ArticleFrontiers in psychology2026
The mediating role of moral disengagement in the relationship between dark personality trait and perceptions for female performance athletes: the role of age, gender, and physical activity level.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Purpose: The aim of this study is to examine the mediating role of moral disengagement in the effect of dark personality trait on perceptions of female performance athletes, and to test whether this relationship differs according to gender, age, and physical activity level. Methods: The study was conducted with 726 volunteer participants (362 men, 364 women; age range 18-56; X¯ = 22.59 ± 5.85) collected online using a convenience sampling method. Data were obtained using a Personal Information Form created by the researchers, the Short Dark Triad (SD3-T) Scale, the Moral Disengagement Scale, and the Perception Scale for Female Performance Athletes. Normality and outlier analyses were performed prior to the analysis, and no outliers were detected. Results: Correlation findings showed a significant positive correlation between dark personality and moral disengagement; and a significant negative correlation between both variables and perceptions of female performance athletes (p < 0.01). Mediation and moderation effects were tested using SPSS PROCESS Macro with a sample of 5,000 bootstraps. In the mediation analysis, it was found that dark personality increases moral disengagement, and moral disengagement decreases perception. When moral disengagement was included in the mediation model, the direct effect of dark personality on perception decreased but remained significant. The indirect effect was confirmed by the bootstrap confidence interval not including zero. In moderation analyses, interactions for gender and physical activity level were not found to be significant, while the interaction for age was found to be significant; simple slope analyses showed that the negative effect of dark personality on perception strengthened with increasing age. Conclusion: In conclusion, the findings suggest that individuals with dark personality traits utilize moral disengagement strategies to justify negative evaluations of female athletes, a tendency that appears to be more pronounced in older individuals.
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