Citation

Li X, Li ZS, Xia LX. Aggressive Behav. 2024; 50(4): e22164.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, International Society for Research on Aggression, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/ab.22164

PMID

38958535

Abstract

Moral disengagement is an important aggressive and moral cognition. The mechanisms of changes in moral disengagement remain unclear, especially at the within-person level. We attempted to clarify this by exploring the serial effects of personal relative deprivation and hostility on civic moral disengagement. We conducted a three-wave longitudinal survey with 1058 undergraduates (63.61% women; mean age = 20.97). The results of the random intercept cross-lagged panel model showed that personal relative deprivation at Wave 1 and hostility at Wave 2 formed a serial effect on the within-person changes in civic moral disengagement at Wave 3, and the longitudinal indirect effect test showed that the within-person dynamics in hostility at Wave 2 acted as a mediator. The results of multiple group analysis across genders further showed that the longitudinal indirect role of hostility at Wave 2 was only observed for men, but not for women, which indicates the moderating effect of gender. These findings facilitate an understanding of the mechanisms of aggressive cognitions at the within-person level and offer implications for the prevention and intervention of aggression from the perspective of moral cognition.

Language: en

Keywords

Humans; Adult; Female; Male; Young Adult; Sex Factors; Cognition; Longitudinal Studies; hostility; *Aggression/psychology; Social Cognition; *Morals; *Hostility; civic moral disengagement; personal relative deprivation; random intercept cross‐lagged panel model