Background: Ethical issues and problems related to the behavior of individuals, in particular prisoners, including disobedient and rude towards the guards, curators and other prisoners, common immorality in friendly relationships and in-prison violence are new problems that it requires resorting to new ideas in the realm of ethics to find solutions for them. This study aimed to investigate the role of pathological personality traits based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM–5 (PID-5) in moral disengagement of prisoners of Birjand.
Method: This study was a descriptive-correlational study. The statistical society of the study consisted of all prisoners in Birjand that were 4200 prisoners. Among them, 300 prisoners were selected by convenience sampling method. Instruments used in the study were Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5) and moral disengagement scale. Data were analyzed by Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Multiple regression analysis.
Results: The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between pathological personality traits and moral disengagement. The highest correlation between disengagement by rationalization and antagonism and the lowest correlation between disengagement by depersonalization with psychoticism were observed. (p<0.01). In addition, it was found that among the pathological personality dimensions, only antagonism and detachment explain the variance of moral disengagement. These two dimensions totally explain 20%, 18% and 26% of the variance of disengagement through dehumanization, diffusion of responsibility and rationalization, respectively.
Conclusion: The findings of the study demonstrate the role of pathological personality traits in moral disengagement and suggest that moral disengagement can reduce by modifying these pathological personality traits.