Understanding the moral cognition of aggression: Longitudinal serial effects of personal relative deprivation and hostility on within‐person changes in civic moral disengagement

Abstract

Moral disengagement is an important aggressive and moral cognition. The mechanisms of changes in moral disengagement remain unclear, especially at the within‐person level. We attempted to clarify this by exploring the serial effects of personal relative deprivation and hostility on civic moral disengagement. We conducted a three‐wave longitudinal survey with 1058 undergraduates (63.61% women; mean age = 20.97). The results of the random intercept cross‐lagged panel model showed that personal relative deprivation at Wave 1 and hostility at Wave 2 formed a serial effect on the within‐person changes in civic moral disengagement at Wave 3, and the longitudinal indirect effect test showed that the within‐person dynamics in hostility at Wave 2 acted as a mediator. The results of multiple group analysis across genders further showed that the longitudinal indirect role of hostility at Wave 2 was only observed for men, but not for women, which indicates the moderating effect of gender. These findings facilitate an understanding of the mechanisms of aggressive cognitions at the within‐person level and offer implications for the prevention and intervention of aggression from the perspective of moral cognition.