Citation

Hyde LW, Shaw DS, Moilanen KL. J. Abnorm. Child Psychol. 2010; 38(2): 197-209.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology & Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. lwh2@pitt.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10802-009-9358-5

PMID

19777337

PMCID

PMC2858331

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to advance our understanding of the developmental precursors of Moral Disengagement (MD) and the role of MD in the development of antisocial behavior from early risk among an ethnically diverse sample of 187 low-income boys followed prospectively from ages 1.5 to 17. Results indicated associations between early rejecting parenting, neighborhood impoverishment, and child empathy and later MD. The link between some of these early constructs and later antisocial behavior was mediated by MD. Finally, in an exploratory path model both MD and biases in social information processing were found to mediate separate paths from early risk factors to later antisocial behavior. Results were partially consistent with the notion that adolescent MD was predicted by a combination of early family, neighborhood, and child risk factors, and that MD may be a mechanism underlying some boys' risk of antisocial behavior.

Language: en