Morality and Psychopathology: Tendencies to Personality Disorders and Some Other Mental Disorders Among Individuals with High and Low Moral Identity

Abstract

Background: According to the criteria of personality disorders, some disorders, especially the antisocial personality disorder, can be characterized by the hypo-morality and some disorders, especially the obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, can be characterized by the hyper-morality. It seems that both the hyper-morality and the hypo-morality have linkages to different aspects of psychopathology. Objectives: To better understand the issue, the current study aimed to compare individuals with high and low moral identity in the tendencies to all personality disorders and some other mental disorders. Methods: From a database that had been gathered from 212 undergraduate university students, 30 students that had the highest moral identity and 24 students that had the lowest moral identity were selected to complete Millon clinical multiaxial inventory-III. The data of the two groups were compared by the multiple analysis of variance statistical method. Results: The findings indicated that students with the highest moral identity had only higher tendency to the obsessive-compulsive personality disorder while students with the lowest moral identity had higher tendencies to the antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorders, and somatoform disorders. Nevertheless, in the tendencies to other disorders, a significant difference was not found. Conclusions: The findings indicated that both very low and very high moral identity might be related to some psychopathological traits. It is in coordination with the emphasis of some philosophers such as Aristotle on the importance of sobriety or the doctrine of the mean for constituting the virtues and the theories of some psychiatrists such as Freud about the role of inflammation of superego in shaping some neurotic reactions. There may be some implications for preventing from both wastage and extremism in educating the moral identity.