The contribution of moral disengagement in mediating individual tendencies toward aggression and violence.

Abstract

This study examines the role of moral disengagement in fostering engagement in aggression and violence through adolescence to young adulthood in accordance with a design in which the study of individual differences and of their relations is instrumental to address underlying intraindividual structures and process conducive to detrimental conduct. Participants were 345 young adults (52% females) who were followed across 4 time periods (T1 M age = 17 years to T4 M age = 25 years). The longitudinal relations among irritability, hostile rumination, and moral disengagement attest to a conceptual model in which moral disengagement is crucial in giving access to action to aggressive tendencies. Findings suggest that irritability and hostile rumination contributed to the development of each other reciprocally and significantly across time. While hostile rumination and moral disengagement significantly mediated the relation between irritability and violence, moral disengagement significantly mediated the relation between hostile rumination and violence.

“It was only harmless banter!” The development and preliminary validation of the moral disengagement in sexual harassment scale

“…These findings parallel previous research (Bandura et al, 1996;Caprara et al, 2009Caprara et al, , 2014Pelton et al, 2004) that also documented self-report measures of moral disengagement to be unidimensional. Thus, the items of the MDiSH measuring the eight moral disengagement strategies may be inextricably linked to a common latent trait or cognitive orientation that makes people more or less prone to use these social cognitions to justify harassing behavior.…”

“…Studies 1 and 2 were conducted to investigate the general psychometric properties of the MDiSH, obtaining preliminary evidence of the new measure's internal consistency and dimensionality. Based on previous research that tested moral disengagement in the domain of interpersonal aggression (Bandura et al, 1996;Caprara et al, 2014;Pelton et al, 2004) we predicted that the MDiSH will be unidimensional. Therefore, all items representing the eight disengagement mechanisms may be inextricably linked to a common latent trait or cognitive orientation that makes people more or less susceptible to moral disengagement.…”

“…It would also be useful to test for gender differences on the MDiSH. Previous research documents that moral disengagement is more prevalent among males than females (Bandura et al, 1996;Caprara et al, 2009Caprara et al, , 2014Elliott & Rhinehart, 1995;Pelton et al, 2004). Thus, gender differences on this measure are expected to emerge when the MDiSH is administered to both men and women.…”

“…As a theoretical construct, moral disengagement has been measured and tested across diverse behavioral contexts. For example, it is a positive predictor of juvenile offending (Shulman, Cauffman, Piquero, & Fagan, 2011) aggression and delinquency (Bandura et al, 1996;Caprara et al, 2014;Pelton, Gound, Forehand, & Brody, 2004;White-Ajmani & Bursik, 2014), corporate crime (e.g., Bandura, Caprara, & Zsolnai, 2000;Detert, Sweitzer, & Trevino, 2008), dishonest academic behavior (e.g., Shu, Gino, & Bazerman, 2011), anti-social conduct in sport (e.g., Boardley & Kavussanu, 2007;Traclet, Moret, Ohl, & Clemence, 2015), and civic offenses such as vandalism (e.g., Caprara, Fida, Vecchione, Tramantano, & Barbaranelli, 2009). However, as previously stated, the construct of moral disengagement has received almost no empirical or theoretical application to the context of sexual violence.…”

“…Self-report scales measuring moral disengagement in the realms of interpersonal aggression (Bandura et al, 1996;Caprara et al, 2014;Pelton et al, 2004), and violation of civic obligations (Caprara et al, 2009) have reported a unidimensional factor structure. In contrast, measurement of moral disengagement in the context of capital punishment (Osofsky, Bandura, & Zimbardo, 2005) has resulted in a four-factor structure.…”