Moral Disengagement as a Moderating Factor in the Relationship between the Perception of Dating Violence and Victimization.

Isabel Cuadrado-Gordillo,Inmaculada Fernández-Antelo,Guadalupe Martín-Mora Parra

doi:10.3390/ijerph17145164

Isabel Cuadrado-Gordillo, Inmaculada Fernández-Antelo + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17145164

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Abstract

There have been studies establishing the relationship between moral disengagement and aggressiveness in various contexts, especially in the role of the aggressor. Few, however, have analyzed moral disengagement’s mediating role in the phenomenon of teenage dating violence, taking into account how these mechanisms affect the victims’ perception of themselves as fearful, trapped, or mistreated in a dating relationship. This study analyzes the relationship between moral disengagement, the acceptance of violence, and how the victims of this type of abuse perceive victimization. The participants were 2577 adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18. They completed two questionnaires that addressed teenage dating violence and moral disengagement. To study the relationship between the variables, factorial, structural, correlation, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were performed to construct the perceptual structure of victimization. The analyses showed moral disengagement and the acceptance of violence, as well as their interaction, to have a mediating and moderating influence by modifying the perception of victimization. The victims’ levels of moral disengagement explained their acceptance of the violence and their inability to recognize abuse. Finally, these results may be a key element in the design of psychological interventions aimed at minimizing the use of moral disengagement and the acceptance of violence in situations involving aggression in teenage dating.

Highlights

Violence in teenage dating is classified as a phenomenon of an aggressive nature that includes physical, psychological, sexual, and/or emotional abuse taking place within a relationship at ages from early adolescence to the beginning of adulthood [1]
While there has been in-depth research on the determining role of certain variables, sexism for example, in aggression and in the acceptance of violence [5,6,7], there has been less attention paid to other factors, such as moral disengagement
The analysis of the results revealed that 17.28% of the 2577 adolescents who participated in the study had suffered some type of violence and classified themselves as victims in a relationship with their partner

Summary

Introduction

Violence in teenage dating is classified as a phenomenon of an aggressive nature that includes physical, psychological, sexual, and/or emotional abuse taking place within a relationship at ages from early adolescence to the beginning of adulthood [1]. There has been exponential growth in research aimed at tackling this phenomenon [3,4]. It has not been easy, to find any explanation for the growth of this type of abusive behavior, mainly due to its multi-causal nature. While there has been in-depth research on the determining role of certain variables, sexism for example, in aggression and in the acceptance of violence [5,6,7], there has been less attention paid to other factors, such as moral disengagement (fundamentally in its mediating function with variables involved in the victimization process)

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