۱- Introduction

۲- Method

۳- Results

۴- Discussion

References

Abstract

The present study examined the different mediating roles of eight mechanisms of moral disengagement in the association between harsh parenting and adolescent aggression. 389 junior high school students participated. Data were collected by parents reporting on spouses’ harsh parenting, adolescents themselves reporting on moral disengagement and nominating out aggressive classmates. The results indicated that harsh parenting was positively associated with each mechanism of moral disengagement and only the mechanisms of moral justification and euphemistic language completely mediated the association between harsh parenting and adolescent aggression. These results add to extant literature on how harsh parenting could risk adolescents for aggressive behaviors.

Introduction

Although research has indicated that harsh parenting could risk children for aggressive behaviors (Chen & Raine, 2018; Wang, 2017), the mediating mechanisms involved in this relationship remain to be further explored. Taking into account the impact of moral disengagement on child aggression (Gini, 2006; Shulman, Cauffman, Piquero, & Fagan, 2011), one might expect that moral disengagement might mediate the relation of harsh parenting to child aggression if harsh parenting functions as a risk factor for child moral disengagement. This study intends to explore the different mediating roles of the eight types of moral disengagement mechanisms in the association between harsh parenting and adolescent aggression. Following Bandura’s (1999) social cognitive theory of moral agency, individuals would desist from injurious conduct under the guidance of internalized moral standards. Committing detrimental conduct would risk both external sanctions such as being disapproved and internal selfcondemnation such as shame and guilt. To refrain from internal selfsanctions, individuals seek to rationalize their detrimental behaviors that violate moral standards through various psychosocial processes that have been conceptualized as moral disengagement (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996). Bandura et al. (1996) have proposed eight mechanisms of moral disengagement which could be classified as the following four groups. First, cognitive reconstruing enables individuals to reinterpret the reprehensible behaviors in a positive tone, including the following three mechanisms: moral justification by portraying the immoral conduct as warranted, advantageous comparison by contrasting a detrimental conduct with a worse one to make it seem less serious, euphemistic labeling by using convoluted or periphrastic language to mask condemnable conduct. The second group promotes people to distort the agentive relation between their harmful conduct and the behavioral consequences, mainly comprising displacement and diffusion of responsibility (i.e., regarding one’s own immoral conduct as being caused by external sources such as social pressures rather than as being personally responsible). The third group consists of the following mechanisms: distorting by minimizing or even disregarding the consequences of one’s reprehensible conduct. The fourth group capacitates self-censure to be avoided by dehumanization (i.e., stripping people of human qualities) or by attribution of blame (i.e., viewing themselves as being compelled into destructive conduct by victims who deserve being punished).