Bridging the gap between moral judgment and antisocial behavior?

Abstract

The relationships between morality-related characteristics (moral judgment, moral value evaluation, moral identity and self-centeredness) and antisocial behavior are investigated using both production and recognition measures, because of an expected complimentary contribution. A sample of 295 adolescents (144 female; Mage = 15.66 years) participated in the research. First, the production tasks were administered; one week later the recognition tasks. Multitrait-multimethod analysis showed an overall acceptable convergent validity of the measures. Path analyses confirmed the mediating role of self-centeredness and moral value evaluation in the relationship between moral judgment and antisocial behavior - however not for moral identity - and demonstrated that a latent variables model, using both production and recognition measures, improved the strength of the relationships considerably. Multiple regression analyses showed that the causal relationships were in general in accordance with the proposed model. The implications of the findings for future research and clinical practice are discussed.