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The Role of Individual and Collective Moral Disengagement in Peer Aggression and Bystanding: A Multilevel Analysis

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Abstract

This study investigates the relationships between individual and collective moral disengagement and aggression-related behaviors (peer aggression, defending, and passive bystanding) among 918 adolescents (55.8 % boys; M age = 14.1 years, SD = 1.1). Hierarchical linear modeling showed that, at the individual level, aggressive behavior was significantly explained by both individual moral disengagement and student perceived collective moral disengagement, which was also positively associated with defending. Student perceived collective moral disengagement moderated the link between individual moral disengagement and peer aggression. At the class level, classroom collective moral disengagement explained between-class variability in all the three aggression-related behaviors. These results extend previous research by demonstrating the role of collective moral disengagement at the individual and the class levels and have potential implications for interventions.

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Notes

  1. The interactions between age and gender and the two forms of moral disengagement were also entered to test for moderations. None of the interactions with age and gender were significant, so they were excluded from the final models.

  2. We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, via Venezia, 8, Padova, 35131, Italy

    Gianluca Gini & Tiziana Pozzoli

  2. Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    Kay Bussey

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  1. Gianluca Gini
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Correspondence to Gianluca Gini.

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Gini, G., Pozzoli, T. & Bussey, K. The Role of Individual and Collective Moral Disengagement in Peer Aggression and Bystanding: A Multilevel Analysis. J Abnorm Child Psychol 43, 441–452 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-014-9920-7

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