Mechanisms of moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency.

Abstract

Moral agency has dual aspects manifested in both the power to refrain from behaving inhumanely and the proactive power to behave humanely. Moral This article addresses the important but neglected issue of selective moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. In a recent book entitled, Everybody Does It, Thomas Gabor (1994) documents the pervasiveness of moral disengagement by people of all statuses in all walks of life. Psychological theories of morality have traditionally focused heavily on the formal character of moral reasoning to the neglect of moral conduct. People suffer from the wrongs done to them regardless of how perpetrators justify their inhumane actions. The regulation of humane conduct involves much more than moral reasoning. A complete theory of moral agency must link moral knowledge and reasoning to moral conduct. This requires an agentic theory of morality rather than one con ned mainly to cognitions about morality. In the social cognitive theory of the moral self (Bandura, 1986, This is the text of the 14th Lawrence Kohlberg Memorial Lecture, delivered at the 27th annual conference of the Association for Moral Education,

Moral Disengagement in Emerging Adults’ Attitudes towards the Colombian Peace Accords

“…Unlike the conclusions drawn from several other investigations (Bandura et al, 1996;Howard et al, 2007;Jackson & Sparr, 2005;McAlister et al, 2006), in the present study men and participants with a lower educational level did not demonstrate more moral disengagement than women and participants with a higher education level. In contrast, an attitude of moral disengagement manifested less often in the comments of people with a lower level of education (Alejandra, Sofi, John, Max y Gerónimo).…”

Moral Disengagement in Emerging Adults’ Attitudes towards the Colombian Peace Accords

“…Unlike the conclusions drawn from several other investigations (Bandura et al, 1996;Howard et al, 2007;Jackson & Sparr, 2005;McAlister et al, 2006), in the present study men and participants with a lower educational level did not demonstrate more moral disengagement than women and participants with a higher education level. In contrast, an attitude of moral disengagement manifested less often in the comments of people with a lower level of education (Alejandra, Sofi, John, Max y Gerónimo).…”

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

“…In this regard, it is important to highlight that at no point in adolescent development was moral disengagement found to influence irritability, nor hostile rumination. These findings may appear to be in contrast with earlier cross-sectional research showing the effects of moral disengagement on irritability and hostile rumination (Bandura et al, 1996). However, these findings elucidate how hostile rumination and moral disengagement come to account for a larger amount of variance in aggression and violence than irritability over the course of development to adulthood.…”

“…This model fit at each time point, with average RMSEA = .053, SRMR = .068. The above findings substantially corroborated previous results (Bandura et al, 1996, 2001; Caprara et al, 1996; Paciello et al, 2008) and demonstrate a main latent dimension, which includes all the items measuring the eight moral disengagement mechanisms.…”

Individual Differences in Personality Conducive to Engagement in Aggression and Violence

“…Ultimately both male and female participants were inclined to resort to EAV the more they were inclined to view their detrimental actions as socially and morally acceptable. Taken together, these findings may seem in contrast with earlier cross‐sectional research pointing to the significant contribution of moral disengagement to both irritability and hostile rumination (Bandura et al, ). In reality, previous findings did not control for stability over time of examined variables and intentionally focused on the contribution of moral disengagement to irritability and hostile rumination.…”

Moral Disengagement in Emerging Adults’ Attitudes towards the Colombian Peace Accords

“…Unlike the conclusions drawn from several other investigations (Bandura et al, 1996;Howard et al, 2007;Jackson & Sparr, 2005;McAlister et al, 2006), in the present study men and participants with a lower educational level did not demonstrate more moral disengagement than women and participants with a higher education level. In contrast, an attitude of moral disengagement manifested less often in the comments of people with a lower level of education (Alejandra, Sofi, John, Max y Gerónimo).…”

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

“…In this regard, it is important to highlight that at no point in adolescent development was moral disengagement found to influence irritability, nor hostile rumination. These findings may appear to be in contrast with earlier cross-sectional research showing the effects of moral disengagement on irritability and hostile rumination (Bandura et al, 1996). However, these findings elucidate how hostile rumination and moral disengagement come to account for a larger amount of variance in aggression and violence than irritability over the course of development to adulthood.…”

“…This model fit at each time point, with average RMSEA = .053, SRMR = .068. The above findings substantially corroborated previous results (Bandura et al, 1996, 2001; Caprara et al, 1996; Paciello et al, 2008) and demonstrate a main latent dimension, which includes all the items measuring the eight moral disengagement mechanisms.…”

Individual Differences in Personality Conducive to Engagement in Aggression and Violence

“…Ultimately both male and female participants were inclined to resort to EAV the more they were inclined to view their detrimental actions as socially and morally acceptable. Taken together, these findings may seem in contrast with earlier cross‐sectional research pointing to the significant contribution of moral disengagement to both irritability and hostile rumination (Bandura et al, ). In reality, previous findings did not control for stability over time of examined variables and intentionally focused on the contribution of moral disengagement to irritability and hostile rumination.…”

Moral Disengagement in Emerging Adults’ Attitudes towards the Colombian Peace Accords

“…Unlike the conclusions drawn from several other investigations (Bandura et al, 1996;Howard et al, 2007;Jackson & Sparr, 2005;McAlister et al, 2006), in the present study men and participants with a lower educational level did not demonstrate more moral disengagement than women and participants with a higher education level. In contrast, an attitude of moral disengagement manifested less often in the comments of people with a lower level of education (Alejandra, Sofi, John, Max y Gerónimo).…”

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

“…In this regard, it is important to highlight that at no point in adolescent development was moral disengagement found to influence irritability, nor hostile rumination. These findings may appear to be in contrast with earlier cross-sectional research showing the effects of moral disengagement on irritability and hostile rumination (Bandura et al, 1996). However, these findings elucidate how hostile rumination and moral disengagement come to account for a larger amount of variance in aggression and violence than irritability over the course of development to adulthood.…”

“…This model fit at each time point, with average RMSEA = .053, SRMR = .068. The above findings substantially corroborated previous results (Bandura et al, 1996, 2001; Caprara et al, 1996; Paciello et al, 2008) and demonstrate a main latent dimension, which includes all the items measuring the eight moral disengagement mechanisms.…”

Individual Differences in Personality Conducive to Engagement in Aggression and Violence

“…Ultimately both male and female participants were inclined to resort to EAV the more they were inclined to view their detrimental actions as socially and morally acceptable. Taken together, these findings may seem in contrast with earlier cross‐sectional research pointing to the significant contribution of moral disengagement to both irritability and hostile rumination (Bandura et al, ). In reality, previous findings did not control for stability over time of examined variables and intentionally focused on the contribution of moral disengagement to irritability and hostile rumination.…”