Abstract
Moral behavior involves both how people judge morally relevant situations and how they respond when self-interest conflicts with moral standards. The present study examined how personality traits, moral beliefs and attitudes, and moral disengagement were associated with moral judgment, low-stakes dishonest reporting, and self-reported antisocial behavior in an online adult sample (N = 279). Participants completed measures of Dark Tetrad traits, empathy, moral beliefs, moral disengagement, moral judgment, dishonest reporting, cyberaggression, and adult conduct problems. It was hypothesized that higher Dark Tetrad traits, moral disengagement, and relativism, along with lower empathy, moral identity, intrinsic religiosity, and idealism, would be associated with more permissive moral judgments, greater dishonest reporting, and higher antisocial behavior. Findings provided partial support for the study hypotheses. The strongest support emerged for antisocial behavior, particularly cyberaggression, which was uniquely associated with psychopathy, sadism, moral disengagement, moral identity, and intrinsic religiosity. Psychopathy also showed the most consistent association with adult conduct problems. Moral judgment findings were more task-specific, and dishonest reporting was rare, limiting conclusions about low-stakes dishonesty. Overall, the findings suggest that moral judgment, dishonest reporting, and antisocial behavior are related but distinct outcomes rather than one uniform pattern of moral decision-making.