Purpose. Bandura's theory of moral disengagement explains how otherwise ethical persons can behave immorally. We examined whether a trait model of general personality and the "dark triad" underlay moral disengagement, the relationship these constructs have to unethical consumer attitudes, and whether moral disengagement provided incremental validity in the prediction of antisocial behaviour. Methods. Self-report data were obtained from a community sample of 380 adults via an online survey that administered all measures. Results. Correlations between unethical consumer attitudes, lower Agreeableness, lower Conscientiousness, higher moral disengagement, higher psychopathy, and higher Machiavellianism were captured by a single factor. When this broad factor was examined using regression, demographic, personality and the dark triad traits all predicted moral disengagement, specific influences being age, education, Intellect, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. A similar model examining predictors of unethical consumer attitudes again found all blocks contributed to the outcome, with specific influence provided by age, Intellect, and moral disengagement, the latter showing incremental validity as a predictor of unethical consumer attitudes.Conclusions. Moral disengagement is based on low Agreeableness, Machiavellianism and psychopathic-type traits, but provides incremental validity in predicting antisocial attitudes to a trait model alone. Narcissism is neither related to moral disengagement, nor unethical consumer attitudes.Moral Disengagement, the dark triad, and unethical consumer attitudes.
ATTITUDES.While people generally know right from wrong, some find it easier to disengage from their ethical principles than others. This behaviour is called moral disengagement. A common example of moral disengagement is consumer dishonesty, which is defined as: "the moral principles and standards that guide behavior of individuals or groups as they obtain, use, and dispose of goods and services" (Muncy & Vitell, 1992, pp. 298). Apparent petty dishonesty (Egan & Taylor, 2010) harms UK businesses to the cost of at least £294 million pounds per annum (National Fraud Authority, 2011). The current study examined general and darker personality traits underpinning moral disengagement, using unethical consumer attitudes as a specific criminological outcome.Moral disengagement (Bandura, 1986) provides a specific model to explain how persons breach their personal ethics. Individuals generally seek consistency in held moral beliefs to avoid a discrepancy between what they believe to be right, and how they actually behave. This is because conflicts between inconsistent behaviours and beliefs classically produce feelings of psychological discomfort known as cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957). If one can disengage from personal moral standards, it becomes easier to justify engaging in behaviours normally considered immoral. Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara and Pastorelli (1996) described eight mechanisms by which disengageme...
