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.

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, p < 0.001) and delinquent behavior (β = 0.217, p < 0.001). Moral disengagement was positively associated with delinquent behavior (β = 0.153, p = 0.006) and represented a small statistically detectable indirect component of the concurrent association between youth psychopathic traits and delinquent behavior (β = 0.046, p = 0.030). Cognitive empathy was negatively associated with delinquent behavior (β = -0.344, p < 0.001). The interaction between youth psychopathic traits and cognitive empathy was significant (β = -0.175, p = 0.007), indicating that the positive association between youth psychopathic traits and delinquent behavior was weaker at higher levels of cognitive empathy. The model explained 36.4% of the variance in delinquent behavior.

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.