Albert Bandura: Moral Disengagement

2016

Moral agency has dual aspects manifested in both the power to refrain from behaving inhumanely and the proactive power to behave humanely. Moral agency is embedded in a broader socio-cognitive self-theory encompassing affective self-regulatory mechanisms rooted in personal standards linked to self-sanctions. Moral functioning is thus governed by self-reactive selfhood rather than by dispassionate abstract reasoning. The self-regulatory mechanisms governing moral conduct do not come into play unless they are activated and there are many psychosocial mechanisms by which moral self-sanctions are selectively disengaged from inhumane conduct. The moral disengagement may centre on the cognitive restructuring of inhumane conduct into a benign or worthy one by moral justii cation, sanitising language and exonerative social comparison; disavowal of personal agency in the harm one causes by diffusion or displacement of responsibility; disregarding or minimising the injurious effects of one's actions; and attribution of blame to, and dehumanisation of, those who are victimised. Social cognitive theory adopts an interactionist perspective to morality in which moral actions are the products of the reciprocal interplay of personal and social inn uences. Given the many mechanisms for disengaging moral control at both the individual and collective level, civilised life requires, in addition to humane personal standards, safeguards built into social systems that uphold compassionate behaviour and renounce cruelty. This article addresses the important but neglected issue of selective moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. In a recent book entitled, Everybody Does It, Thomas Gabor (1994) documents the pervasiveness of moral disengagement by people of all statuses in all walks of life. Psychological theories of morality have traditionally focused heavily on the formal character of moral reasoning to the neglect of moral conduct. People suffer from the wrongs done to them regardless of how perpetrators justify their inhumane actions. The regulation of humane conduct involves much more than moral reasoning. A complete theory of moral agency must link moral knowledge and reasoning to moral conduct. This requires an agentic theory of morality rather than one conn ned mainly to cognitions about morality. In the social cognitive theory of the moral self (Bandura, 1986,

Journal of Business Ethics, 2020

Moral disengagement was initially conceptualized as a process through which people reconstrue unethical behaviors, with the effect of deactivating self-sanctions and thereby clearing the way for ethical transgressions. Our article challenges how researchers now conceptualize moral disengagement. The current literature is overly liberal, in that it mixes two related but distinct constructs—process moral disengagement and the propensity to morally disengage—creating ambiguity in the findings. It is overly conservative, as it adopts a challengeable classification scheme of “four points in moral self-regulation” and perpetuates defining moral disengagement via a set of eight psychological mechanisms, narrowing our understanding of the phenomenon. To address these problems, we propose to define process moral disengagement intensionally (specifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for correct application of the term) as intrapsychic cognitive reasoning processes through which peopl...

2012

for keeping me centered when I feared losing balance. They all made sure that I remembered there was life outside the lab, especially before Max's arrival. I have many great memories of our talks, shared trips, meals, walks, and music and laughter by the fire or on the porch on warm summer nights. Last, but not least, I wish to thank the research assistants and students who have worked with me over the years. They, too, have taught me lots. Moreover, without their dedication to my work, and their help collecting and entering data I would still be in the pilot-testing phase, no doubt! vi

Current Approaches in Pschiatry, 2023

It is an intriguing question of how people can reduce stress in which situations where internal moral standards are violated. Addressing this question, moral disengagement theory has been proposed to explain different cognitive mechanisms which ease people into engaging or witnessing moral transgressions. Several findings showed that moral disengagement tendencies might be explained by individual differences as well as contextual factors. Beyond showing the correlations between moral disengagement processes and individual differences and contextual factors, it is also valuable to investigate if there is an effective way to intervene in moral disengagement. This review article addresses the previously shown evidence regarding individual differences, contextual factors, and interventions, which in turn aim to enrich our understanding of the underlying psychological mechanisms to reduce unethical behaviors. Taken together, Honesty-Modesty, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism were found to be individual differences associated with moral disengagement. Additionally, less research yielded that attachment styles, political attitudes, moral identity, and moral emotions might be important to experience moral disengagement. Although several studies showed that individual differences are related to being more prone to moral disengagement, these studies had rarely been considered in intervention programs aiming to reduce immoral behaviors. Programs that have been designed to reduce moral disengagement overlook the long-term effects. Additionally, interventions often focus on the work environment and adolescence. In the future, interventions that include longitudinal designs considering the role of individual differences and different contexts might contribute to the relevant literature.

2017

This study, conducted in Malaysia is part of the pilot study carried out as a pre-test procedure to a main study on moral disengagement. According to social cognitive theory, moral disengagement is the key to deactivate individual self-regulatory process. Once it is deactivated an individual will be freed from any psychological feeling of discomfort in performing unethical behaviour. Hence, based on social cognitive theory this study aims to identify the antecedents of moral disengagement by investigating the individual differences (gender and personality) and environmental influence (organizational ethical climate). ANCOVA and hierarchical regression were applied to test the hypotheses. There was a moderate gender difference in the level of moral disengagement between male and female employees. As predicted, conscientiousness and extraversion were found to have a negative significant relationship with moral disengagement. Further, organizational ethical climate was found to be negatively and modestly related to moral disengagement.

Journal of Business Ethics, 2008

This paper explores Albert Bandura's concept of moral disengagement in the context of organizational corruption. First, the construct of moral disengagement is defined and elaborated. Moral disengagement is then hypothesized to play a role in the initiation of corruption by both easing and expediting individual unethical decision-making that advances organizational interests. It is hypothesized to be a factor in the facilitation of organizational corruption through dampening individualsÕ awareness of the ethical content of the decisions they make. Finally, it is hypothesized to contribute to the perpetuation of corruption in organizations, because if individuals who have a greater propensity to morally disengage are more likely to make decisions that advance organizational interests regardless of the ethicality of those decisions, they may also be rewarded for those decisions in terms of organizational advancement. Together these studies form an argument that moral disengagement plays an important role in processes of organizational corruption.

Journal of Business Ethics, 2013

Self-interest has long been recognized as a powerful human motive. Yet, much remains to be understood about the thinking behind self-interested pursuits. Drawing from multiple literatures, we propose that situations high in opportunity for self-interested gain trigger a type of moral cognition called moral disengagement that allows the individual to more easily disengage internalized moral standards. We also theorize two countervailing forces-situational harm to others and dispositional conscientiousness-that may weaken the effects of personal gain on morally disengaged reasoning. We test our hypotheses in two studies using qualitative and quantitative data and complementary research methods and design. We demonstrate that when personal gain incentives are relatively moderate, reminders of harm to others can reduce the likelihood that employees will morally disengage. Furthermore, when strong personal gain incentives are present in a situation, highly conscientious individuals are less apt than their counterparts to engage in morally disengaged reasoning.

Two intervention strategies aimed at stopping moral disengagement in adolescents were evaluated with 116 ninth-grade students (M age = 14.6 years). Three classrooms were randomly assigned to three conditions: intervention based on critical thinking and social regulation, intervention based on persuasion and behavioral journalism, and a control group. Results revealed a significant reduction in moral justifications and in moral disengagement related to stealing among participants in the critical thinking and social regulation intervention in comparison to the control group and the behavioral journalism intervention group. Given the few interventions aimed at stopping moral disengagement, this study is an important contribution that suggests that it is possible to reduce moral disengagement with school-based pedagogical interventions.