YA ANT 2015 9casos

Moral Disengagement and Aggression: Comments on the Special Issue
Author(s): Eveline Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger

Source: Merrill-Palmer Quarterly , January 2015, Vol. 61, No. 1, SPECIAL ISSUE: Moral
Disengagement and Aggression in Children and Youth Guest Editors: Shelley Hymel and
Sonja Perren (January 2015), pp. 192-211
Published by: Wayne State University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.13110/merrpalmquar1982.61.1.0192
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M e r r i l l - P a l m e r Q u a rt e r ly : V o l . 6 1 , N o . 1
Moral Disengagement and Aggression: Comments

on the Special Issue
Eveline Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger University of Teacher Education of
Lucerne
This special issue on the relationship between moral disengagement and

aggression brings together nine sophisticated as well as theoretically, meth-

odologically and analytically stimulating studies. Three of the articles are con-
cerned with individual characteristics that moderate (or buffer or aggravate) the
impact of moral disengagement on aggression or include moral disengagement
as a moderator on the link between individual characteristics and aggression.
Three address trajectories and age-related changes by exploring developmental
pathways of moral disengagement and aggression, while the remaining three
treat moral disengagement in its situational context in school and family and
raise questions of socialization. Besides summarizing and discussing the nine
articles, this commentary raises some critical issues–for example, regarding the
assessment of moral developmental processes.
For the past decade, a growing, but still rather small group of inter-
national researchers have studied moral disengagement and its r elation
to prosocial and antisocial/aggressive behaviors in children and
adolescents (including both traditional bullying and cyberbullying).

Although much has been learned about both concurrent and longitudinal
(inter) relationships (e.g., Barchia & Bussey, 2011; Gini, 2006; Hymel,
Schonert-Reichl, Bonanno, Vaillancourt, & Rocke Henderson, 2010;
Perren & Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, 2012), crucial issues regarding these
relationships are still (partly) unresolved–for example, with respect to
contextual and situational factors (e.g., see the recent review by Gini,
Pozzoli, & Hymel, 2014). This special issue on moral disengagement
Eveline Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Research Department.

Address correspondence to Eveline Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Pädagogische Hochschule
Luzern, Institut für Pädagogische Professionalität und Schulkultur, Töpferstrasse 10, CH-6004
Luzern, Switzerland. Phone: +12 4 88 85 44 42. E-mail: eveline.gutzwiller@phlu.ch.
Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, January 2015, Vol. 61, No. 1, pp. 192–211. Copyright © 2015 by
Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI 48201.
192
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Moral Disengagement and Aggression—Commentary 193
and aggression is the result of a recent initiative bringing together many
of these researchers in order to critically reflect on both the concep-
tual and the methodological foundations of this research and to develop
avenues for future research. In this commentary, I discuss the articles
and their joint contribution towards the advancement of theorizing and
research in the field against the background of the avenues suggested,
namely (1) age-related changes (emergence of moral disengagement;
precursors of moral disengagement; changes in moral standards,

emotions, and justifications); (2) trajectories (Who is becoming morally
disengaged? How and why?); (3) situational processes (situational

variations; interplay between moral standards, emotions, justifications,
and behavior; cognitive dissonance); (4) contextual effects ( family,
peers, and school; subcultural norms); and (5) interventions (moral
disengagement as a mediator; morality as an intervention goal). Before
doing so, the core elements of Bandura’s social cognitive theory of
human agency (e.g., Bandura, 2002; Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, &
Pastorelli, 1996; Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, & Pastorelli, 2001),
which lies at the heart of this research, are briefly characterized to
establish a common reference point with respect to conceptual and
methodological issues raised later.
The social cognitive theory of human agency offers an inclusive con-
ceptual framework within which the moral dimensions of aggressive and
antisocial behaviors can be described. According to Bandura (2002), moral
agency involves both “the power to refrain from behaving inhumanely and
the proactive power to behave humanely” (p. 101). Based on the under-
standing that individuals monitor and regulate their behavior by antici-
pating the consequences for self and others, anticipatory self-pride (for
morally good behavior) and self-blame (for morally bad behavior) ensure
that behavior is enacted in concordance with personal moral standards
(Paciello, Fida, Tramontano, Lupinetti, & Caprara, 2008). Still, individ-
uals can enact behaviors that are not concordant with these (individual
as well as social) moral standards while claiming to adhere to them.
By disconnecting moral thought and moral action, they avoid feelings
of conflict, guilt, or remorse. To achieve this, individuals use cognitive
mechanisms that can be selectively activated in order to escape negative
self-evaluations and self-sanctions. Accordingly, they morally disengage
themselves from adherence to moral standards (Bandura, 2002). Through
moral disengagement, harmful behavior is thus cognitively reconstructed
so as to make it appear less harmful or not harmful at all to oneself and to
others.
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194 Merrill-Palmer Quarterly
Bandura identifies four general strategies and eight subordinated
mechanisms or practices of moral disengagement that are selectively acti-
vated to weaken moral control. These strategies may operate on the behav-
ior itself, the individual’s sense of personal responsibility, the outcomes of
the behavior, or on the recipients of the behavior (Bandura, 2001, 2002;
Bandura et al., 1996; Paciello et al., 2008). This conceptualization of moral
disengagement relates to the dynamics involved in the disengagement pro-
cess relating to moral (or morally relevant) situations and must be differ-
entiated from its assessment as a generalized trait (or proneness) insofar as
we must assume that the latter can (start to) emerge only after some experi-
ences with and learning from moral situations. I return to this point later.
Although initial research on moral disengagement involved only adults
and was first used to explain how normal people come to commit atrocious
and inhuman crimes, construing moral disengagement as ex post facto jus-
tifications, several studies have addressed moral disengagement and its
relation to bullying as well as (general) aggressive and violent behavior
in children and adolescents (e.g., Bandura et al., 1996, 2001; Barchia &
Bussey, 2007; Gini, 2006; Hymel, Rocke-Henderson, & Bonanno, 2005;
Menesini et al., 2003; Obermann, 2011; Paciello et al., 2008; Perren &
Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, 2012). The research literature involving adult
participants clearly shows that a significant positive relationship exists
between moral disengagement and various forms of aggressive and even
delinquent behavior (e.g., Bandura, 2001, 2002; Bandura et al., 1996;
South & Wood, 2006; see also Hymel et al., 2010). Taken together, using
different measurement approaches, the findings in studies involving chil-
dren and adolescents suggest a strong and consistent relationship between
moral disengagement and social behavior, mainly bullying/aggression in
both children and adolescents. Thus, moral disengagement has been identi-
fied as a potential key factor in aggressive behavior and especially (cyber)
bullying (cf. Gini et al., 2014; Hymel et al., 2010).
Summarizing the Articles

A first set of articles in this special issue is concerned with individual
characteristics that moderate (or buffer or aggravate) the impact of moral
disengagement on aggression or include moral disengagement as a moder-
ator on the link between individual characteristics and aggression, all stud-
ies having cross-sectional designs. Bussey, Quinn, and Dobson investigate
the potential moderating roles of empathic concern and perspective-taking
(trait measures) on the relationship between proneness to moral disen-
gagement and overt aggression in a large sample of Australian adolescents
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aged 12–16. Following Bandura et al.’s (1996) theoretical argument that
empathizing and assuming personal responsibility for one’s actions (instead
of minimizing their harmful effects) intensify an individual’s adherence
to self-sanctions against harmful behavior, the authors hypothesized that
lower levels of empathic concern and perspective-taking would be associ-
ated with higher levels of both moral disengagement and overt aggression,
and that the relationship between moral disengagement and aggression
would be weakened at higher levels of both empathic concern (when con-
trolling for perspective-taking) and perspective-taking (when controlling
for empathic concern), respectively. All hypotheses were substantiated
by using hierarchical regression analyses and, although previous findings
regarding grade and gender differences in moral disengagement were con-
firmed, neither the link between moral disengagement and aggression nor
the attenuating effects of empathic concern and perspective-taking on that
link were influenced by grade or gender, suggesting some basic underlying
relationships between these variables, similar to Bandura et al.’s (1996)
conceptualization. However, these cross-sectional findings based on self-
report measures await confirmation through longitudinal studies includ-
ing different informants and involving measurements of both empathic
concern and perspective-taking assessing also adolescents’ competencies.
This is especially important with respect to perspective-taking because it
represents a social cognitive process underlying all sociomoral competen-
cies and as such can be used for both good and evil purposes (cf. Gasser &
Keller, 2009; Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, 2010). One merit of the article lies
in its thorough conceptual foundation regarding moral disengagement and
its relation to empathic concern, perspective-taking, and aggression.
The study by Roos, Salmivalli, and Hodges addresses the effects of
self-reported proneness to guilt, to shame, and to externalization of blame
on peer-reported aggressive behavior, as well as the potential moderating
effects of emotion regulation capabilities and tendencies to experience
negative emotionality (teacher reports) on these associations in a sample of
Finnish fifth and sixth graders. The authors intend to elucidate inconsistent
associations between guilt and shame and social, especially aggressive,
behavior, on the one hand, and the relatively modest associations between
externalization of blame (as a dimension of moral disengagement) and
aggression, on the other. As expected, the results of hierarchical regres-
sion analyses indicated that, for children with poor emotion regulation or
high negative emotionality, proneness to guilt and to shame were associ-
ated with lower levels of aggression, whereas, for children with effective
emotion regulation or low negative emotionality, proneness to shame and
to externalization of blame were related to higher levels of aggression. Also
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consistent with hypotheses, proneness to guilt was directly and negatively
linked to aggression, whereas–contrary to hypotheses–proneness to shame
and to externalization of blame were not directly linked to aggression, the
nonexistent main effect of shame adding to earlier inconsistent findings.
While the use of multiple informants adds to the strengths of the study, the
operationalization of proneness to guilt, to shame, and to externalization of
blame by using the test of self-conscious affect for children (TOSCA-C;
Tangney & Dearing, 2002) might at least be partly responsible for the non-
existent main effects of shame and externalization of blame. The use of
TOSCA to measure moral disengagement is critically discussed later in
this commentary.
Taking a different angle, Gini, Pozzoli, and Bussey explore the role of
self-reported moral disengagement as a potential moderator of the rela-
tionship between self-reported psychopathic dimensions of callousness/
unemotionality, grandiosity/manipulation, and impulsivity/irresponsi-
bility and self-reported overt and instrumental aggressive behavior in a
community sample of 11- to 15-year-old Italian adolescents. With respect
to main effects, structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses yielded
positive associations between moral disengagement and both aggres-
sion forms. As hypothesized, the grandiose/manipulative dimension was
more strongly related to instrumental as compared to reactive aggression,
whereas impulsivity/irresponsibility was related to only reactive aggres-
sion. However, though significant at the bivariate level, in the SEM model,
callousness/unemotionality was not related to instrumental or reactive
aggression, respectively, a finding that the authors interpret as resulting
from including both callousness and grandiosity in the same analysis, with
the latter diminishing the contribution of the former. With respect to the
moderating role of moral disengagement, differential, partly unexpected
results were obtained. As hypothesized, the positive association between
grandiosity/manipulation as well as impulsivity/irresponsibility and instru-
mental aggression was stronger at high levels of moral disengagement,
whereas–contrary to expectations–impulsivity/irresponsibility was related
to reactive aggression at only low levels of moral disengagement.
A possible explanation for the latter finding might lie in the nature
of reactive aggression and the way it was assessed in the study by Gini
and colleagues. If an individual feels unjustly attacked, that person might
experience moral outrage at this violation of moral standards, with him/
her being the victim of the attack. Accordingly, retaliation would be justi-
fied on moral grounds, irrespective of a potential hostile attribution bias
(Dodge, Murphy, & Bachsbaum, 1984) on the part of the individual; that
is, the moral outrage caused by the violation of moral standards would in
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itself be strong enough to explain retaliation, and a hostile attribution bias
would not independently contribute to retaliation. This explanation gains
further support by Pornari and Wood’s (2010) finding that moral disen-
gagement (all eight strategies) is significantly positively associated with
hostile attribution bias, suggesting that here, at low levels of moral disen-
gagement, hostile attribution would also be low. Items like “when I’m hurt
by someone, I often fight back”–as used in the present study–emphasize
the hurt feelings of the individual and do not include any considerations of
whether the attack was justified, nor whether the individual attributes hos-
tile intent to the person causing the hurt feelings. Thus, adherence to moral
standards, rather than distancing oneself from them, would be required to
justify retaliation. The study by Gini and colleagues represents a valuable
and relevant first step towards exploring the explanatory power of moral
disengagement regarding the relationship between psychopathic traits (as
indicators of normal individuals’ affective/interpersonal style) and differ-
ential forms of aggressive behavior.
A second set of articles addresses trajectories and age-related changes
by exploring developmental pathways of moral disengagement and
aggression, thereby targeting two of the research avenues described in the
introduction. Ribeaud and Eisner’s study explores potential causal links
between self-reported moral neutralization (representing the related con-
cepts of neutralization techniques, moral disengagement, and self-serving
cognitive distortions; Ribeaud & Eisner, 2010) and self-reported aggres-
sion in a large Swiss community sample of early adolescents. Data stem
from two consecutive waves of data collection (age 11 and age 13) in an
ongoing prospective longitudinal study and include measurement of time-
varying covariates (self-reports on personality, social behavior, etc.) and
time-invariant covariates (sociodemographic variables). Pointing to com-
peting, partly contradictory theoretical assumptions, the authors want to
elucidate whether moral neutralization is a cause or an effect of aggression
and other harmful behavior in early adolescence. After establishing large
cross-sectional correlations between moral neutralization and aggression
at both time points, the authors used a set of fixed-effects regression mod-
els to regress within-individual change scores of both moral neutralization
and aggression on each other. Results yielded substantial within-individual
association, ruling out time-invariant effects of unobserved population
heterogeneity as an explanation for the association between moral neu-
tralization and aggression. Controlling for both time-varying and time-
invariant covariates did not affect this association. However, path analyses
indicated that the cross-lagged effects of moral neutralization on aggres-
sion and vice versa were close to zero, ruling out longer-term independent
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effects in either direction. Also, when controlling for aggression at age 11,
neutralization at age 13 did not have an independent effect on aggression
at age 13 and vice versa, further confirming this finding. In general, results
suggest that, for early adolescence, moral neutralization and aggression
are closely interdependent in the sense of short-term reciprocal relation-
ships. We might interpret the findings from these analyses as evidence
of moral corrosion as suggested by Bandura’s theorizing (e.g., Bandura,
2001; Bandura et al., 1996)–that is, as resulting from ongoing selective
activation of moral disengagement mechanisms (before and after engaging
in aggressive, harmful behavior). Ribeaud and Eisner’s article draws our
attention towards one of the central questions regarding the development of
moral disengagement in relation to aggressive behavior and the need to use
empirical findings to elucidate (seemingly) inconsistent or contradictory
theoretical explanations.
Sticca and Perren address the same basic issue in the context of tradi-
tional bullying and cyberbullying in a large sample of Swiss adolescents,
collecting data at four time points from Grade 7 to Grade 8. Specifically,
they investigate whether self-reported moral deficiencies (moral disengage-
ment, low moral responsibility, and low feelings of remorse) contribute to
engagement in bullying; whether bullying behaviors contribute to higher
levels of moral deficiencies; or whether there is a reciprocal relationship.
Results from a parallel process latent growth model showed a positive rela-
tionship between initial levels of bullying behavior and moral deficien-
cies, confirming the authors’ first hypothesis. As was also hypothesized,
the initial level of moral deficiencies predicted the development of bullying
behavior over time. However, the hypothesized prediction of moral defi-
ciencies over time by initial level of bullying was not confirmed. Sticca and
Perren interpret their results as an indication of moral deficiencies as repre-
senting a traitlike characteristic that functions as a possible cause of bully-
ing behaviors; their straightforward analysis of the parallel development of
and interdependencies between moral deficits and bullying make a strong
point for this argument. As bullying was assessed including proactive forms
of aggressive behavior only, it would be interesting to see whether the pre-
diction of moral deficiencies over time by initial level of bullying would be
confirmed after controlling for victimization, in order to eliminate poten-
tially confounding effects of specific moral deficits stemming from aggres-
sive victims. Aggressive victims display high levels in both proactive
and reactive aggression, whereas bullies display high levels of proactive
aggression (e.g., Gasser & Keller, 2009). Moreover, aggressive victims–
unlike bullies–seem to suffer from deficits in morally relevant sociocog-
nitive competencies like perspective-taking (e.g., Dunn & Hughes, 2001;
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Gasser & Keller, 2009), as well as in moral rule understanding (Gasser &
Keller, 2009; Perren, Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Malti, & Hymel, 2012).
As especially the latter is required for moral disengagement–negative-self
sanctions need be deactivated only if a moral rule was clearly broken–these
specific moral(ly relevant) deficits in aggressive victims might blur the pat-
tern of moral deficiencies in the study by Sticca and Perren.
Visconti, Ladd, and Kochenderfer-Ladd examine the potential media-
tional role (both concurrently and over time) of self-reported moral disen-
gagement in the association between self-reported prosocial and antisocial
goals and teacher-reported aggressive behavior in a sample of school-
children living in the United States, with data being collected when they
were in Grades 4, 5, and 6. The authors’ aim is to test whether Bandura’s
premise that moral disengagement mechanisms are selectively activated
when an individual expects negative self-sanctions for a harmful act also
applies to situations where the individual has a conscious desire to real-
ize this act. Accordingly, the motivational component of moral disengage-
ment is focused, and social goals (revenge and relationship maintenance)
are used as indicators of that desire. With respect to concurrent mediation,
results from cross-sectional structural equation models showed that moral
disengagement mediates the relationship between revenge goals and higher
levels of aggressive and between relationship maintenance goals and lower
levels of aggressive behavior, respectively, confirming the authors’ hypoth-
eses. Longitudinally, results from a full panel model yielded only the
hypothesized mediational effect of moral disengagement for the associa-
tion between relationship maintenance goals and lower levels of aggressive
behavior. Tests of an alternative mediated pathway showed that decreas-
ing levels of moral disengagement accounted for the high degree of sta-
bility in relationship maintenance goals over time. The authors interpret
this finding as indicating that children’s adherence to their moral standards
against peer victimization may promote children’s adherence to or increas-
ing development of prosocial goals when experiencing conflicts with peers.
However, as children’s moral standards regarding peer victimization were
not assessed, future research will need to address this issue. The study’s
innovative potential relates to the inclusion of motivational aspects–
conceptualized as social goals–in studying the relationship between moral
disengagement and aggressive behavior and underlines the importance of
carefully embedding moral disengagement within a larger framework of
youth’s social and moral functioning (cf. Gini, 2006) by using both theo-
retical consideration and empirical verification.
The third and last set of articles is concerned with moral d isengagement
in its situational context in school and family and raises questions of
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socialization, addressing yet another research avenue. Menesini, Palladino,
and Nocentini use an individual-by-environment framework to appraise the
role of individual emotions of moral disengagement (self-report), class-
room pro-bullying behaviors (self-report), and class bullying norms of
accepted students (combination of peer report and self-report), as well as
the interplay between them, in predicting both individual and classroom-
level bullying (self-report) in a large sample of Italian adolescents attend-
ing Grades 9, 10, and 11. Results from multilevel modeling confirmed
earlier findings: Emotions of moral disengagement were positively related
to individual bullying; both classroom pro-bullying behaviors and class
bullying norms of accepted students (both conceptualized as indicators of
group bullying norms) were positively related to bullying at the classroom
level. However, the hypothesized moderating role of class-level bullying
norms on individual risk for bullying was found for only pro-bullying
behaviors and not for bullying norms of accepted students. Accordingly,
emotions of moral disengagement had stronger associations with bully-
ing in classrooms with higher levels of pro-bullying behavior. The authors
stress that s ocial-contextual moral norms may shape the expression of indi-
vidual moral norms (conceptualized as actual bullying behavior), thereby
providing a strong argument for studying bullying within an individual by
environment framework. One strength of the study lies in the use of con-
gruent measurements regarding moral and bullying variables by assessing
emotions of moral disengagement related to bullying situations, classroom
bullying behaviors, and class bullying norms of accepted students as well
as individual bullying. Accordingly, all measures are directly related to
bullying situations, enhancing the validity of interpreting the findings as
relevant for bullying.
Doramajian and Bukowski assume a different perspective with
respect to aggressive behavior. In their three-wave, short-term longitudinal
study, they examine the prospective associations between self-reported
moral d isengagement and both peer-reported and self-reported defending
and passive bystanding in bullying situations in a sample of Canadian
schoolchildren attending Grades 4, 5, and 6. Time lag between assessments
was 7–8 weeks. The authors are especially interested to see whether p atterns
of longitudinal relationships between moral disengagement and bystander
behavior vary by informant (self versus peers). Structural equation modeling
yielded a complex pattern of results. Consistent (concurrent and longitudi-
nal) positive associations between moral d isengagement and self-reported
passive bystanding were found, with
passive bystanding becoming
more stable over time. For peer-reported p assive bystanding, a d ifferent,
inconsistent p icture emerged, with unexpected gender d ifferences. Negative
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a ssociations between passive bystanding and moral disengagement emerged
for boys and positive associations for girls. The authors make an interesting
suggestion by offering differences in gender roles as a possible explana-
tion. They argue that gender stereotypes result in a higher expectation of
prosociality for girls, and that not helping someone in need might neces-
sitate the activation of disengagement mechanisms to avoid feelings of
guilt. This explanation is underlined by the fact that this part of analy-
ses included self-reported bystanding, which can be directly linked to the
avoidance of guilty feelings–that is, negative sanctions directed towards the
self (e.g., Bandura et al., 1996). Hence, the congruent measurement relat-
ing to self may have helped to unveil this relationship. For self-reported
defending, unexpected, gender-related differential patterns emerged. For
girls, moral disengagement was a negative predictor of subsequent defend-
ing but not vice versa. Moral disengagement was more (and increasingly)
stable over time than defending. The patterns for boys were inconsistent
and hard to interpret. For peer-reported defending, results were basically
as expected: Associations with moral disengagement (if significant) were
negative, both concurrently and over time. However, not all paths were
significantly associated. In sum, the overall pattern of results partially sup-
ports a bidirectional relation between moral disengagement and bystander
behavior. The authors critically discuss the implications of their findings
with respect to the need of achieving more consistent results and better
capturing change over time. Their study offers a promising rationale for
addressing the crucial issue of what informants to include (how and when)
to assess children’s moral functioning in relation to (im)moral behavior.
Camodeca and Taraschi explore the still uninvestigated research area
linking parental moral disengagement to their preschool children’s exter-
nalization behavior (when controlling for children’s moral motivation and
temperament). Italian preschool children aged 3–6 years, their parents, and
their preschool teachers participated in the study, with children providing
interview data on moral motivation; teachers providing data on children’s
externalizing behavior (anger, aggression, egotism, and opposition); and
parents providing data on their own moral disengagement (TOSCA exter-
nalization of blame and detachment/unconcern or indifference; Tangney,
1990) and on their child’s temperament (reactivity and self-regulation). On
the bivariate level, children’s externalizing behavior was positively associ-
ated with both indices of parental moral disengagement and with children’s
reactivity (as assessed by parents) and negatively with children’s self-
regulation and moral motivation. Hierarchical regression analyses showed
that parents’ externalization of blame (but not detachment/unconcern) was
positively associated with children’s aggression and opposition (but not
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egotism or anger) even when children’s moral motivation and temperament
were controlled for, partly confirming the authors’ hypotheses. The authors
offer several explanations about the ways that parental moral disengage-
ment might affect children’s externalizing behavior via their socialization
practices. The partly inconsistent pattern of relationships between parents’
moral disengagement and children’s externalizing behavior might at least
in part be due to the use of the TOSCA to assess parents’ moral disen-
gagement. As argued later, the TOSCA seems to assess generalized prone-
ness to externalization of blame and detachment/unconcern (as well as to
feelings of guilt and shame) and not specifically their moral aspects, thus
measuring some form of generalized cognitive disengagement from gen-
eral responsibility. This explanation is further confirmed by the nonexistent
relationship between parents’ moral disengagement and children’s moral
motivation, although there is no related research to support this explana-
tion. Overall, the study offers a crucial first step towards exploring the rela-
tionship between parents’ moral disengagement and child social and moral
functioning, stimulating both theory and research to pursue this highly rel-
evant research area further.
Critical Analysis of Specific Aspects

To better integrate the findings from the nine studies, it is important to con-
sider some of their core features. First and foremost, we have to examine
the conceptualizations of moral disengagement and subsequent operation-
alizations. Some central characteristics of the moral disengagement pro-
cess as defined earlier include (a) the implication that moral standards need
to have been internalized to some degree in the first place for an individual
to be able to distance himself or herself from them; (b) the implication
that violation of these standards would cause moral self-blame as posited
by Bandura (e.g., Bandura et al., 1996) and, related to this, the desire to
behave in accordance with one’s moral standards requires the develop-
ment of a moral identity or self (cf. Blasi, 1983, 1984) even if not in its
fully fledged form, to realize that a certain behavior would violate moral
standards. In addition, it is assumed that (c) the individual must be able
to assess a given situation correctly, which includes making a moral judg-
ment by referral to that individual’s moral standards and selecting a mor-
ally appropriate behavioral strategy (or at least knowing what strategies
would be more or less appropriate in a given situation) and, relatedly,
that (d) the individual must expect negative self-sanctions (e.g., feelings
of guilt, self-blame) if not pursuing the (or a) morally appropriate course
of action. Accordingly, (e) the negative self-sanctions must operate on or
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affect the emotional/affective level and, as a consequence, (f) the individual
must have a wish to avoid these negative self-sanctions. That is, the indi-
vidual must be motivated to activate the practices of moral disengagement
selectively in order to escape self-blame, with the desired avoidance of
self-blame relating to that person’s wish to see himself or herself as a mor-
ally good person, which presupposes the (at least partial) development of
a moral self (cf. Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Gasser, & Malti, 2010). Finally,
it is assumed that (g) all of this is based on the grounds that the situation
involved is a moral or at least morally relevant situation.
Against this conceptual background, I want to briefly describe some of
the conceptualizations and operationalizations of moral disengagement as
used in the studies to shed light on their merits and limitations and to criti-
cally reflect on the appropriateness of using Bandura’s original conceptu-
alization with children and adolescents. Two of the studies use the TOSCA
(Tangney & Dearing, 2002) to assess moral disengagement in adolescents
(adolescent version TOSCA-A in the article by Roos et al. in this issue)
and adults–that is, children’s parents (in Camodeca & Taraschi’s article in
this issue). All versions of the TOSCA are based on a set of positive and
negative verbal scenarios describing everyday situations. Participants are
required to indicate, for a set of standardized responses covering various
moral emotions or attributions, how likely it is that they would react in
the described manner. Whereas Roos et al. include items tapping prone-
ness to guilt, to shame, and to externalization of blame, Camodeca and
Taraschi consider proneness to externalization of blame and to indifference
(detachment/unconcern). While not designed to measure moral disengage-
ment and related constructs, there is some conceptual closeness to moral
disengagement mechanisms and strategies in the scales tapping proneness
to guilt, to shame, to externalization of blame, and to indifference. If we
take a closer look, however, we see that using these scales to represent
moral disengagement is problematic for several reasons. As there is not
enough space here for an in-depth discussion of the measure, I will focus
on one major aspect. On a very basic level, moral disengagement includes
actively distancing oneself from one’s own moral responsibility. This
implies, as already stated (point g), that the situation(s) in question is (or
are) moral or at least morally relevant. However, many of the situations in
the TOSCA scenarios are not moral(ly relevant) (e.g., putting off an assign-
ment at school, getting better grades than the other group members on an
assignment, m aking a big mistake at work and being blamed by the boss).
Accordingly, although the subscales assess a generalized tendency towards
feeling guilty or ashamed, towards blaming others, or towards being indif-
ferent to the consequences of one’s actions or the things happening in one’s
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life, all of these do not relate to moral(ly relevant) situations in p articular.
Regarding guilt, Tangney (1990) states, “Phenomenological reports indi-
cate that guilt is associated with a focus on some past behavior that is
inconsistent with a set of internalized standards–often, but not necessarily,
moral in nature” (p. 103), supporting the foregoing argument by show-
ing that guilt need not necessarily refer to moral standards. Therefore, we
may assume that the construct of moral disengagement was not fully repre-
sented in the studies by Roos et al. and by Camodeca and Taraschi, respec-
tively. One possible implication from these considerations might lie in the
development of a corresponding measure focusing on moral(ly relevant)
situations only. Also, studying the relationship between TOSCA scores and
various established measures of moral disengagement might shed light on
the degree of overlap and inform researchers regarding whether and under
what circumstances TOSCA scales might be used, for example, in combi-
nation with additional measures of moral disengagement.
Related to these considerations is the basic question whether (global)
self-report measures, especially questionnaire scales assessing generalized
tendencies across situations, as used in several studies within this special
issue, are suited for the assessment of moral disengagement in children and
adolescents. The original 32-item scale by Bandura and colleagues (e.g.,
Bandura et al., 1996) or abbreviated versions adapted for different languages
are all global self-report measures that require participants to react to state-
ments describing morally disengaged thinking (e.g., “Many kids who get
bullied deserve it”). It is questionable, especially in younger schoolchildren,
whether agreeing with these statements really reflects children’s construc-
tion and understanding of moral(ly relevant) situations or whether part of
their agreement reflects some form of social mimicking by assenting to such
rationalizing statements on a surface level (Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, 2015).
Moreover, it is questionable whether generalized self-reports (includ-
ing vignettes as stimuli for subsequent formatted response scales as
used by Sticca & Perren or in the TOSCA) enable us to capture (moral)
developmental processes. Several longitudinal studies in this special
issue (e.g., Doramajian & Bukowski) report high stability of moral dis-
engagement across measurement points. Also, as already stated, the pro-
cess character of moral disengagement includes many different elements
(also specific features of the moral situation involved), making it impos-
sible for this measurement approach to capture them all (or at least the
most relevant of them). When it comes to these process features, many of
them relating to the situational specificity of moral disengagement–a still
underresearched area–we need additional, especially qualitative theoretical
and m
ethodological approaches, another underresearched field.
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A few studies have used productive or open-ended measures to assess
children’s and adolescents’ moral disengagement and moral respon-
sibility in a more differentiated way than self-report questionnaires
(e.g., Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger et al., 2015; Menesini et al., 2003; Perren
et al., 2012). Derived from children’s spontaneous explanations of bul-
lying incidents, these productive measures encompass moral emotions,
cognitions, and motivation, and provide an integrative view of moral-
ity, offering in-depth information on the role of moral disengagement
in bullying and aggression. Production measures have typically been
used in developmental research within the happy victimizer paradigm,
describing the phenomenon that, even though children understand the
validity of moral rules, they still attribute positive emotions to transgres-
sors (Krettenauer, Malti, & Sokol, 2008). Consistent with findings from
self-report studies, the three studies that have employed productive mea-
sures to date also demonstrate positive associations between bullying and
moral disengagement (Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger et al., 2015; Menesini
et al., 2003; Perren et al., 2012). However, these studies also show that
hedonistic reasoning (egocentric disengagement) is much more common
than specific moral disengagement strategies (deviant rules). Moreover,
results indicate that victims of bullying report more empathy (Perren
et al., 2012) and demonstrate higher moral responsibility (Gutzwiller-
Helfenfinger et al., 2010).
Additionally, using an ethnographic approach, Thornberg (2010, 2013)
convincingly shows that purely qualitative studies using a grounded theory
framework provide essential, indispensable new insights into the concep-
tualization of broader peer social phenomena, helping us think outside the
box and approach bullying, aggression, and moral development in entirely
new ways. For example, in his 2010 study, “A Student in Distress: Moral
Frames and Bystander Behavior in School,” Thornberg identifies five
main moral frames of school: (a) the moral construction of the good stu-
dent, (b) institutionalized moral disengagement, (c) tribe caring, (d) gen-
tle caring-girl morality, and (e) social-hierarchy-dependent morality. His
findings stringently show that the conformity nurtured in school settings,
as well as the moral dilemmas constructed by the moral frames, generally
impede moral action. There is still much to think about, and I still have a
long list of critical issues involved in investigating moral disengagement
and aggression in general and specifically in discussing the stimulating and
innovative power of the nine contributions in this special issue. Alas, there
is not enough space, and interested readers are referred directly to these
nine studies, the authors of which show great skill in discussing the merits
and shortcomings of both their own and associated research.
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Open Questions and Outlook
Given these space limitations, I will briefly touch upon three crucial
issues associated with research on moral disengagement and aggression–
that is, in addressing the well-known gap between moral thought and
moral action (e.g., Walker & Hennig, 1997). First, research on aggres-
sion in general and on school bullying in particular has rarely consid-
ered the association between moral disengagement and moral values.
Bandura’s (2002) theory was developed to explain that individuals who
profess to have high moral standards nevertheless may act inhumanly
under certain conditions and not feel guilty about it. It is of critical inter-
est to determine whether moral disengagement is really an indicator of
a person’s impaired moral development (i.e., does moral disengage-
ment lead to moral corrosion) or whether it is a psychological process
that pursues mainly self-serving goals in order to rationalize one’s own
negative behavior (i.e., to behave badly without feeling guilty), a core
question directly addressed by two of the studies in this special issue
(Ribeaud & Eisner, and Sticca & Perren). Moreover, we need to know
more about the relative importance of moral disengagement as compared
to other aspects of morality. For example, a recent Swiss study by Perren
and Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger (2012) showed that moral emotions and
moral values are more important in explaining bullying behavior than
are morally disengaged justifications. The study by Sticca and Perren is
an important move in this direction, including a multidimensional assess-
ment of moral deficiencies (with moral disengagement representing one
dimension or facet).
Third, we need to know more about the relative importance of s ituational
and contextual factors relative to person characteristics (e.g., pro-violence
norms within a school or classrooms versus a p erson’s general proneness
towards aggressive behavior), targeting also socialization processes
as contributors to the development of moral capacities and aggressive
behavior. Assuming an individual-by-environment approach, the study
by Menesini, Palladino, and Nocentini provides important insights into
the interplay between emotions of moral disengagement, pro-bullying
behaviors in the classroom, and actual bullying behavior. Camodeca and
Taraschi’s study elucidates the notable contribution of parents’ moral
disengagement in influencing their children’s social d evelopment and–
together with children’s morality–predicting children’s externalizing
behavior.
Finally, I can give only a short outline of an integrative theoretical
framework that allows us to include all aspects and factors discussed so far
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and might help us pursue our conceptual, methodological, and analytical
endeavors in trying to elucidate the relationship between moral develop-
ment and aggression. The framework in question is the four-component
model of moral action (e.g., Narvaez & Rest, 1995; Rest, Narvaez,
Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999).
The first component, labeled moral sensitivity, relates to the receptiv-
ity of the sensory (perceptual) system to social situations. It also relates
to the interpretation of the situation with respect to what actions are pos-
sible, who and what would be affected by each of the possible actions,
and how the parties involved might react to possible outcomes. The sec-
ond component, moral judgment, involves the decision about which of
the possible actions is most moral. The choices have to be weighed,
and the individual must determine what a person ought to do in such a
situation. The third component is moral motivation. Moral motivation
implies that the individual gives priority to the moral value (above all
other values involved) and intends to fulfill it. Finally, implementation
(sometimes referred to as moral character) involves the execution and
implementation of the chosen action and depends on both ego strength
and the social and psychological skills necessary to carry out that action
(Narvaez & Rest, 1995).
The moral disengagement process as just described has considerable
overlap with the theoretical framework proposed by Narvaez and Rest
(1995; Rest et al., 1999). However, whereas the former is more concerned
with the actualization of moral disengagement in specific situations, and as
adherence to Bandura’s framework mostly includes using his trait measure
suited to address developmental research questions to only a limited extent,
Rest and colleagues’ framework is embedded within a mainly constructiv-
ist developmental framework and reaches beyond the former in including
crucial components of moral functioning (e.g., moral sensitivity) not rep-
resented there. (How and where the moral self comes into play is an issue
that will need to be addressed elsewhere.) Time will show whether such
an extension of our theoretical frame of reference proves desirable, appli-
cable, and fruitful.
Conclusions and Implications for Further Research

Taken together, the studies in this special issue make a strong point for
including moral disengagement and other harmful cognitive-affective
practices enabling children and adolescents to distance themselves from
their moral responsibility and justify their own negative behavior (in
advance or ex post facto) in researching the development of various
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forms of aggressive and detrimental behavior. Moreover, they provide
most stimulating theoretical, methodological, and statistical-analytical
approaches to the study of the relationship between moral disengage-
ment and aggression and–besides consolidating findings from earlier
research–offer new and partly unexpected results that need to be care-
fully considered in order to gain a deeper understanding of the vari-
ous processes and facets involved in the moral dimensions of aggressive
behavior.
The studies combine data and findings from three continents
(Australia, North America, and Europe) and six nations (Australia,
United States, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, and Italy). They include
longitudinal and cross-sectional designs as well as various age groups
from preschool to middle adolescence from community samples rang-
ing in size from 63 to 1,152 participants. A variety of informants and
measurements have been included to assess both moral disengagement
(and related concepts) and aggressive and other forms of detrimental
behavior. The result is a rich harvest of findings, encompassing (a) rep-
lications of established findings (e.g., regarding gender and age), which
also serve a crucial validating function with respect to involving (new)
measurement approaches and instruments but also samples, study con-
texts, etc.; and (b) new, partly unexpected results that inspire us to stay
connected with the field and (continue to) contribute ourselves to this
research.
In sum, to advance our understanding of the phenomenon of aggres-
sive and detrimental behavior in general and (cyber) bullying specifically,
and to develop efficient, effective prevention and intervention programs
(which include dimensions of morality), we need a clearer understanding
about what aspects of morality and moral development should be inves-
tigated (conceptual clarification) and how these different aspects might
best be measured (methodological clarification). Moreover, future stud-
ies need to investigate both cross-sectional and longitudinal associations
between aggressive and bullying behavior, moral sensibility, moral values,
moral emotions, and moral cognitions (e.g., moral disengagement) in a
more integrative way, allowing for a fuller understanding of developmen-
tal changes in moral functioning; this concerns especially studies involv-
ing younger children and using multiple methodological approaches.
International, collaborative studies–as fruitfully and successfully repre-
sented in this special issue–targeting also cross-cultural dimensions will
facilitate consideration of the universality of the developmental patterns
and processes observed.
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Moral Disengagement and Aggression: Comments on the Special Issue

Author(s): Eveline Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.13110/merrpalmquar1982.61.1.0192

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Moral Disengagement and Aggression: Comments

This special issue on the relationship between moral disengagement and

Eveline Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Research Department.

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Summarizing the Articles

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Critical Analysis of Specific Aspects

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Conclusions and Implications for Further Research

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