The Relationship Between Age, Emerging Adulthood, Empathy, Moral Reasoning, and Dark Traits
Date
2-13-2024
Faculty Mentor
Heidi Dempsey, Psychology
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Submission Type
Conference Proceeding
Location
1:15-1:25pm | Houston Cole Library, 11th Floor
Description
The relationship between age and dark personality traits has only very recently begun to appear as a topic in personality research and the preliminary findings suggest that morality and empathy tend to increase with age (Abramson et al., 2022). Interestingly, at the same time, research has found an increase in Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism (dark traits) in adolescence with a peak in emerging adulthood (Klimstra et al., 2020). Further, Barlett and Barlett (2015) pointed out that the key characteristics of emerging adulthood could actually be better indications of presence of socially aversive traits than just using age itself. In the current study, we are examining the relationship between age, empathy, moral reasoning, dark traits, and indicators of participants’ perceived transition into adulthood. Empathy will be assessed using the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (Reniers et al., 2011) and moral reasoning will be assessed using a modified Kolhbergian framework (Brugman et al., 2023). The dark traits will be assessed using the SD-4 (Paulhus et al., 2021) and Dirty Dozen (Jonason & Webster, 2010). A short version of the Inventory of Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood questionnaire will be used to measure transitions into adulthood (Baggio et al., 2015). We hypothesize that the youngest college participants, and those lowest on dimensions of emerging adulthood, will score higher on dark personality characteristics and show lower levels of empathy and moral judgment than our oldest participants and those higher on emerging adulthood.
Keywords
student research, psychology
Rights
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Disciplines
Psychology
Recommended Citation
Fields, Harley; Helms, Haley; Robles, Katherine; Forehand, Kayleigh; Sheffield, Richard; and Powell, Rachel, "The Relationship Between Age, Emerging Adulthood, Empathy, Moral Reasoning, and Dark Traits" (2024). JSU Student Symposium 2024. 52.
https://digitalcommons.jsu.edu/ce_jsustudentsymp_2024/52