Personality's dual lens: Dark-light traits bound and channel the manipulation-moral emotions link under acute physical exhaustion

초록

Manipulative decisions and their moral consequences are jointly shaped by dispositional traits and situational load. We advance a temporal model of state-triggered trait activation and a cognitive cascade to test how dark and light traits shape the pathway from manipulation to moral emotions under physical exhaustion. In a six-week longitudinal mixed design (N = 120), participants completed baseline assessments of dark and light traits, were randomized to exhaustion or rest, and were assessed at six time points on manipulation intention and choice, moral rationalization, moral consistency, guilt, and shame. Linear mixed and fixed-effects models with windowed mediation showed that exhaustion immediately increased manipulation, an effect amplified by dark traits and attenuated by light traits; differences persisted during follow-up but moderation weakened. Manipulation predicted later emotions primarily through a stable negative pathway via moral consistency, whereas moral rationalization exerted only transient effects on guilt. A serial path from manipulation through rationalization to consistency was pronounced early and diminished over time. Overall, exhaustion lowered the activation threshold for manipulation, magnified trait influences, and left long-term emotional trajectories contingent on consistency-based reconstruction, with guilt and shame diverging over time.

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