Development and Validation of the Ethnic Moral Disengagement Scale.

Maria Grazia Lo Cricchio,Federica Stefanelli,Benedetta E. Palladino,Marinella Paciello,Ersilia Menesini

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.756350

Maria Grazia Lo Cricchio, Federica Stefanelli + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.756350

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Abstract

Research has underlined that moral disengagement processes, by which people switch off their moral values and act aggressively without experiencing guilt, are highly connected with contextual factors. However, research on situational variations in moral disengagement is limited, especially considering the associations with characteristics such as the ethnic origin of potential victims. The general aim of the present study was to develop a brief, specific measure of ethnic moral disengagement able to catch individual justification used in the case of ethnic bullying and cyberbullying, and test its validity and reliability. An eight items scale was developed and administered in study 1, in a sample of 961students attending several Italian high schools (53.5% female; Mage 15 years). Considering the results of the CFA, we modified one of the items and the scale was administered again, in a second sample of 1,229 students (49.9% female; Mage 15.62 years) in study 2. A one-factor model of ethnic moral disengagement fit the data well and internal consistency showed to be good. As an additional step, we found that the model was invariant across Italian adolescents and youths with a different ethnic or culture of origin (having at least one parent born abroad) strengthened our confidence regarding the factorial integrity of the scale. Last, the scale showed to be positively associated with ethnic bullying and cyberbullying. Generally, findings suggested that the Ethnic Moral Disengagement scale can be a useful tool for those interested in measuring moral disengagement and evaluating how it impacts bullying and cyberbullying of minority groups.

Highlights

Globalization has increased the movement of many people from one country to another, promoting processes of migration (Fandrem et al, 2012)
Since mechanisms of Moral Disengagement (MD) are informative with respect to discriminatory and racial behaviors (Faulkner and Bliuc, 2016; D’Errico and Paciello, 2018), the present study is aimed at contributing to the literature concerning this issue, by presenting a new scale aimed at measuring Ethnic MD (EMD)
We expected that EMD to be positively correlated with both traditional and virtual forms of prejudicial ethnic bullying behaviors

Summary

Introduction

Globalization has increased the movement of many people from one country to another, promoting processes of migration (Fandrem et al, 2012). Moral self-regulation does not always work in a consistent manner (Bandura, 2015), and, under specific circumstances, certain cognitive practices lead an individual to disengage from their own moral principles, and to behave unfairly. These processes have been proposed as the mechanisms of MD, which work by restructuring the four dimensions of behavior representation, or loci of cognitive restructuring: behavior, agency, consequences, and victims (Bandura, 1991)

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