Keeping harm out of sight enables genuine belief in one’s innocence

Evidence

Two of the mechanisms of moral disengagement play an influential role in supporting genuine self-deception. By keeping the adverse effects of one’s actions out of sight, one can continue to believe that one has done no harm. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 710

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Connects to the book’s earlier chapters on euphemistic labeling and advantageous comparison as disengagement mechanisms.

Related

• Ignorance of harm makes self-deception morally possible (similarity 0.88)
• Disengaging self-sanctions requires contesting evidence of harm rather than denying the act (similarity 0.84)
• Ignoring or discrediting harm evidence disables self-censure and motivates no change (similarity 0.83)
• Moral self-censure strength depends on how perpetrators regard their victims. (similarity 0.82)
• Belief in a cause’s morality turns destructive acts into pride (similarity 0.81)
• Self-reflective metacognition is where people distance themselves from wrongdoing (similarity 0.81)
• Moral disengagement techniques can be explicitly unmasked and reversed (similarity 0.81)
• Criminals must preserve self-respect by sanitizing and deflecting blame for misconduct. (similarity 0.81)
• Moral-disengagement literacy plus locus-tailored strategies can curb self-exonerative practices (similarity 0.80)
• Sanctified harm defuses anticipatory guilt and even converts pride into reward. (similarity 0.80)
• Ignoring, minimizing, or discrediting evidence of harm preemptively disables moral self-censure. (similarity 0.80)
• Self-reflection is where people both face and exonerate themselves from wrongdoing (similarity 0.80)
• Self-contempt is the most devastating consequence of moral conflict (similarity 0.80)
• People disengage moral self-sanctions through euphemism, justification, and dehumanization (similarity 0.79)
• Moral disengagement is how individuals neutralize threats to the moral self (similarity 0.79)