According to a new study, an individual would give up one individual to spare a bigger gathering of and the energy required for it could be anticipated by psychopathic qualities.
Psychopathy is commonly referred as an antisocial behavior and impaired empathy. People with such qualities think that it’s less sincerely difficult to authorize utilitarian activities.
In this study, scientists used virtual-haptic technologies like a robotic device to measure force, resistance, and speed. They then compared what people ‘said’ they would do with what they actually ‘did’ by comparing a questionnaire with actions in the immersive moral crisis.
During several dilemmas, scientists asked participants to decide whether to sacrifice a person by performing a harmful action against them, in order to save a larger group of people.
All participants seem to sacrifice others during such conditions than in questionnaire-based assessments. In questionnaire-based assessments, people with strong psychopathic traits were more likely to generate these harmful actions with greater physical power.
Dr Francis, a Postdoctoral Fellow said, “This research highlights our proneness to moral inconsistency; what we say and what we do can be very different. For the first time, we demonstrate how personality traits can influence the physical power of our moral actions. Importantly, the multidisciplinary approaches that we have used here, combining virtual reality, robotics, and interactive sculpture, places further emphasis on the need to unite the sciences and the arts when investigating complex phenomena such as morality.”
During the study, the versatility of performing effectively hurtful acts empowered psychopathic people to save the many. Means, in certain circumstances, psychopathic traits could be considered beneficial as they lead to a more vigorous response.
Dr. Sylvia Terbeck, Lecturer in Social Psychology said, “This study opens up the possibility to assess psychopathy using novel virtual reality technology, which is vital to better understand how and why people with these behavioral traits act in certain ways.”
Dr. Ian Howard, Associate Professor in the social behavior.”