the experimental tasks used might only partially involve the mental processes guiding real-life moral behavior (cf. Cima et al. 2010; Knutson et al. 2010; Young et al. 2010a).”
From Parsing the neural correlates of moral cognition: ALE meta-analysis on morality, theory of mind, and empathy (2012) · cites this paper as Cima et al. 2010

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Authors: Cima, M., Tonnaer, F., & Hauser, M. D.
Affiliations: Harvard University (US)
ORCID: Cima, Maaike
Tonnaer, Franca
Hauser, Marc D.
Venue: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published: 2010-01-06
Volume: 5
Issue: 1
Pages: 59-67
ISSN: 1749-5016 (ISSN-L)
1749-5024
DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsp051
PMC: PMC2840845
OpenAlex: W2130562555
Cited by: 362
References: 61
Citations by year: 2026: 4 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 46 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 38 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 30 · 2012: 13
FWCI: 26.07
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: hybrid
doi.org
Licence: cc-by-nc
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (vor, 2464 d)
Locations: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
Research portal (Tilburg University) (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders: National Science Foundation
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (451-05-020)
Topics: Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending
Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Keywords: psychopathy, moral judgment, ethical dilemmas, emotional processing, inhibitory control, moral regulation, utilitarianism, delinquents
MeSH terms: Adult, Analysis of Variance, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Behavior, Decision Making, Emotions, Humans, Judgment, Male, Morals, Psychological Tests, Chi-Square Distribution

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