Poster #230 - Moral Disengagement and Bullying Behavior: The Moderating Roles of Subjective Friendship Norms and Gender

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Drawing on Bandura's (1986) social-cognitive theory, this study examined the contributions of moral disengagement, subjective friendship norms, and gender to the explanation of direct and indirect bullying. Although several studies have shown greater moral disengagement to be associated with greater bullying, questions remain as to the factors that moderate this relationship. In the current study, it was hypothesized that subjective friendship norms (i.e., the extent to which an individual believes their friends support bullying) would be one such moderator. Gender was also expected to influence the exact nature of this interaction. Specifically, believing that your friends support bullying behavior would seem particularly important when engaging in actions that go against the gender norm (i.e., girls engaging in direct bullying and boys engaging in indirect bullying). Consequently, the association between moral disengagement and direct bullying was expected to be more strongly influenced by subjective friendship norms for girls than boys, with high moral disengagement only translating to direct bullying among girls when they believed that their friends supported this gender atypical behavior. Similarly, subjective friendship norms that support indirect bullying were predicted to be particularly necessary for high moral disengagement to translate to indirect bullying among boys.

To test these predictions, 200 participants (135 girls; 65 boys) were recruited from two elementary schools located in South-East Queensland, Australia. Participants ranged in age from 10.77 to 13.63 years (M = 11.89, SD = .56). Each participant completed self-report measures that assessed moral disengagement, subjective friendship norms for direct and indirect bullying, and direct and indirect bullying behavior.

For direct bullying, results revealed a significant three-way interaction (p = .016). For boys, greater moral disengagement was significantly associated with greater direct bullying at low, medium, and high levels of direct bullying subjective friendship norms (all ps < .001). However, for girls, a significant association between moral disengagement and direct bullying emerged only at high levels of direct bullying subjective friendship norms (p = .005). For indirect bullying, a significant two-way interaction between moral disengagement and indirect bullying subjective friendship norms emerged (p = .027). Specifically, the association between moral disengagement and indirect bullying was not significant at low levels of subjective friendship norms (p = .508), but was significant at medium and high levels (p = .043 and .010, respectively).

These results show that the association between moral disengagement and bullying is not always a straightforward one. For direct bullying, greater moral disengagement was associated with more bullying among boys, regardless of perceived support from friends, but, for girls, greater moral disengagement only translated to more direct bullying if there was also a high level of perceived friend support for such behavior. For indirect bullying, regardless of gender, the positive association between moral disengagement and indirect bullying became stronger the more children perceived friendship support for such behavior. Thus, although techniques to reduce moral disengagement could be included in interventions aimed at reducing bullying, strategies to alter perceptions of friends' support for bullying are also recommended.

Authors

• Amanda Duffy, Griffith University
  Presenting Author

• Heather Gulliford, Griffith University
  Non-Presenting Author