Collective moral disengagement and its associations with bullying perpetration and victimization in students

Thornberg, Robert; Wänström, Linda; Gini, Gianluca; Varjas, Kristen; Meyers, Joel; Elmelid, Rasmus; Johansson, Angelica; Mellander, Emelie

doi:10.1080/01443410.2020.1843005

Cited by 15 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The first finding is consistent with other studies examining the association between bullying (online and offline) and moral disengagement at the individual level (for metaanalyses and reviews, see Gini, Pozzoli, & Hymel, 2014;Killer et al, 2019;Lo Cricchio et al, 2021;Zych et al, 2015). The latter finding is in line with the few prior studies examining the role of classroom collective moral disengagement in bullying Thornberg, Wänström, & Hymel, 2019;Thornberg, Wänström, et al, 2021). The finding of a positive association between classroom collective moral disengagement and online bullying perpetration, however, is a novel finding.…”

Section: Studysupporting

confidence: 89%

“…In schools, collective moral disengagement may emerge at the classroom or school level, whereas it may operate more broadly in other contexts (e.g., social systems, community; Bussey et al, 2020). The role of collective moral disengagement in immoral or unethical behavior has been empirically examined in different contexts; for instance, in school contexts (Gini et al, 2015;Thornberg, Wänström, et al, 2021), work contexts (Newman et al, 2020), and in the context of team sports (Danioni et al, 2021), although the amount of research is small in comparison to research on individual moral disengagement. Collective moral disengagement might be particularly relevant to study in early adolescence, given that peer influence becomes more important during this stage of a young person's development (e.g., Juvonen & Galván, 2008).…”

Section: Collective Moral Disengagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, in Gini et al's study, the amount of variance that could be attributed to the classroom level was three times larger than the variance of individual moral disengagement aggregated to the classroom level. Findings from studies adopting this latter approach indicate that, in addition to individual moral disengagement, both student-perceived moral disengagement and classroom collective moral disengagement play significant roles in bullying Thornberg, Wänström, & Hymel, 2019;Thornberg, Wänström, et al, 2021), as well as aggressive behavior more generally (Gini et al, 2015(Gini et al, , 2021. Classroom collective moral disengagement has also been found to be negatively associated with defending, and positively associated with passive bystanding (Gini et al, 2015;Sjögren et al, 2021a) and with pro-aggressive bystander behavior (Sjögren et al, 2021a).…”

Section: Research On Collective Moral Disengagement and Bullyingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The association between moral disengagement and bullying in early adolescence

Bjärehed

2022

Linköping Studies in Behavioural Science

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This PhD thesis is a part of the project 1 "The social and moral processes of bullying -a four-year longitudinal study," funded by the Swedish Research Council (Grant number 2013-07753). The project was carried out between the academic years 2015/16 and 2019/20, and entailed that participants answered a web-based questionnaire once each year. At the start of the project all students attended fourth grade and at the end of the project they attended eighth grade. This thesis used data from the first four waves of datacollection, along with data from a pilot study carried out in the spring of 2015, with students in grades 4 to 8.This thesis adopted Bandura's (1986Bandura's ( , 2016 social cognitive theory as an overarching theoretical framework for understanding school bullying in early adolescence. According to social cognitive theory, bullying and bystander behaviors cannot be reduced only to individual variables, but have to be understood as results of a complex interplay between individual and environmental factors.The overall objective of the project was to examine bullying, victimization, and bystander behaviors among school children in relation to social, cognitive, and moral factors -concurrently and over time. However, in this thesis I have examined only a limited part of the overall objective, more specifically the association between moral disengagement and bullying in early adolescence.

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Section: Studysupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Collective Moral Disengagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Research On Collective Moral Disengagement and Bullyingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The association between moral disengagement and bullying in early adolescence

Bjärehed

2022

Linköping Studies in Behavioural Science

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“…Moreover, at the class-level, it was found that peer aggression was more likely in school classes characterized by higher levels of collective moral disengagement. These findings have been subsequently confirmed in a few studies conducted in other countries, such as Sweden (Bjärehed et al, 2019;Thornberg et al, 2021) andCzech Republic (Kollerová et al, 2018). However, almost all the existing empirical evidence is based on cross-sectional data.…”

Section: Collective Moral Disengagement and Aggressive Behaviormentioning

confidence: 64%

Longitudinal Links of Individual and Collective Morality with Adolescents’ Peer Aggression

Gini

Thornberg

Bussey

et al. 2021

J Youth Adolescence

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Adolescents’ aggressive behavior has been often linked to biases in morality. However, limited knowledge is available regarding the relative strength of different moral correlates, both at the individual and class-level, in predicting different types of aggressive behavior over time. To address this gap, the present study tested the prospective associations of moral identity and moral disengagement with reactive and proactive aggression in a short-term longitudinal study. The sample consisted of 1158 Italian adolescents (48.7% females; Mage = 13.6 years, SD = 1.1). Participants completed self-report measures of moral identity, moral disengagement, perceived collective moral disengagement in the fall, and reactive and proactive aggression in the fall and in the spring. Multivariate multilevel analysis indicated that, at the individual level, after controlling for the stability of aggressive behavior, T2 (Time 2) reactive aggression was higher for students who reported lower moral identity and higher moral disengagement at T1 (Time 1). For proactive aggression, a significant interaction effect indicated that the negative association between T1 moral identity and T2 aggression was apparent only at high levels of T1 moral disengagement. Moreover, proactive aggression was significantly predicted by higher perceived collective moral disengagement. At the class-level, T1 collective moral disengagement helped explain between-class variability of T2 reactive and proactive aggressive behavior. How these results expand previous research on morality and aggressive behavior and their potential implications for prevention and intervention programs is discussed.

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“…Other authors showed the importance of promoting social consensus (Reynolds and Ceranic, 2007), understood as the degree to which a specific action is considered more or less acceptable by people who make up the environment. There is a higher prevalence of bullying in groups with a high collective moral disengagement level (Thornberg et al, 2021).…”

Section: Moral Disengagement and Bullyingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2021

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Our work aimed to study the relationships between different dimensions of school climate, moral disengagement, empathy, and bullying behaviors (perpetration and victimization). The study sample consisted of 629 students (304 boys and 325 girls) aged 12–14 years (M = 12.55, SD = 0.67). Results showed how different dimensions of school climate predicted moral disengagement, empathy, and victimization, and these, in turn, predicted bullying perpetration. The results show the need to generate favorable educational environments to reduce the levels of moral disengagement and victimization and to increase empathy in students as a strategy to prevent negative consequences related to bullying.

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Collective moral disengagement and its associations with bullying perpetration and victimization in students

Cited by 15 publications

References 53 publications

The association between moral disengagement and bullying in early adolescence

The association between moral disengagement and bullying in early adolescence

Longitudinal Links of Individual and Collective Morality with Adolescents’ Peer Aggression

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

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