Cognitive Biases and Moral-Regulatory Mechanisms in White-Collar Crime: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Mapping of Psychological Pathways to Corporate and Financial Misconduct

Abstract

White-collar crime causes major economic and social harm, yet research on its psychological mechanisms remains fragmented across criminology, behavioral ethics, accounting and finance. To synthesize research on cognitive biases and moral-regulatory mechanisms underlying white-collar, corporate and financial misconduct, and to examine how they interact with organizational factors. A non-experimental, retrospective documentary design was used: a PRISMA 2020 systematic review with bibliometric mapping of Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus records (searches updated to October 2026; 107 studies included, 1975–2026). New records were screened independently by two reviewers, and study quality was appraised with the MMAT and JBI tools. Moral self-regulation failures (rationalization, neutralization, moral disengagement) and dispositional traits (psychopathy, narcissism, the dark triad) are the most frequently examined mechanisms, followed by motivational pressures and risk-perception distortions such as overconfidence. These mechanisms are amplified by weak governance and attenuated by strong monitoring. Keyword co-occurrence analysis reveals three weakly connected thematic clusters. Cognitive distortions act as psychological catalysts within the pressure, opportunity and rationalization dimensions of the Fraud Triangle. The findings support bias-specific prevention: structural checks on executive overconfidence, ethics programs that target neutralization, and cultural interventions that disrupt normalized deviance.