Moral disengagement and generalized social trust as mediators and moderators of rule-respecting behaviors during the COVID-19 outbreak

In this study, we tested a theoretical model with moral disengagement, a mediator,and generalized social trust (GST), a mediator and a moderator of the relationshipbetween personality traits and rule-respecting behaviors (i.e., social distancing andstay-at-home), during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in Italy. Thedata were collected on 1520 participants (61% males). General results are threefold: (1) moral disengagement mediated the relationship between emotional stability, narcissism,psychopathy, and social distancing; (2) among components of GST, trust in Governmentmediated the relationship between psychopathy and social distancing; trust in knownothers mediated the relationship between emotional stability, agreeableness, andMachiavellianism with total number of exits; trust in unknown others mediated therelationship of emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and psychopathywith average daily number of exits; (3) GST moderated the indirect effect of personalitytraits on rule-respecting behaviors through moral disengagement. The theoretical andpractical importance of these results is discussed.