Effortful Control and Community Violence Exposure as Predictors of Developmental Trajectories of Self-serving Cognitive Distortions in Adolescence: A Growth Mixture Modeling Approach

Abstract

Self-serving cognitive distortions are biased or rationalizing beliefs and thoughts that originate from the individual persistence into immature moral judgment stages during adolescence and adulthood, increasing the individual’s engagement in antisocial or immoral conducts. To date, the literature examining trajectories of cognitive distortions over time and their precursors is limited. This study sought to fill this gap, by examining effortful control and community violence exposure as individual and environmental precursors to developmental trajectories of cognitive distortions in adolescence. The sample consisted of 803 Italian high school students (349 males; Mage = 14.19, SD = 0.57). Three trajectories of cognitive distortions were identified: (1) moderately high and stable cognitive distortions (N = 311), (2) moderate and decreasing cognitive distortions (N = 363), and (3) low and decreasing cognitive distortions (N = 129). Both low effortful control and high exposure to community violence were significant predictors for moderately high and stable trajectory of cognitive distortions. These results point to the importance of considering moral development as a process involving multiple levels of individual ecology, highlighting the need to further explore how dispositional and environmental factors might undermine developmental processes of morality.

Profiles of Community Violence Exposure, Moral Disengagement, and Bullying Perpetration: Evidence from a Sample of Italian Adolescents

“…In a qualitative study, Wilkinson and Carr (2008) outlined that individuals respond to exposure to violence in many ways, some of which are consistent with traditional concepts of moral disengagement or emotional numbing. Similarly, Esposito et al (2020) found that among adolescents, exposure to community violence predicts high and persistent levels of cognitive distortions over a 4 year time period.…”

Individual and Environmental Correlates of Adolescents’ Moral Decision-Making in Moral Dilemmas

“…However, there is a great amount of evidence highlighting the negative effects of community violence exposure on moral development. The research found that children and adolescents exposed to community violence, fail in distinguishing moral vs. conventional issues ( Bacchini et al, 2013 ), tend to make frequent recourse to self-serving cognitive distortions ( Dragone et al, 2020 ; Esposito et al, 2020 ), judge morally acceptable physically harming others in contexts of survival or revenge ( Posada and Wainryb, 2008 ), and are more likely to condone moral transgressions when provoked or for reasons of retaliation ( Ardila-Rey et al, 2009 ). Overall, exposure to violence has been found to substantially disrupt the moral decision-making ability as a result of impairments of several emotional (e.g., empathy), cognitive (e.g., theory of mind), and inhibitory control abilities ( Zucchelli and Ugazio, 2019 ).…”

Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms among Assault-injured Youth: Parallel Process Models Addressing Comorbidity

“…Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) posits that a cognitive process occurs when an individual experiences events within their environment (Bond & Bushman, 2017; Esposito et al, 2020), this includes interpretations, attributions, and inferences, that then become internalized and lead to generalizations in behaviors (Bandura, 1986; Esposito et al, 2020). This serves the function of determining appropriate behavioral responses in a particular environment and developing competency in how to respond over time (Bandura, 1986; Esposito et al, 2020). Thus, individuals develop what they believe is a normative response to provide a purposeful action (Esposito et al, 2020).…”

“…behaviors (Bandura, 1986;Esposito et al, 2020). This serves the function of determining appropriate behavioral responses in a particular environment and developing competency in how to respond over time (Bandura, 1986;Esposito et al, 2020).…”

“…behaviors (Bandura, 1986;Esposito et al, 2020). This serves the function of determining appropriate behavioral responses in a particular environment and developing competency in how to respond over time (Bandura, 1986;Esposito et al, 2020). Thus, individuals develop what they believe is a normative response to provide a purposeful action (Esposito et al, 2020).…”