title: Longitudinal Relationships between Bullying and Moral Disengagement among Adolescents.
abstract: Moral disengagement is a series of cognitive processes used to disengage moral standards to achieve absolved guilt and permit immoral conduct and has been found to be an important connection to bullying and aggressive behaviors among adolescents. This study examined the longitudinal relationship between moral disengagement and bullying behavior among a group of adolescents from fifth grade to ninth grade (n = 1180, mean age = 12.2, SD = 1.29, 46.5 % female, 80.2 % Caucasian/White, 7.1 % Black/African American, 5.4 % Latino/Hispanic, 2.4 % Asian American, and 1.7 % other) over three semesters. The objectives were to investigate (a) whether moral disengagement was a precursor to bullying behavior, vice versa, or whether the relationship was reciprocal and (b) whether gender and grade predicted moral disengagement and bullying behavior. The results showed that moral disengagement predicted bullying perpetration 6 months later. Also, older students and males utilized more moral disengagement than younger students and females and younger students and males engaged in greater bullying perpetration. Indirect paths linking gender and grade to bullying via moral disengagement at previous time points were identified and implications for bullying prevention are discussed. The findings underscore the importance of examining moral disengagement when studying bullying and across gender and development.
authors.affiliation: Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education, University of Maryland, 3234 Benjamin Building, College Park, MD, 20742, USA. cxwang@umd.edu.
authors.forename: Cixin
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-4947-0228
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Leadership, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Ji Hoon
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Ryoo
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588, USA.
authors.forename: Susan M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Swearer
authors.affiliation: Munroe-Meyer Institute at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, 68198, USA.
authors.forename: Rhonda
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Education, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA.
authors.forename: Taryn S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Goldberg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D058445:Bullying; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D010379:Peer Group; D012938:Social Perception; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Autoregressive model; Bullying; Cross-lagged model; Gender; Grade; Moral disengagement