Moral Disengagement as a Main Component of Malevolent Creative Potential

Abstract Malevolent creativity uses creative thinking for harmful or destructive goals, displaying characteristics of originality and effectiveness, but with harmful (i.e., malevolent) intent. In the present work, we hypothesized that one of the main components of creative potential in malevolent scenarios is moral disengagement, which should modulate the association between originality and malevolence in the generation of new ideas. The current study aimed at exploring malevolent creative potential in a sample of 190 participants, both in neutral everyday situations and in scenarios evoking malevolent intentions. The results showed that moral disengagement was indeed associated with a higher rate of malevolent creative behaviors as well as with a higher ability to produce original solutions, especially in scenarios requiring malevolent intentions. Particularly, moral disengagement proved to be the moderator between malevolence and originality of participants’ responses. Specifically, in malevolent scenarios, results revealed an association between malevolence and originality but only at medium or high levels of moral disengagement. In conclusion, moral disengagement represents a pivotal resource to succeed in creativity in scenarios eliciting malevolent intentions.