Psychopathy and moral development: A comparative study of delinquent and nondelinquent youth

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Abstract
Sixty male adjudicated juvenile delinquents between the ages 14–17, and 20 nondelinquent controls were administered measures of moral reasoning, social convention understanding, interpersonal awareness, socialization, empathy, autonomy, and psychopathy in an effort to explore the relations between moral reasoning, moral sentiment, and antisocial behavior. Not only did the delinquent group evidence developmental delays on all of these direct and indirect tests of morality functioning, but their performance on certain of these measures also differentiated those offenders who were more or less psychopathic. By demonstrating the special contribution of measures of moral will or sentiment to the study of antisocial behavior, these findings serve to underscore the multidimensional character of moral development, and the complexity of the relations between thought and action.

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