Personality and Individual Differences 67 (2014) 11–16 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid The Dark Triad of personality and utilitarian moral judgment: The mediating role of Honesty/Humility and Harm/Care ⇑ Hakim Djeriouat , Bastien Trémolière University of Toulouse, France article info abstract Article history: Recent research on moral judgment has highlighted that socially aversive personality styles are linked to Received 20 March 2013 a utilitarian inclination in sacrificial dilemmas. The present research aims at extending these findings by Received in revised form 31 December 2013 testing some potential mediating factors, namely Honesty/Humility and Harm/Care. Our results showed Accepted 31 December 2013 that the Dark Triad of personality was positively related to utilitarianism and Harm/Care and Honesty/ Available online 27 January 2014 Humility negatively mediated this relationship, revealing that utilitarian inclinations are expressed by a lower concern for the no-harm principle and for prosocial behaviors. Among the Dark Triad, psychop- Keywords: athy appeared to be the only independent predictor of Harm/Care and utilitarianism, suggesting a stron- Dark Triad ger predictive value of psychopathy in explaining utilitarian judgment. Taken together, the results Utilitarian judgment HEXACO suggest that utilitarian inclination could arise from an inhibition of moral deontism. Honest–Humility Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Harm/Care 1. Introduction shown to generate higher utilitarian inclinations (Paxton, Ungar, & Greene, 2011). Moreover, the utilitarian option is consistently At the end of the movie Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, Mr. found to be more morally acceptable for individuals exhibiting Spock makes the self-sacrificing decision to enter the starship’s higher working memory capacities (Moore, Clark, & Kane, 2008). radioactive engine room with the aim of fixing the warp drive. The fact that utilitarianism stems from controlled processes has When Captain Kirk asks him why, Mr. Spock replies that the needs led some scientist to contend that it is the optimal moral judgment of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. Mr. Spock’s (see Greene et al., 2009). moral reasoning is a clear-cut illustration of utilitarianism insofar It is worth noting that utilitarianism does not exclusively as the sacrificial action is designed to maximize the aggregate originate from deliberative processing, the same pattern of judg- well-being. This reasoning contrasts with a deontic approach ment can also be observed in people with emotional and deci- according to which nothing justifies the violation of a basic moral sion-making deficiencies. Neuroscience research has revealed rule, like taking an innocent life, regardless of the goodness of the that patients with damage to the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex consequences. (vmPFC) show a greater preference for utilitarianism in moral The introduction of sacrificial dilemma scenarios have illus- judgments (Koenigs et al., 2007). Reduced connectivity in vmPFC trated that moral decisions are affected by both emotion and reason is a neurobiological characteristic of clinical psychopaths (see (Greene, Nystrom, Engell, Darley, & Cohen, 2004). Specifically, Motzkin, Newman, Kiehl, & Koenigs, 2011). However, no relation- deontic responses (e.g., it is not morally acceptable to kill 1 in order ships between psychopathy and utilitarian responses to personal to save 5) are assumed to rely on intuitive/emotional processing, moral dilemmas were observed (Glenn, Raine, Schug, Young, & while utilitarian responses (e.g., it is morally acceptable to kill 1 Hauser, 2009). In addition, psychopathic offenders did not report in order to save 5) are assumed to emerge from a colder, delibera- significantly more utilitarian preferences than both non-psycho- tive processing. Consistent with these perspectives, utilitarian pathic offenders and healthy control subjects in personal dilemmas judgments are predicted by a rational thinking style rather than (Cima, Tonnaer, & Hauser, 2010). Conversely, low-anxious an intuitive thinking style (Bartels, 2008). Besides, experimentally psychopaths were found to endorse more the utilitarian solution induced reflectiveness prior to moral dilemma questions have been to personal dilemmas than high-anxious psychopaths and non- psychopaths (Koenigs, Kruepke, Zeier, & Newman, 2012). At the subclinical level, interpersonally aversive traits like subclinical ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Department of Psychology, University of psychopathy and Machiavellianism were associated to a higher Toulouse 2, Maison de la recherché, 5 Allées Antonio machado, 31058 Toulouse utilitarian inclination (Bartels & Pizarro, 2011). For the first time, Cedex 9, France. Tel./fax: +33 5 61 50 35 43. E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Djeriouat). 0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.12.026 12 H. Djeriouat, B. Trémolière / Personality and Individual Differences 67 (2014) 11–16 Bartels and Pizzaro showed that, at the subclinical level, emotion- range of social behaviors that were not satisfactorily captured by ally callous personalities are more prone to utilitarianism. agreeableness and the other B5 traits (Lee & Ashton, 2005). The The mixed results reported herein do not afford evidence Honesty/Humility factor structure embraces various facets such regarding the specific type of emotional deficit that could lie be- as fairness, modesty, honesty, and greed-avoidance (Ashton & hind utilitarian inclination (i.e., lack of empathy, guilt) (Cima Lee, 2007). Honesty/Humility appears to be a positive correlate of et al., 2010). Moral decisions based on the perspective of hurting preference for ethical business decisions (Lee, Ashton, Morrison, or killing someone raise the question of one’s ability to experience Cordery, & Dunlop, 2008), for fair allocations in the dictator and social and moral emotions. As essential attributes of subclinical the ultimatum games (Hilbig & Zettler, 2009), and for a cooperative aversive personalities, there are a lack of empathy (Jonason & Kra- choice in a prisoner dilemma game (Zettler, Hilbig, & Heydasch, use, 2013) and a lack of prosociality (Jonason, Li, & Teicher, 2010). 2013). Conversely, a low degree of Honesty/Humility predicts A relative inability to be prosocially concerned and to be morally workplace delinquency (Lee, Ashton, & de Vries, 2005), and sexual disturbed in response to someone else’s suffering or killing may harassment tendencies (Lee, Gizzarone, & Ashton, 2003). In addi- influence responses to moral dilemmas. In line with this rationale, tion, a low level of Honesty/Humility seems to be consistent with the present research focuses on the Dark Triad of personality (Paul- manipulative and exploitative proclivities (Ashton & Lee, 2007). hus & Williams, 2002) and on its interplays with prosocial orienta- This description is corroborated by the observed inverse relation- tions (Honesty/Humility) and with a moral group of virtue ships between the Dark Triad traits and Honesty/Humility (see Jon- concerned with empathy (Harm/Care). ason & McCain, 2012; Lee & Ashton, 2005). In sum, a low honesty/ humility level is related to poor altruistic and prosocial concerns. 1.1. The Dark Triad of Personality and Utilitarian judgment Because it mirrors some attributes of the Dark Triad traits, a low Honesty/Humility level should be more likely to be connected with The Dark Triad includes psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and utilitarianism. narcissism. Subclinical psychopathy involves thrill seeking im- Further than the critical importance of subclinical traits and pulses, emotional insensitivity, deceitfulness, and remorselessness personality factors in understanding utilitarian judgment, a spe- (LeBreton, Binning, & Adorno, 2006). Machiavellianism is com- cific attention should be paid to individual differences in moral val- monly associated with manipulative and deceptive proclivities, ues that orient decisions. Moral foundations theory provides a set cynical worldviews, and a disregard for conventional morality of psychological conformations upon which human societies erect (Christie & Geis, 1970). The latter is widely portrayed as an exag- their moral standards (Haidt & Graham, 2007). Among these five gerated feeling of superiority, a high level of self-centeredness ecumenical categories, Harm/Care is of critical interest in context and self-love. of sacrificial dilemmas. Indeed, it accounts for our evolutionary ac- The issue of dealing with the Dark Triad of personality as a uni- quired ability to be empathetic and to be attached to the protection tary construct or as separate dimensions has been contentious of people’s physical integrity. It entails the sense of compassion, since its introduction (see Furnham, Richards, & Paulhus, 2013). the ability to feel the pain and the suffering of others. Evidence for unification is supported by evolutionary arguments Recent findings showed that deontic and utilitarian choices are according to which the Dark Triad traits are associated with adap- not inversely related (Conway & Gawronski, 2013). More specifi- tive mating strategies (Jonason & Buss, 2012; Jonason, Li, Webster, cally, some people may have a relative and ambivalent preference & Schmitt, 2009; Jonason, Luévano, & Adams, 2012). Indeed, the for the utilitarian option without categorically thinking