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,

Peer and cyber aggression in secondary school students: the role of moral disengagement, hostile attribution bias, and outcome expectancies

“…These findings are in line with previous studies, which found high levels of moral disengagement in generally aggressive youngsters and school bullies (e.g. Bandura et al, 1996;Barriga & Gibbs, 1996;Gini, 2006;Hymel et al, 2005;Menesini et al, 2003;Yadava et al, 2001). MD was also a positive predictor of c-bullying, but with smaller contribution to its explanation, compared to t-bullying.…”

“…This was a 40-item questionnaire assessing MD (32 items), hostile attribution bias (4 items), and outcome expectancies (4 items). The questionnaire comprised all the items of the Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement Scale (Bandura et al, 1996), and eight items based on the How I Think Scale (HIT, Barriga & Gibbs, 1996). Moral …”

“…Moral emotions and cognitions are not independent from one another. Quoting Bandura et al (1996), ''people have little reason to be troubled by guilt or to feel any need to make amends for inhuman conduct if they reconstrue it as serving worthy purposes or if they disown personal agency for it'' (p. 366).…”

“…Research findings show a positive relationship between MD, anti-social behavior and aggression in children and adolescents (e.g. Bandura et al, 1996;Caprara, Pastorelli, & Bandura, 1995;Yadava, Sharma, & Gandhi, 2001). …”

Please be Honest and Provide Evidence: Deterrents of Deception in an Online Insurance Fraud Context

“…The question arises whether our findings would be replicated if claimants would fill out a written form, a method also used by the financial industry. This is relevant because someone could argue that written reports feel more distant and therefore make it easier for someone to disengage his or her internal controls (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996). Shu et al (2012) raised this very issue and therefore used written reports to test the honesty statement hypothesis.…”