ArticleFrontiers in psychology2026
Youth psychopathic traits and delinquent behavior among adolescents in Saudi social observation centers: the indirect role of moral disengagement and the moderating role of cognitive empathy.
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
Introduction: Juvenile delinquency is associated with multiple individual-level psychological domains, but youth psychopathic traits, moral disengagement, and cognitive empathy have been less directly examined within a single theory-informed structural model among justice-involved adolescents. This study tested a cross-sectional structural model linking youth psychopathic traits, moral disengagement, cognitive empathy, and delinquent behavior among adolescents residing in social observation centers in Saudi Arabia. Methods: The sample included 171 adolescents recruited from nine social observation centers across Saudi Arabia. Youth psychopathic traits were assessed using the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory-Short Version, moral disengagement using the eight-item Propensity to Morally Disengage Scale, cognitive empathy using the cognitive empathy subscale of the Basic Empathy Scale, and delinquent behavior using a short self-report delinquency index. Data were analyzed using partial least-squares structural equation modeling with 5,000 bootstrap resamples. Results: Youth psychopathic traits were positively associated with moral disengagement (β = 0.302, Discussion: The findings are consistent with a social-cognitive moral-regulation framing in which delinquent behavior is associated with dispositional psychopathy-related traits, moral-cognitive justification, and social-cognitive understanding. Because the data were cross-sectional, the indirect path through moral disengagement was interpreted as a statistically estimated concurrent indirect association rather than evidence of temporal mediation or a causal mechanism. The interaction involving cognitive empathy was likewise interpreted as a conditional concurrent association rather than evidence of a causal buffering effect.
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