The Effect of Moral Disengagement on Bullying: Testing the Moderating Role of Personal and Social Factors

Abstract

Bullying is a subset of aggressive behavior that has severe consequences in children's psychosocial development. Bullying behaviors can be influenced by personal and social factors, such as gender, age, school type, and sport participation, as well as psychological constructs, such as moral disengagement. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of moral disengagement on bullying behaviors and the moderating role of personal and social factors. In this study, 2,252 students ( M = 13.57, SD = 1.17; 1,125 girls, and 1,127 boys) attending the sixth grade of primary school and secondary education have participated. Participants completed the revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire and Bandura's Moral Disengagement Questionnaire along with general questions about their demographic characteristics. The results of the analyses demonstrated moderation effects of gender on the moral disengagement-physical bullying relationship and of age on the moral disengagement-verbal bullying relationship. No significant moderating effect emerged for school type and sport participation. The findings of the present study provide valuable information about the role of personal and social factors on bullying behavior.

Moral Disengagement and Risk Prototypes in the Context of Adolescent Cyberbullying: Findings From Two Countries

“…Overall, the findings of the present study indicated that although moral disengagement is a strong predictor of willingness to cyberbully, its effect can be mediated by different constructs under different circumstances. Recently, Travlos et al (2018) demonstrated that different personal (i.e., gender and age) variables may influence the effect of moral disengagement on traditional bullying behavior. The present study including participants of different ethnic background, age and gender distribution, also suggested that such personal and cultural variables may be responsible for the differential processes found in predicting the decision to cyberbully.…”

School Climate, Moral Disengagement and, Empathy as Predictors of Bullying in Adolescents

“…This mechanism allows transgressing the code of ethics itself to perform behaviors, in principle unacceptable, in certain situations without feeling guilty. Thus, the positive relationship between moral disengagement and bullying perpetration are well documented (e.g., Bjärehed et al, 2020 ; Gini et al, 2020 ; Travlos et al, 2021 ), as indicated by recently developed meta-analyses (Gini et al, 2014 ; Killer et al, 2019 ). They show how bullying perpetrators trigger different mechanisms of moral disengagement to avoid feelings of guilt or shame.…”

A Meta-Analytic Review of Moral Disengagement and Cyberbullying

“…The effect of moral disengagement on traditional bullying is clear ( Paciello et al, 2020 ; Romera et al, 2021a ; Travlos et al, 2021 ), while the relationship between moral disengagement and cyberbullying remains controversial ( Lo Cricchio et al, 2021 ). Firstly, the characteristics of offline and online moral disengagement and cyberbullying are different.…”