Longitudinal Relationships between Bullying and Moral Disengagement among Adolescents

Abstract

Moral disengagement is a series of cognitive processes used to disengage moral standards to achieve absolved guilt and permit immoral conduct and has been found to be an important connection to bullying and aggressive behaviors among adolescents. This study examined the longitudinal relationship between moral disengagement and bullying behavior among a group of adolescents from fifth grade to ninth grade (n = 1180, mean age = 12.2, SD = 1.29, 46.5 % female, 80.2 % Caucasian/White, 7.1 % Black/African American, 5.4 % Latino/Hispanic, 2.4 % Asian American, and 1.7 % other) over three semesters. The objectives were to investigate (a) whether moral disengagement was a precursor to bullying behavior, vice versa, or whether the relationship was reciprocal and (b) whether gender and grade predicted moral disengagement and bullying behavior. The results showed that moral disengagement predicted bullying perpetration 6 months later. Also, older students and males utilized more moral disengagement than younger students and females and younger students and males engaged in greater bullying perpetration. Indirect paths linking gender and grade to bullying via moral disengagement at previous time points were identified and implications for bullying prevention are discussed. The findings underscore the importance of examining moral disengagement when studying bullying and across gender and development.

A Longitudinal Study on Stability and Transitions Among Bullying Roles

“…However, bullying was analyzed as a distal outcome and bullying trajectories were not reported. Another longitudinal study reported that moral disengagement was a predictor of bullying perpetration after several months (Wang, Ryoo, Swearer, Turner, & Goldberg, ). Future studies should discover predictors of the transition patterns discovered in this study.…”

The influence of different longitudinal patterns of peer victimization on psychosocial adjustment

“…Moreover, considering attrition, the perspectives of youths with more significant behavioral and emotional risk were missing. Other studies struggle with retaining the most at-risk youth in longitudinal research (e.g., Wang, Ryoo, Swearer, Turner, & Goldberg, 2017). All participants were recruited from the same school in Grade 8, and results may be affected by school-specific factors not measured in this study.…”

Pathways Linking Exposure to Community Violence, Self-serving Cognitive Distortions and School Bullying Perpetration: A Three-Wave Study

“…First, all the constructs are evaluated through self-report measures that may be subject to social desirability bias. Indeed, referring to the tendency to make self-serving CDs and to involvement in bullying behaviors, it is known (e.g., [95]) that adolescents are more careful about their social image than other age groups, and may be unlikely to report behavior that displays them in a negative light. Furthermore, regarding exposure to community violence, a more objective and comprehensive description of violence in the everyday lives of adolescents, including official data from national census agencies and police departments, may provide a more complete assessment of exposure to violence [96].…”