Individual and classroom collective moral disengagement in offline and online bullying: A short‐term multilevel growth model study

Abstract

This short-term longitudinal study examined whether individual moral disengagement and classroom collective moral disengagement were associated with offline and online bullying over the course of 1 year. Multilevel growth modeling with three levels was used to analyze data from a sample of 1048 Swedish students in 68 classrooms. The students completed a self-report questionnaire at two time-points separated by approximately 1 year. All students were in fifth grade (M age = 11.5) at the first timepoint and in sixth grade (M age = 12.6) at the second timepoint. Results showed that students reported more offline and online bullying if they had higher initial levels of individual moral disengagement and if they belonged to classrooms with higher initial levels of classroom collective moral disengagement. Also, a change in individual moral disengagement was positively associated with a change in bullying others offline and online.

The effect of individual and classroom moral disengagement on antisocial behaviors in Colombian adolescents: A multilevel model

“…In other words, students with high moral disengagement, nested in classrooms with high moral disengagement, showed high antisocial behaviors. These findings align with the results of recent multilevel studies that have analyzed moral disengagement at the individual and classroom levels as a predictor of bullying and cyberbullying behaviors (Gini et al, 2015;Bjärehed, 2021;Bjärehed et al, 2021;Thornberg et al, 2021).…”

“…Research has confirmed the predictive and mediating role of moral disengagement on various transgressive behaviors. For example, moral disengagement has been associated with a higher probability of alcohol consumption (Newton et al, 2012), aggressive behavior (Bandura et al, 1996;Gini et al, 2014), bullying (Killer et al, 2019;Bjärehed et al, 2021), and cyberbullying (Bjärehed, 2021;Thornberg et al, 2021). Regarding antisocial behavior, studies have shown that adolescents with high moral disengagement manifest more problem behaviors (Yang and Wang, 2012).…”

A short-term longitudinal study on the development of moral disengagement among schoolchildren: the role of collective moral disengagement, authoritative teaching, and student-teacher relationship quality

“…Previous scales have commonly addressed either moral disengagement in more general antisocial behavior ( Bandura et al, 1996 ), or specifically in bullying situations ( Hymel et al, 2005 ; Thornberg and Jungert, 2014 ). The scale used in the current study has previously demonstrated adequate psychometric properties among Swedish school children ( Thornberg et al, 2019 ; Bjärehed et al, 2021 ; Sjögren et al, 2021a ; Bjärehed, 2022 ).…”

The Role of Bisection Class in Guiding Teenagers’ Core Values from the Perspective of Deep Learning

“…Student performance may be improved by using online learning and a split classroom, which can maximize university resources and people [2]. In the study, students who had greater starting levels of individual moral disengagement or who were in classes with higher initial levels of collective moral disengagement reported more o ine and online in the split classroom [3]. e variety of skills and tactics instructors use to keep classrooms free of disruptive behaviour is called "classroom management."…”