Callous-Unemotional traits and cyberbullying perpetration: The mediating role of moral disengagement and the moderating role of empathy

Does Sensation Seeking Lead to Adolescents' Cyberbullying Perpetration? The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement and The Moderating Role of Perceived Social Support

Based on the general aggression model, the current study examined the mediating role of moral disengagement in the association between sensation seeking and cyberbullying perpetration and the moderating role of perceived social support. A total of 2,286 Chinese adolescents aged 11-16 years completed the questionnaires regarding sensation seeking, cyberbullying perpetration, moral disengagement, and perceived social support. After gender and age were controlled, sensation seeking was significantly and positively associated with cyberbullying perpetration and this relationship was partially mediated by moral disengagement. Moderated mediation analysis further indicated that perceived social support moderated the relationship between sensation seeking and moral disengagement as well as sensation seeking and cyberbullying perpetration. These two relationships became weaker for adolescents with high perceived social support. Specifically, adolescents with higher levels of sensation seeking were more likely to develop moral disengagement and further engaged in cyberbullying perpetration, when they perceived less social support.

Child Maltreatment Increases the Risk for Callous-Unemotional Traits: A Three-Level Meta-Analytic Review

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by lack of remorse and guilt, lack of empathy, and shallow and deficient emotions. A growing body of research has examined the association between child maltreatment and CU traits. However, empirical findings on this association are inconclusive. Therefore, this meta-analytic review aimed to examine the overall association between child maltreatment and CU traits and potentially moderating variables. After searching five databases (Web of Science, ScienceDirect, PubMed, MEDLINE, and CNKI), a total of 37 studies (N = 26,010 participants) yielding 165 effect sizes were synthesized in three-level meta-analytic models. Results showed that child maltreatment is significantly and positively related to CU traits (mean r = .183; p < .001). Moderator analyses showed that this association is larger in females than in males, larger in community samples (r = .243) than in clinical samples (r = .073), and in terms of CU trait dimensions stronger for callousness (r = .251) than for uncaring (r = .134) and unemotional dimensions (r = .050). It is concluded that child maltreatment is a risk factor for the development of CU traits and discussed that interventions for CU traits in antisocial groups should be aware of the environmental influence of interpersonal trauma resulting from childhood maltreatment experiences.

Collisions and Perceptions of Cyberbullying: Comparison of Intergenerational Experiences

With regard to negative consequences, cyberbullying is recognized as one of the most traumatic types of cyber aggression. The aim is to study the specific features of adolescents and youth's cyberbullying experience in the role of an aggressor, victim or bystander, as well as awareness on the part of parents of adolescents. A total of 3395 adolescents, youth and parents filled out specially designed questionnaires. Older adolescents turned out to be at higher risk of cyberbullying. In two-thirds of cases, cyberbullying is related to real-life incidents. Aggressors are motivated by domination and entertainment, primarily employing strategies of social exclusion, harassment and denigration. As victims of cyberbullying, younger adolescents turn to their parents and friends for social support, whereas older adolescents and young adults are more likely turn to their peers. In the role of a bystander, almost half of younger adolescents and about a third of older adolescents and young adults choose the prosocial strategy of protecting a victim. The parents often underestimate the experience of encountering cyberbullying or find it difficult to assess such experience. The identified risk groups and strategies and the lack of parents' awareness are important to take into account when drawing up cyberbullying prevention programs.

Callous-unemotional behaviors and conduct problems in Chinese preschoolers: the moderating roles of surgency and gender

Introduction

Conduct problems in children are related to callous-unemotional (CU) behaviors. However, results of the relationships between CU behaviors and conduct problems among preschoolers mainly focused on Western countries, no studies have examined whether CU behaviors predict conduct problem in Chinese preschoolers. The primary objective of the current study therefore was to examine the associations between CU behaviors and conduct problems as well as the moderating effects of surgency and child gender in Chinese preschool children.

Methods

The present study randomly selected 2,154 children (1,043 boys, Mage = 56 months, SD = 10.47) from six kindergartens in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. Mothers rated children's surgency and teachers reported children's CU behaviors and conduct problems.

Results

Results demonstrated that CU behaviors were positively associated with conduct problems. Surgency and child gender significantly moderated these associations. Specifically, CU behaviors were positively associated with conduct problems, with a stronger effect found for high levels of surgency. CU behaviors had a positive association with conduct problems, with a stronger effect found for boys.

Discussion

This study indicate that temperament and gender characteristics influence conduct problems in preschoolers who exhibit high levels of CU behaviors. As well, the findings emphasize the significance of considering the meaning and implication of CU behaviors in Chinese culture.

Agreeableness and adolescents' cyberbullying perpetration: A longitudinal moderated mediation model of moral disengagement and empathy

OBJECTIVE

The current study explored whether agreeableness predicted cyberbullying perpetration across 3 years and extended previous studies by exploring the mediating effect of moral disengagement and the moderating effects of empathy and gender.

METHOD

The participants included 2407 adolescents from 7 middle schools in China. They were recruited to complete the Big Five Personality Inventory, Bullying Scale and Empathy Scale at Time 1, Moral Disengagement Scale at Time 1 and Time 2, and Cyberbullying Perpetration Scale at Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3.

RESULTS

Agreeableness at Time 1 predicted cyberbullying perpetration at Time 3 and moral disengagement at Time 2 mediated this relationship. The relationship between moral disengagement at Time 2 and cyberbullying perpetration at Time 3 was stronger for low cognitive empathy adolescents than high cognitive empathy adolescents at Time 1. The relationship between agreeableness at Time 1 and cyberbullying perpetration adolescents at Time 3 was stronger for low affective empathy than high affective empathy adolescents at Time 1. The link between moral disengagement at Time 2 and cyberbullying perpetration at Time 3 was weaker for females than males.

CONCLUSIONS

Low agreeableness adolescents are more likely to use moral disengagement, which in turn leads to more cyberbullying perpetration.

Social networks and aggressive attitudes: who is who. Scoping review of the scientific production on their relationships

Introduction

In the current world, an increasing number of people use social networks as a scenario for socialization, which have come to stay as a part of human development. During this socialization process, violent situations occur all too often, despite their virtuality, and seriously compromises the emotional well-being of the other participants. Based on the work conducted on this subject, the following systematic review aims to establish the state of the art regarding the relationship between moral disengagement, disruptive behavior and emotional intelligence of social network users.

Method

A scoping review is carried out, according to the PRISMA-ScR criteria, consulting the WoS, Scopus, Education database, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, PLOS one and ScienceDirect databases, from 2021 up to the present day.

Results

A total of 999 articles related to the research topic were collected, although the result of research responding to the specific search criteria was reduced to 10.

Discussion

The research identified shows that there is a relationship between the level of moral development of social network users and their participation in aggressive online behavior. However, more research is needed, as it has not been demonstrated whether it is the networks that develop or favor the emergence of these attitudes, or simply act as facilitators for their amplified expression.

Future orientation and moral judgment in chinese youths: the mediating role of moral disengagement and the moderating role of self-control

Based on the self-regulation theory, this study aims to examine the relationship between youths' future orientation and judgment of their own immoral behaviors. A moderated mediation model was constructed to investigate the mediating role of moral disengagement and moderating role of self-control. Six hundred and twenty-eight Chinese youths, with an age range from 16 to 34 years (M = 23.08, SD = 2.65), were recruited to take part in an anonymous survey about future orientation, moral disengagement, self-control, and moral judgment. Results revealed that youths with high future orientation judged their own moral transgressions more harshly and that moral disengagement partially mediated the relationship between the two. Moderated mediation analysis further demonstrated that self-control moderated the relationship between future orientation and moral disengagement and the indirect effect between future orientation and youths' judgment of their own immoral behaviors. To be specific, the indirect effect was much stronger for youths with high levels of self-control. These findings not only enrich the research about how future orientation affects youths' judgment of their own immoral behaviors, but also reveal the underlying mechanisms between future orientation and moral judgment, which can provide practical guidance for implementing measures that effectively enhance youths' moral character and cultivate their ability to think positively about the future.

Psychometric Properties of the Moral Disengagement through Technologies Questionnaire (MDTech-Q) in a Sample of Chilean University Students

In the virtual environment, hostile and aggressive comments that could negatively affect university students who often use different digital platforms are frequently observed, more than other age groups who have little or no supervision. In this sense, moral disengagement (MD) has been linked to different negative behaviors that manifest in physical interactions and which currently take place on the Internet, creating the need for instruments that specifically address MD online. The aim of this study is to adapt and validate the Moral Disengagement through Technologies Questionnaire (MDTech-Q) with Chilean university students. The sample comprised 527 university students (43.14% men, 56.86% women), with an average age of 22.09 years (SD (Standard Deviation) = 3.59) enrolled in 12 universities. First, a linguistic adaptation of the scale took place, and the surveys were applied considering ethical principles. Then, two confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were performed, which considered four correlated factors, and provided satisfactory indices, agreeing with the original theoretical proposal, and demonstrating suitable reliability by internal consistency. In relation to the analyses of invariance according to sex and social media use, the MDTech-Q is stable up to scalar invariance. This study provides evidence of the psychometric quality of the MDTech-Q for its use on Chilean university students.

“Parents are gone”: Understanding the unique and interactive impacts of affective and cognitive empathy on left-behind youth’s academic engagement

Although several studies have shown that left-behind adolescents are vulnerable regarding emotional and behavioral functions, much less research has focused on this group’s academic engagement. The relationship between distinct empathy subcomponents and academic engagement in left-behind youth (versus non-left-behind youth) is therefore largely unknown. To fill these knowledge gaps, the current study compared the academic engagement between left-behind and non-left-behind youth. This study subsequently examined the unique and interactive relationships among affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and left-behind status with academic engagement in a combined sample of left-behind and non-left-behind youth. In total, 323 left-behind youth and 737 non-left-behind youth (Mage = 13.05; 49.5% females) participated in this study. Findings, after adjusting for participants’ sociodemographic characteristics, revealed that left-behind youth did not differ significantly in academic engagement compared to non-left-behind youth. A four-step hierarchical regression analysis showed that both empathy components were positively related to academic engagement. Interaction analyses further exhibited a cross-over effect of affective and cognitive empathy for left-behind youth. Specifically, left-behind youth with high cognitive empathy seemed more susceptible to the influence of affective empathy on academic engagement, for better and for worse. In the presence of high affective empathy, left-behind youth with higher cognitive empathy reported the highest academic engagement, whereas the youth with higher cognitive empathy, in the presence of low affective empathy, reported the lowest. The current study highlights the unique and interactive roles of affective and cognitive empathy in left-behind youth’s academic engagement, including important conceptual and practical implications.

Moral Disengagement as a Self-Regulatory Cognitive Process of Transgressions: Psychometric Evidence of the Bandura Scale in Chilean Adolescents

Moral disengagement is a process of cognitive restructuring that allows individuals to disassociate from their internal moral standards and behave unethically without feeling distressed. It has been described as a key predictor of maladaptive behaviors (e.g., delinquency, aggression, and cyberbullying) and as a mediator between individual variables and unethical outcomes (e.g., empathy and aggression). We aimed to provide evidence of validity based on the internal structure, reliability, and correlations with other constructs of the most used instrument to measure disengagement from moral self-sanctions: Bandura's Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement Scale (MMDS). A non-probabilistic national sample of 528 Chilean adolescents from 14 to 18 years participated in the study. The results showed that the 10-item version of the MMDS had a unidimensional structure and good internal consistency. As expected, the MMDS-10 showed positive and medium correlations with abusive, violent antisocial, and delinquent behaviors and negative and medium associations with prosocial behavior and empathy. Additionally, moral disengagement fully mediated the relationship between empathy and violent antisocial behavior, supporting the hypothesis on moral disengagement as a self-regulatory cognitive process. The results confirm previous research, and the findings are discussed in terms of their implications for reducing the use of moral disengagement strategies in adolescence.

Moral Disengagement, Dark Triad and Face Mask Wearing during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Not wearing a face mask, despite the sanitary recommendation, represented a public health risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this reason, the aim of the study was to determine the mediating role of moral disengagement in the relationship between the dark triad and face mask wearing during the second wave of the pandemic. We worked with a sample made up of 534 adults, who were administered the Dirty Dozen Dark test, the Moral Disengagement Mechanisms Scale and a questionnaire on the frequency of use of face masks. The results showed that moral disengagement mediates the effect of each trait of the dark triad (Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism) on the use of face masks. It is concluded that those who possess any of the dark personality traits morally disengage in order not to use a face mask, exercising a reckless behavior of the possible contagion of COVID-19 to others.

Perceived Parental Acceptance and Cyberbullying Perpetration among Chinese Adolescents: Moderated Mediation Models of Materialism and Insecure Attachment

Cyberbullying perpetration (CP) is a common and devastating network deviation behavior. Some parenting factors for CP have been identified, but few studies have examined the correlation between perceived maternal/paternal acceptance (PMA/PPA) and CP, and the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this relation are also largely unknown. Thus, by using a cross-sectional designed questionnaire survey of 4,206 adolescents (M = 16.41 years, SD = 0.77), the current study examined the relationship between PMA/PPA and CP, as well as the mediating effect of materialism and the moderating effects of father/mother-child attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance in this relation. The results showed that PMA/PPA was protective factors of CP. The moderated mediation models showed that materialism played a partial mediation role in the relationship between PMA/PPA and CP. Moreover, the direct association of PMA/PPA with CP was exacerbated by stronger father/mother-child attachment anxiety, in contrast, it was weakened by stronger father/mother-child attachment avoidance. Besides, both father/mother-child attachment anxiety and father/mother-child attachment avoidance strengthened the direct relationship between materialism and CP, and further strengthened the indirect association of PMA/PPA with CP. This study highlighted the importance of uncovering the link between perceived parental acceptance and adolescents' CP and emphasized the underlying mechanisms, which are of great significance for the prevention and intervention of adolescents' CP.

How Does Parent-Adolescent Conflict and Deviant Peer Affiliation Affect Cyberbullying: Examining the Roles of Moral Disengagement and Gender

Purpose

With the widespread use of the Internet and mobile phone, cyberbullying has become a new type of bullying among adolescents. It is of great practical significance to explore the relevant factors affecting cyberbullying for prevention and intervention of adolescents’ cyberbullying. However, few studies have considered the effect of both the family and social factors on cyberbullying. Therefore, the current study examines whether the parent-adolescent conflict as a family factor and deviant peer affiliation as a social factor have an effect on adolescents’ cyberbullying, as well as the role of moral disengagement and gender.

Methods

A total of 777 middle school students (females = 336; mean age = 13.57; SD = 0.98) were surveyed by using the Parent-child Relationship Questionnaire, Deviant Peer Affiliation Questionnaire, Moral Disengagement Questionnaire and Cyber Bullying Behavior Questionnaire. SPSS21.0 was used to conduct descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and T-test, PROCESS were used to conduct significance test of moderated mediation effect on the data.

Results

Parent-adolescent conflict does not directly predict cyberbullying. Moral disengagement played a complete mediating role between parent-adolescent conflict and cyberbullying, and gender played a moderating role between moral disengagement and cyberbullying. Deviant peer affiliation directly predict cyberbullying. Moral disengagement played a partially mediating role between parent-adolescent conflict and cyberbullying, and gender played a moderating role between moral disengagement and cyberbullying.

Conclusion

Attention should be paid to the effect of moral disengagement on cyberbullying in family and social factors, as well as the role of gender.

How Is Virtuous Personality Trait Related to Online Deviant Behavior among Adolescent College Students in the Internet Environment? A Moderated Moderated-Mediation Analysis

Online deviant behavior is a series of maladaptive behaviors that may have adverse effects on the physical and mental health of others and adolescents in the Internet environment. Previous studies have paid more attention to the risk factors of adolescent online deviant behavior. However, its protective factors and psychological mechanisms remain unclear. Thus, this study explored the protective effect of virtuous personality trait on adolescents' online deviant behavior and its psychological mechanism. A total of 851 Chinese college students anonymously completed a series of questionnaires about virtuous personality trait, moral disengagement, perspective taking, and online deviant behavior. The findings showed the following: (1) Virtuous personality trait was negatively correlated with online deviant behavior. (2) Moral disengagement mediated the relationship between virtuous personality trait and online deviant behavior. (3) Perspective taking moderated the first half stage of the mediation model in which college students' virtuous personality trait influences online deviant behavior via moral disengagement. (4) A moderated moderated-mediation analysis found that gender moderated the moderating effect of perspective taking on the relationship between virtuous personality trait and moral disengagement. This study is helpful to demonstrate the protective effect and psychological mechanism of virtuous personality trait on online deviant behavior. Some theoretical and practical significance and limitations were also analyzed and discussed.

Moral reasoning, emotion understanding, and callous-unemotional traits in early-to-middle childhood

Relatively little is known about features of moral reasoning among young children with callous-unemotional (CU) traits (e.g., lack of guilt and empathy). This study tested associations between CU traits and emotion attributions (i.e., identification of others' emotional states) and justifications (i.e., explanations for those emotional states), across social scenarios involving discreet versus salient distress cues. The participants were boys aged 6-to-10 years (N = 50; Mage  = 7 years 7 months), who were interviewed about 12 hypothetical scenarios (eight with discreet and four with salient distress cues). Regression models indicated that CU traits, in interaction with high levels of antisocial behaviour, were associated with reduced emotion attributions of fear in discreet but not salient immoral scenarios. Higher CU traits were also associated with reduced justifications referencing others' welfare in discreet scenarios, and increased references to action-orientated justifications in salient scenarios. These findings suggest that CU traits are associated with early moral reasoning impairments and that salience of distress may be important to these processes.

Your Care Mitigates My Ego Depletion: Why and When Perfectionists Show Incivility Toward Coworkers

Drawing on ego depletion theory and trait activation theory, this study examines why and when employee perfectionism personality is linked with incivility toward coworkers. The study indulges ego depletion as a mediator between perfectionism personality and incivility toward coworkers, with coworker empathic concern moderating the relationship between perfectionism personality and ego depletion. A three-waved questionnaire was incorporated with sample of 253 employee-coworker dyads. Our findings demonstrate that dimensions of perfectionism personality are positively associated with incivility toward coworkers. In addition, our study confirms that ego depletion mediates the relationship between self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism, and incivility toward coworkers. Furthermore, our study shows that high levels of coworker empathic concern weakens the direct effect of self-oriented perfectionism on ego depletion along with the indirect effect of self-oriented perfectionism on incivility toward coworkers. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed in the organizational context.

A Meta-Analytic Review of Moral Disengagement and Cyberbullying

With the development of technology, cyberbullying prevalence rates are increasing worldwide, and a growing body of the literature has begun to document cyberbullying behavior. Moral disengagement is often considered a key correlate factor in cyberbullying. This article aims to conduct a meta-analysis review of the relationship between moral disengagement and cyberbullying and some psychosocial and cultural variables. Based on the PRISMA method, a random-effects meta-analysis is employed in this study to obtain reliable estimates of effect sizes and examine a range of moderators (age, gender, measure method, and cultural background). Relevant studies, published from 2005 to February 30, 2021, were identified through a systematic search of the Web of Science, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Pubmed, EBSCO, and Wiley Online Library. Finally, 38 studies (N=38,425) met the inclusion criteria. The meta-analysis conclusion demonstrated that moral disengagement positively correlated medium intensity with cyberbullying (r=0.341). Age, gender, and cultural background had moderated the relationship between moral disengagement and cyberbullying.

An overview of applied robust methods

Data in social sciences are typically non-normally distributed and characterized by heavy tails. However, most widely used methods in social sciences are still based on the analyses of sample means and sample covariances. While these conventional methods continue to be used to address new substantive issues, conclusions reached can be inaccurate or misleading. Although there is no 'best method' in practice, robust methods that consider the distribution of the data can perform substantially better than the conventional methods. This article gives an overview of robust procedures, emphasizing a few that have been repeatedly shown to work well for models that are widely used in social and behavioural sciences. Real data examples show how to use the robust methods for latent variable models and for moderated mediation analysis when a regression model contains categorical covariates and product terms. Results and logical analyses indicate that robust methods yield more efficient parameter estimates, more reliable model evaluation, more reliable model/data diagnostics, and more trustworthy conclusions when conducting replication studies. R and SAS programs are provided for routine applications of the recommended robust method.

The Relationship Between Fear of COVID-19 and Online Aggressive Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, fear has run rampant across the globe. To curb the spread of the virus, several governments have taken measures to drastically transition businesses, work, and schooling to virtual settings. While such transitions are warranted and well-intended, these measures may come with unforeseen consequences. Namely, one's fear of COVID-19 may more readily manifest as aggressive behaviors in an otherwise incognito virtual social ecology. In the current research, a moderated mediation model examined the mechanisms underlying the relation between fear of COVID-19 and overt and relational aggressive online behavior among Chinese college students. Utilizing a large sample of Chinese college students (N = 2,799), results indicated that moral disengagement mediated the effect of fear of COVID-19 on college students' overt and relational online aggressive behavior. A positive family cohesion buffered the effect of moral disengagement on relational aggressive behavior, but only for females. The findings, theoretical contributions, and practical implications of the present paper are also discussed.