Renouncing moral disengagement in youth reduces adult aggression

Evidence

Longitudinal analysis of developmental changes in moral disengagement reveals four developmental trajectories accompanied by different levels of aggressive behavior (Paciello, Fida, Tramontano, Lupinetti, & Caprara, 2008). … Adolescents who repudiated moral-disengagement practices when younger and continued to do so into early adulthood refrained from harmful behavior. … By contrast, those who began as high moral disengagers and continued to suspend self-sanctions for wrongdoing experienced little guilt about it and were prone to aggressive and violent conduct. Their counterparts, who began as moral disengagers but later renounced such practices, were less inclined to behave aggressively as young adults. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 273 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Adolescents who repudiated moral-disengagement practices when younger and continued to do so into early adulthood refrained from harmful behavior. … By contrast, those who began as high moral disengagers and continued to suspend self-sanctions for wrongdoing experienced little guilt about it and were prone to aggressive and violent conduct. Their counterparts, who began as moral disengagers but later renounced such practices, were less inclined to behave aggressively as young adults. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 274 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Straus and colleagues’ analyses of the National Family Violence Survey data showed that adults who reported having been physically punished frequently as children showed elevated rates of aggression in their adult relationships — with intimate partners, with peers, and in general social contexts. The elevated aggression persisted after controlling for parental socioeconomic status, for the severity of the childhood punishment, and for other forms of family adversity. Corporal punishment was an independent predictor of adult aggression in nationally representative data. — , The Rod and the Child, 9788 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Sustained moral disengagement predicts later violence while its renunciation predicts restraint — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 274; Adopting or abandoning moral disengagement shifts later aggressive conduct. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 273; Moral disengagement causally drives delinquency through disinhibitory processes rather than my being its byproduct — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 271 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Adopting or abandoning moral disengagement shifts later aggressive conduct. #corroborates (0.97) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 273
• Sustained moral disengagement predicts later violence while its renunciation predicts restraint #corroborates (0.92) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 274
• Frequent childhood spanking independently predicts adult aggression #complicates (0.72) — , The Rod and the Child, 9788