Situationally Selective Activation of Moral Disengagement Mechanisms in School Bullying: A Repeated Within-Subjects Experimental Study

Thornberg, Robert; Daremark, Elina; Gottfridsson, Jonn; Gini, Gianluca

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01101

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol., 09 June 2020

Sec. Educational Psychology

Volume 11 - 2020 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01101

Situationally Selective Activation of Moral Disengagement Mechanisms in School Bullying: A Repeated Within-Subjects Experimental Study

$\r\nRobert Thornberg*$ Robert Thornberg^1*

Elina Daremark¹

Jonn Gottfridsson¹

Gianluca Gini²

¹Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
²Department of Development and Social Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy

With reference to social–cognitive theory, the aim of the present study was to examine whether school students’ tendency to display different moral disengagement mechanisms varies according to different social cues in hypothetical events in which they are engaged in bullying behavior. A repeated within-subjects experimental design was adopted. A total of 706 Swedish students (aged 10–20) from 75 classrooms responded to four verbal bullying vignettes by filling out a self-report survey. The results showed changes in moral disengagement mechanisms across the bullying situations. For instance, moral justification, victim blaming, and dehumanization scored higher in the mean victim condition and lower in the likable victim condition than in the other two conditions. Diffusion of responsibility was higher in the group conformity condition than in the other conditions. The findings also revealed differences in the levels of moral disengagement mechanisms within the bullying conditions. For example, euphemistic labeling and displacement of responsibility scored higher than the other mechanisms in the laughing audience condition. Victim blaming scored higher than the other mechanisms in the mean victim condition. Dehumanization, victim blaming, and moral justification scored lowest while euphemistic labeling was higher than most of the other mechanisms in the likable victim condition.

Introduction

Bullying is usually defined as repeated aggressive, offensive, or inhumane behavior directed at individuals who are disadvantaged or less powerful in relation to the perpetrator(s) (Olweus, 1993; Jimerson et al., 2010) and can therefore be categorized as “unfair and immoral behavior” (Romera et al., 2019). Accordingly, research has found that children judge bullying to be a serious transgression and wrong independently of school rules by referring to the harm it causes the victim (Thornberg, 2010; Thornberg et al., 2016, 2017). Still, it is a worldwide problem in schools (Chester et al., 2015). Thus, there is a gap between moral standards and actions, but Bandura (2016) argues that the theoretical understanding of moral agency cannot be reduced to moral standards but has to include motivational and self-regulatory processes that could either translate moral standards into moral action or create barriers between standards and action. These self-regulatory processes are situated cognitive processes (Bandura, 2016) that may be influenced by specific features of the social interaction that takes place. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to examine whether adolescents’ tendency to display different moral disengagement mechanisms varies across different (hypothetical) social situations, where characteristics of the situations were experimentally manipulated.

Social–Cognitive Theory of Moral Agency

According to the social–cognitive theory of moral agency (Bandura, 1999, 2016), moral standards are linked to moral actions through self-regulation processes that monitor, regulate, and evaluate individuals’ actions. These self-regulation processes produce self-sanctions (i.e., a sense of guilt, remorse, and self-condemnation) when individuals recognize themselves as doing wrong, and self-approval (i.e., a sense of self-worth) when they recognize themselves as doing right. The self-regulation of morality cannot, however, be reduced to intrapsychic processes but is embedded in a dynamic social context. “Moral agency is socially situated and exercised in particularized ways” (Bandura, 1999, p. 207). The social–cognitive theory adopts an interactionist perspective on morality, in which situational and contextual factors are important.

To understand the gap between moral standards and actions, Bandura (1999, 2016) proposes the concept of moral disengagement, which refers to a set of self-serving cognitive distortions by which self-regulating mechanisms can be deactivated and moral self-sanctions can be disengaged, which in turn makes it possible to behave inhumanely or aggressively without feelings of guilt or remorse. Individuals justify immoral conduct in order to help themselves avoid the self-sanctions that would typically follow from such conduct. In this way, moral disengagement facilitates and promotes inhumane behaviors. Previous research has shown that children and adolescents who bully others more than their peers do tend to display greater moral disengagement than their peers (e.g., Gini, 2006; Gini et al., 2011; Caravita et al., 2012; Bussey et al., 2015; Pozzoli et al., 2016; for meta-analyses, see Gini et al., 2014; Killer et al., 2019).

Specifically, moral disengagement includes eight mechanisms that could be selectively activated in a given situation: (a) moral justification: using worthy ends or moral purposes to sanction pernicious means, (b) euphemistic labeling: labeling the inhumane or aggressive behavior in a way that makes the act sound less negative or more respectable, (c) advantageous comparison: making a bad act seem less bad and more acceptable by comparing it to a worse act, (d) displacement of responsibility: minimizing personal responsibility by viewing one’s actions as stemming from authorities, (e) diffusion of responsibility: diluting personal responsibility due to the presence or involvement of other people, (f) distorting the consequences: perceptually minimizing, ignoring, or misconstruing the negative or harmful effects of the inhumane behavior, (g) dehumanization: stripping the victim of human qualities and equal value, and (h) victim blaming: viewing the victim as responsible for his or her own suffering (Bandura, 1999, 2016).

While moral disengagement is theoretically and conceptually a multidimensional construct, as described above, the vast majority of studies in the field of aggression and bullying have examined and measured it as a unidimensional construct (Gini et al., 2014; Killer et al., 2019). Therefore, there is still not much knowledge about the degree to which different moral disengagement mechanisms may be related to bullying perpetration. Even though all or most of the foci or mechanisms of moral disengagement might positively correlate with bullying perpetration (e.g., Thornberg and Jungert, 2014; Zych et al., 2019), only a few studies have examined their associations with bullying perpetration when all mechanisms are included in the same models. In their regression models, Robson and Witenberg (2013) found that moral justification and diffusion of responsibility were significantly associated with traditional bullying behavior, whereas diffusion of responsibility and blaming the victim were significantly associated with cyberbullying behavior. Thornberg and Jungert (2014) found that bullying perpetration was linked to victim attribution (dehumanization and victim blaming merged into one factor after factor analysis) and moral justification in a sample of Swedish pre-adolescent students. These findings were then replicated in a recent study of direct bullying perpetration, while indirect bullying perpetration was only related to victim attribution (Bjärehed et al., 2020). In their study, Oliveira et al. (2019) found that bullying behavior was associated with victim blaming, dehumanization, and displacement of responsibility.

Situated Selective Activation of Moral Disengagement Mechanisms

Social–cognitive theory posits that moral disengagement is a product of the reciprocal interplay between individual and social influences (Bandura, 1999, 2016). It should therefore be considered as consisting of situated cognitive processes. “Moral disengagement is not a dispositional trait that can be assessed by a one-size-fits-all measure. Disengagement mechanisms operate across different aspects of life, but they are manifested differently depending on the sphere of activity” (Bandura, 2016, p. 26). Bandura (1999, 2016) argues that moral disengagement mechanisms can be selectively activated under different circumstances. However, to our knowledge, previous research on moral disengagement and bullying perpetration has examined and measured moral disengagement by considering individuals’ (or groups’) propensities to morally disengage as more or less stable attitudes or trait-like cognitive distortions and by using a general attitude-like scale (e.g., Hymel et al., 2005; Robson and Witenberg, 2013; Cuadrado-Gordillo and Fernández-Antelo, 2019; Oliveira et al., 2019; Thornberg et al., 2019).

In their recent meta-analysis of moral disengagement in bullying perpetration, Killer et al. (2019) conclude that there is a lack of examining the wider influence of the situational context. Therefore, they suggest as a future direction: “While MD and contextual variables have been known to interact to impact aggressive behavior, further research into this interaction specifically in bullying scenarios would further enhance our understanding of the role MD plays in bullying-related behaviors” (Killer et al., 2019, p. 458). We would like to add that it would be plausible, in particular, to assume that different mechanisms of moral disengagement could be activated to a greater or lesser extent due to variations in the characteristics or “cues” across bullying situations.

The Mean Victim

Moral justification is a powerful mechanism through which actors interpret their aggressive behavior as serving a moral purpose, which influences them to consider themselves moral agents who can feel good about themselves (i.e., self-approval) while inflicting harm on others (Bandura, 2016). Bandura (1999) argues that moral justification is most strikingly revealed in military conduct in which people “see themselves as fighting ruthless oppressors, protecting their cherished values, preserving world peace, saving humanity from subjugation, or honoring their country’s commitment” (p. 195). In a school bullying context, if bullies interpret the victim as someone who has been mean to others, in particular to their friends, such a “cue” could easily trigger or activate moral justification in which they see themselves as standing up for and protecting their friends by fighting the victim. Furthermore, this mean victim condition might trigger or activate victim blaming even more—the bullies perceive that the victims deserve their suffering and are at fault for bringing maltreatment on themselves. In addition, it might be easier to dehumanize a mean or aggressive victim by reducing them to a worthless “jerk,” “douchebag,” “idiot,” or “savage.” Through this dehumanization process, bullies become less inclined to identify or empathize with the victim and more motivated and prone to act inhumanely and aggressively toward him or her (Haslam and Loughnan, 2014; Li et al., 2014; Webster and Saucier, 2015; Bandura, 2016).

Group Conformity

In contrast, it is plausible to assume that moral disengagement mechanisms that minimize or obscure each peer-group member’s personal responsibility and agency in causing harm would be more easily activated if a peer group, instead of a single perpetrator, is bullying a victim. Perhaps most obviously, bullying performed by a group of students can trigger diffusion of responsibility (Olweus, 1993; Bandura, 1999, 2016) as “any harm done by the group can always be attributed largely to the behaviors of others” (Bandura, 1999, p. 198). Moreover, if it is perceived as possible for a whole peer group to bully someone at school without teacher intervention, this condition could activate displacement of responsibility in terms of viewing the school authorities as being responsible for what is going on (e.g., “It’s the teachers’ fault because they aren’t there and stopping it.”).

If teachers and playground supervisors fail to detect and promptly intervene in bullying, and if there are no effective consequences for the bullies, students will probably define this as a sign of poor and ineffective anti-bullying practice conducted by the authorities in school (Cunningham et al., 2016) that in fact makes room for bullying. According to a recent qualitative study examining how students understand and explain bullying (Thornberg and Delby, 2019), if they perceive that teachers and other school staff allow bullying to take place, then the lesson learned is that bullying is an accepted behavior at school and is not banned by school rules. Bullying conducted by a single student would probably be more easily dismissed as a deviant student’s work and an exception to the rule, whereas displacement of responsibility onto the teachers and other school staff is more likely to occur when bullying is conducted by whole peer groups within the school.

Laughing Audience

Another bullying condition that might increase the likelihood of activating displacement of responsibility is when there are peers present who are laughing and cheering the bully on. By taking the participant role of reinforcer (Salmivalli, 2010), these bystanders socially approve and reward the bully. They are telling him or her: “We like this! You’re doing the right thing!” As in the situation in which a whole peer group is engaged in bullying, the bully who is repeatedly supported and cheered on by peers will be more inclined to interpret the bullying perpetration as socially accepted and allowed in school and that therefore it is the teachers and other school staff who are responsible because they allow it to happen (otherwise, they should have noticed, intervened, and stopped the bullying).

In addition, bystanders who are laughing and cheering will probably trigger or activate euphemistic labeling, interpreting bullying as a non-serious joke or playful act. In a qualitative study (Thornberg and Delby, 2019), some students themselves recognized that bystanders can contribute to “normalizing” bullying by co-constructing it as “joking” when they smile and laugh. They help the bully to blur the boundary between joking and abuse and to view the bullying as just an expression of a trivial, normal, and ordinary joking jargon. When all the peers around are smiling and laughing, it will be easier for the bully to think, “I’m just joking,” and “this is just for fun.” When a group of students are laughing and smiling, it might even influence any teacher present to misinterpret what they are doing as humor, joking, and having fun instead of bullying and therefore do nothing to intervene (Smith-Adcock et al., 2019; Thornberg and Delby, 2019), which further facilitates displacement of responsibility among the students.

The Likable Victim

If students are bullying someone whom they actually like and perceive as kind to everyone, they are likely to be less inclined to dehumanize and blame the victim than in the three bullying conditions above. The victim cannot simply be stripped of his or her human qualities and equal value, reduced to a negative label, or blamed but is perceived as deserving to be treated well and is at a lower risk of victimization (Babarro et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2019; Ma et al., 2020). In fact, bullying someone who is liked, friendly, and kind to others is so obviously wrong and unjustifiable that, for most children and adolescents, engaging in such behavior would inevitably create cognitive dissonance, resulting in aversive arousal (Festinger, 1962; McGrath, 2017), feelings of guilt and self-condemnation (Bandura, 1999, 2016), and moral distress (cf., Brüggemann et al., 2019; Gini et al., 2020). It should in fact be more difficult for moral disengagement in general to be activated to convince the actor that the inhumane behavior is acceptable because of the actor’s friendly feelings for the victim and perception of the victim as a good person. In addition to dehumanization and victim blaming, mechanisms like moral justification, advantageous comparison, and diffusion of responsibility appear to be rather unconvincing. However, one way out might be to talk about and reinterpret the whole situation and one’s behavior as something other than mean behavior in general, and bullying in particular. The perpetrator can use labels like “friendly teasing” and “just joking” to make “humor come up smelling fresh and friendly” (Billig, 2005, p. 25). Therefore, we assume that students would be more inclined to use euphemistic labeling than other moral disengagement mechanisms in the likable victim condition because it helps them to reduce cognitive dissonance and the associated unwanted negative emotions by convincing them that they are not being mean and aggressive toward the well-liked peer but are “just joking.”

Aim and Hypotheses

In accordance with the social–cognitive theory (Bandura, 1999, 2016), the aim of the present study was to examine whether school students’ tendency to display different moral disengagement mechanisms varies due to different social cues in hypothetical events in which they are engaged in bullying behavior. Although we deduced a set of hypotheses based on the literature review, the current study is, as far as we know, the first to use an experimental design to examine the degree to which various moral disengagement mechanisms might be situated and thus affected by various social cues in bullying situations. The current study should therefore be considered rather exploratory, and its hypotheses weak.

We proposed the following hypotheses about the tendencies of moral disengagement mechanisms across bullying conditions: In hypothetical bullying situations in which students are acting as bullies: (1) students score higher in moral justification in the mean victim condition than in the other conditions; (2) students score higher in euphemistic labeling in the laughing audience and likable victim conditions than in the other conditions; (3) students score higher in displacement of responsibility in the group conformity and laughing audience conditions than in the other conditions; (4) students score higher in diffusion of responsibility in the group conformity condition than in the other conditions; (5) students score higher in dehumanization in the mean victim condition than in the other conditions and lower in the likable victim condition than in the other conditions; and (6) students score higher in victim blaming in the mean victim condition than in the other conditions and lower in the likable victim condition than in the other conditions. How advantageous comparison and distorting consequences may vary across the hypothetical bullying conditions was examined in an exploratory manner.

Furthermore, we proposed the following hypotheses about the tendencies of moral disengagement mechanisms within bullying conditions: In hypothetical bullying situations in which students are acting as bullies: (1) in the group conformity condition, students score higher in displacement of responsibility and diffusion of responsibility than in other mechanisms; (2) in the laughing audience condition, students score higher in displacement of responsibility and euphemistic labeling than in other mechanisms; (3) in the mean victim condition, students score higher in moral justification and victim blaming than in other mechanisms; and (4) in the likable victim condition, students score higher in euphemistic labeling and lower in dehumanization and victim blaming than in other mechanisms.

Materials and Methods

In the current study, we adopted a repeated within-subjects experimental design using a vignette technique in which the same participants took part in each condition of the experiment.

Participants

Participants were recruited from 20 schools in Sweden. A non-probability two-step sampling was used in the study. First, a purposive sampling of schools was carried out, which led to the inclusion of 20 schools representing various socio-geographic and socioeconomic positions, and including upper elementary schools (students are usually around 10–13 years old) and secondary schools (students are usually around 13–19 years old). In the next step, we conducted a convenience sampling of students in these grades and years. The original sample consisted of 1,695 students [911 (54%) boys and 784 (46%) girls]. Parental consent letters were distributed to all the families (parental consent reached 43%). All the participants were asked for their own consent in addition to parental consent. Six students did not participate because they did not want to, and nine students were excluded from the study because they did not complete the questionnaire.

Thus, the final sample consisted of 706 students located in 75 classrooms in 20 schools, resulting in a participation rate of 42%. The sampling data indicate selection bias due to gender differences between the original and final sample. In the final sample, 310 (44%) students reported a male gender, 386 (55%) students reported a female gender, and 10 (1%) students reported “other” gender (note that gender data are based on biological sex in the original sample, and on self-reports in the final sample). The age range in the final sample was 10–20 years old (M = 14.5, SD = 2.85) with 326 students in upper elementary school and 380 in secondary school. The two-step sampling procedure led to a sample of students from different socioeconomic (ranging from lower to upper-middle class) and socio-geographic backgrounds. Most of the participants were of Swedish ethnicity, while a minority (6%) had a foreign background; in other words, they were born in another country and/or both parents were born in another country. We obtained active parental consent and student consent for all 706 participants.

Procedures and Measures

Data were collected from a web-based, anonymous, self-report questionnaire, which the participants filled in on a tablet, computer, or cellphone in their regular classrooms. Either the second or the third author was present throughout the session to explain the study procedure and assist the participants. They are both trained graduate students in psychology. To ensure anonymity, the participants were instructed to move away from each other and to separate their desks. The procedure took about 30–40 min in each classroom. The study received ethical approval from the Regional Ethical Review Board at Linköping.

Bullying Vignettes

The questionnaire consisted of four bullying vignettes (hypothetical scenarios) that did not mention the word “bullying” (see Appendix)¹. Before the four vignettes, it was stated in the questionnaire under the heading, “Pretend that you are a person who is teasing others”: “Here come four short stories that we want you to identify yourself with. We want you to pretend to be a person who teases others and who is more popular, powerful and stronger than the person you are teasing. Don’t worry about whether you have done any of these things before or not. Just imagine in each story that it is you who is doing it.” Because a repeated within-subject experimental design is vulnerable to order effects and carryover effects, two versions of the questionnaires (A and B) were constructed.

In questionnaire A, the bullying vignettes were presented in the following order: (1) group conformity, (2) laughing audience, (3) mean victim, and (4) likable victim (see Appendix). In questionnaire B, the order was the opposite. Within each classroom, approximately half of the participants were randomly assigned to fill out questionnaire A and the other half to fill out questionnaire B. The victim and other included people in the vignettes were gender-neutral: their sex was not mentioned.

Moral Disengagement

The participants were asked to fill out a 16-item moral disengagement scale after each vignette (see Appendix). The scale was developed for the present study and consisted of two items for each mechanism. In order to cope with order effect and carryover effect, the scale had an A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-H-G-F-E-D-C-B-A design (A = euphemistic labeling, B = diffusion of responsibility, C = victim blaming, D = distorting the consequences, E = dehumanization, F = advantageous comparison, G = displacement of responsibility, H = moral justification). Participants rated each item on a seven-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). The Spearman–Brown coefficient was 0.83, 0.83, 0.80, and 0.90 for euphemistic labeling, 0.80, 0.84, 0.84, and 0.82 for diffusion of responsibility, 0.82, 0.90, 0.88, and 0.81 for victim blaming, 0.78, 0.80, 0.79, and 0.82 for distorting the consequences, 0.74, 0.81, 0.74, and 0.76 for dehumanization, 0.86, 0.87, 0.91, and 0.87 for advantageous comparison, 0.87, 0.86, 0.89, and 0.90 for displacement of responsibility, and 0.82, 0.83, 0.87, and 0.88 for moral justification. Cronbach’s α reliability for the moral disengagement scale in each vignette was 0.94, 0.95, 0.94, and 0.94.

Results

Descriptive statistics for the eight moral disengagement mechanisms in each of the four bullying vignettes are presented in Table 1. No hypotheses about gender or age differences were made in the present study; therefore, gender and age were not included in the analyses. One-way ANOVAs with repeated measures were computed to test the hypotheses. Mauchly’s test indicated that the assumption of sphericity was violated in all ANOVAs. Therefore, degrees of freedom were corrected using Greenhouse–Geisser estimate when estimates of sphericity were less than 0.75, whereas Huynh-Feldt estimate was used when estimates were greater than 0.75 (Field, 2013). Cohen’s d_z (calculated from the t-value using a dependent t-test and N; see Lakens, 2013) was calculated as effect size in the post hoc tests.

TABLE 1

Table 1. Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), and Mean Differences (F and partial η²) for moral disengagement across the bullying situations.

Before testing our hypotheses, one-way, repeated-measure ANOVAs were performed to examine whether moral disengagement as a global construct varies across the four bullying conditions. The results showed a significant main effect (Table 1). Bonferroni post hoc procedures revealed that moral disengagement was higher in the mean victim condition than in the likable victim condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.74), the group conformity condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.72), and the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.70). In addition, moral disengagement scored lower in the likable victim condition than in the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = −0.15) and the group conformity condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = −0.08).

Changes in Moral Disengagement Mechanisms Across the Bullying Situations

In order to test our hypotheses about the tendencies of moral disengagement mechanisms across bullying conditions, changes in each of the eight mechanisms for moral disengagement across the four bullying situations were analyzed. Eight one-way repeated-measure ANOVAs were performed—one for each mechanism—using the mean values for each of the four bullying conditions (presented horizontally in Table 2).

TABLE 2

Table 2. Means (M) and Standard Deviations (SD) for moral disengagement mechanisms and mean differences (F and partial η²) across and within the bullying situations.

Moral Justification

The first ANOVA showed a significant main effect. Bonferroni post hoc procedures revealed that moral justification was higher in the mean victim condition than in the likable victim condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.74), the group conformity condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.72), and the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.70). In addition, moral justification scored higher in the laughing audience condition than in the likable victim condition (p = 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.15).

Euphemistic Labeling

The second ANOVA indicated a significant main effect. Bonferroni post hoc procedures revealed that euphemistic labeling was higher in the laughing audience condition and the likable victim condition than in the group conformity condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.21; p = 0.019, Cohen’s d_z = 0.11) and the mean victim condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.19; p = 0.043, Cohen’s d_z = 0.10).

Advantageous Comparison

The third ANOVA demonstrated a significant main effect. Bonferroni post hoc procedures revealed that advantageous comparison was significantly higher in the mean victim condition than in the likable victim condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.39), the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.36), and the group conformity condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.33). In addition, advantageous comparison scored higher in the laughing audience condition than in the likable victim condition (p = 0.020, Cohen’s d_z = 0.11).

Displacement of Responsibility

The fourth ANOVA showed a significant main effect. Bonferroni post hoc procedures revealed that displacement of responsibility was lower in the likable victim condition than in the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = −0.24), the group conformity condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = −0.20), and the mean victim condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = −0.19).

Diffusion of Responsibility

The fifth ANOVA showed a significant main effect. Bonferroni post hoc procedures revealed that diffusion of responsibility was higher in the group conformity condition than in the likable victim condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.38), the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.16), and the mean victim condition (p = 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.14). Furthermore, diffusion of responsibility scored lower in the likable victim condition than in the mean victim condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = −0.32) and the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = −0.28).

Distorting Consequences

The sixth ANOVA demonstrated a significant main effect. Bonferroni post hoc tests using the correction revealed that distorting consequences were significantly higher in the mean victim condition than in the group conformity condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.32), the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.27), and the likable victim condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.21).

Dehumanization

The seventh ANOVA showed a significant main effect. Bonferroni post hoc procedures revealed that dehumanization scored higher in the mean victim condition than in the likable victim condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.31), the group conformity condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.19), and the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.18). In addition, dehumanization was significantly lower in the likable victim condition than in the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = −0.21) and the group conformity condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = −0.17).

Victim Blaming

The eighth ANOVA indicated a significant main effect. Bonferroni post hoc procedures revealed that victim blaming was higher in the mean victim condition than in the likable victim condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 1.02), the group conformity condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.99), and the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = 0.97). In addition, victim blaming scored lower in the likable victim condition than in the laughing audience condition (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = −0.18) and the group conformity condition (p = 0.001, Cohen’s d_z = −0.15).

Differences in Moral Disengagement Mechanisms Within the Bullying Situations

In order to test the hypotheses about the tendencies of moral disengagement mechanisms within bullying conditions, mean differences between the eight mechanisms for moral disengagement in each of the four bullying situations were analyzed. Four one-way repeated-measure ANOVAs were performed—one for each bullying situation—using the mean values for each of the eight mechanisms (presented vertically in Table 2).