Psychopathy is a personality disorder frequently associated with immoral behaviors. Previous behavioral studies on the influence of psychopathy on moral decision have yielded contradictory results, possibly because they focused either on judgment (abstract evaluation) or on choice of hypothetical action, two processes that may rely on different mechanisms. In this study, we explored the influence of the level of psychopathic traits on judgment and choice of hypothetical action during moral dilemma evaluation. A population of 102 students completed a questionnaire with (...) ten moral dilemmas and nine non-moral dilemmas. The task included questions targeting both judgment (“Is it acceptable to … in order to …?”) and choice of hypothetical action (“Would you … in order to …?”). The level of psychopathic traits of each participant was evaluated with the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy (LSRP) scale. Logistic regression fitted with the generalized estimating equations method analyses were conducted using responses to the judgment and choice tasks as the dependent variables and psychopathy scores as predictor. Results show that a high level of psychopathic traits, and more specifically those related to affective deficit, predicted a greater proportion of utilitarian responses for the choice but not for the judgment question. There was no first-order interaction between the level of psychopathic traits and other potential predictors. The relation between a high level of psychopathic traits and increased utilitarianism in choice of action but not in moral judgment may explain the contradictory results of previous studies where these two processes were not contrasted. It also gives further support to the hypothesis that choice of action endorsement and abstract judgment during moral dilemma evaluation are partially distinct neural and psychological processes. We propose that this distinction should be better taken into account in the evaluation of psychopathic behaviors. (shrink)

‘Dira’ is a novel experimental paradigm to record combinations of behavioural and metacognitive measures for the creative process. This task allows assessing chronological and chronometric aspects of the creative process directly and without a detour through creative products or proxy phenomena. In a study with 124 participants we show that (a.) people spend more time attending to selected versus rejected potential solutions, (b.) there is a clear connection between behavioural patterns and self-reported measures, (c.) the reported intensity of Eureka experiences (...) is a function of interaction time with potential solutions, and (d.) experiences of emerging solutions can happen immediately after engaging with a problem, before participants explore all potential solutions. The conducted study exemplifies how ‘Dira’ can be used as an instrument to narrow down the moment when solutions emerge. We conclude that the ‘Dira’ experiment is paving the way to study the process, as opposed to the product, of creative problem solving. (shrink)

The paper presents data collected using measures of personality, Islamic religiosity, psychological well-being, unethical behavior, and dark triad traits. The sample consists 277 Bruneian Malay Muslim university students. The participants were sampled at a public university in Brunei. Through cooperation with faculty members, a link to the online questionnaire was posted on the learning management system platform. The targeted population was informed they were invited to participate voluntarily, and all information would be confidential. Completed questionnaires were submitted by 171 females (...) and 106 males. The age ranged between 18 and 30 years old (M = 19.62, SD = 1.65). This data article presented the demographic characteristics of participants, followed by descriptive statistics of the measures concerning primarily personality and Islamic religiosity, followed by brief measures of psychological nature specifically psychological well-being, unethical behavior, and dark triad traits. Reliability and correlation details of measures were also provided. The comprehensive data, as detailed out in this paper, has various potential for further research and analyses by researchers who are interested in the measures and data presented. (shrink)

Since children with a parent suffering from depression are at heightened risk of developing psychiatric disorders themselves, they are a target group for preventive interventions and as such a major public health priority. The cognitive-behavioural, family-, and group-based prevention program “Raising Healthy Children” has shown promising findings in reducing the prevalence of depression and general psychopathology in a sample of children of depressed parents in the United States of America. The overarching aim of the current thesis is the evaluation of (...) a German adaption of RHC prevention program. The current study is in this form unique, because the program was not evaluated yet outside the research group on an international level. In the first step I investigated whether the psychopathology of children of depressed parents is associated with parental depression, number of stressful experiences the child experienced and the parental socio-economic status. For baseline differences, data of 77 families were available, which were included in the analyses. There was no evidence that children of depressed parents differ at baseline in depressive symptoms in relation to parent depression severity, number of depressive episodes, the number of stressful experiences or the SES. But evidence emerged that offspring’s externalising problem behaviour is related to the number of parental depressive episodes, and offspring’s general psychopathology is related to the number of stressful life events. No relation between SES and offspring’s mental health could be demonstrated. In a second step, I examined whether the prevention program is effective in reducing child’s depression in the short-term. By investigating preliminary data on incidence of depression at 15 months after baseline, I also investigated the extent to which the intervention prevented depression in the long-term. Further key aims were to see whether the program is effective in reducing child’s general psychopathology, and whether the program is effective in enhancing child’s knowledge of depression as well as whether it is effective in changing the parenting style in a positive direction in the short- and medium-term. The study was conducted as randomised controlled trial. The 77 families were randomised to receive the twelve session intervention vs. waiting list. Intervention outcomes suggested that the program has positive effects from child’s perspective on child’s internalising and mixed psychopathological symptoms. However, the parental view did not confirm these findings. Parent reports indicate that independent of group both symptom scales improved over a period of nine months. No evidence was found that the program shows benefits on child’s depression, knowledge of depression or child’s perception of parenting style. The knowledge of depression rather enhanced in short-term independent of participation. A feedback evaluation suggested that the general acceptability of the prevention program is high. The baseline findings indicate that the psychopathology of children of depressed parents is influenced by some, but not all, parental factors. Although I could not demonstrate the prevention effect of the program for depression prevention, I could show that some general psychopathological symptoms of children can be reduced by the program. The study provides an important step in the development of more effective prevention, which is exigently required. (shrink)