The emergence of moral emotions such as guilt is central in moral and prosocial development. Guilt is an important psychological factor, which motivates prosocial behaviour and is credited for multiple social functions. Importantly, it remains unclear what determines the extent to which children show guilt. The current study examined two factors…

The current study examined whether bystander behaviours in class were associated with being perpetrators of ethnic victimization and whether they moderated the association between disengagement from morality and perpetrating ethnic-based victimization. The sample included 1065 adolescents residing in Sweden (M[subscript age] = 13.12, SD=.42; 55%…

Violence towards LGBTQ+ people is a topic of growing social and research interest. The scientific literature has mainly focused on victimization, with few studies exploring the factors that could trigger LGBTQ+ harassment perpetration in adolescents. Moral disengagement is postulated as a possible predictor variable as it has previously shown a…

Moral disengagement (MD) refers to social-cognitive distortions that allow individuals to sidestep the self-regulatory processes that normally prevent immoral conduct. MD has been linked to bullying in childhood and adolescence, but most studies have used a cross-sectional design. Less is known about the longitudinal link. Therefore, the aim of…

Adolescence is a time in which peers gain in importance and more time is spent engaging in social interactions with them. Within these interactions, adolescents will also be confronted with moral dilemmas, in which moral decisions need to be taken. The aim of the current study was to examine two factors that may influence moral decisions, namely…

Moral Disengagement (MD) has been found to be related to higher levels of different aggressive and bullying behaviours. Although some studies found that it plays an important role in cyberbullying too, results in this field are still puzzling and the association between MD and cyberbullying is still unclear. Therefore, this systematic review was…

Are moral judgement maturity and self-serving cognitive distortions or moral disengagement merely opposites, as recently claimed? Self-serving cognitive distortions and moral disengagement constitute (more or less interchangeable) neutralization techniques; they stem from the same theoretical background and refer to the same cognitive processes.…

Moral self-concept (MSC) is an important aspect of human morality and emerges in early childhood. It indicates how early children view themselves as moral agents. Yet, its structure and developmental patterns are unclear and require more research. This study addresses if the multidimensional structure of MSC is stable during early childhood and if…

Aestheticians pointed out that the long immersion in the beautiful environment plays an important role on the moral education. The research mainly tested the opinion and examined the influence of the environmental aesthetics on moral behaviours and immoral behaviours. Meanwhile, we also further explored the possible pathways for environmental…

Parental attachment has been argued to play a fundamental role in the development of adolescent Internet morality. However, little is known about the mediating and moderating mechanisms of parental attachment. The present study tested a moderated mediation model that included parental attachment (predictor variable), empathy (moderator), online…