The Implicit Component of Moral Disengagement: Applying the Relational Responding Task to Investigate Its Relationship With Cheating Behavior.

ABSTRACT: This article aims to conceptualize, for the first time, an implicit form of moral disengagement and investigate its role in relation to cheating behavior. In line with the implicit social-cognition models, we argue that the implicit moral disengagement would represent an unintentional, automatic, and less accessible form of the mechanisms bypassing the moral self-regulatory system. We anticipate that in situations implying on-the-spot decisions and where individuals might suffer no consequences for the misconduct, the implicit moral disengagement would predict the actual behavior while the explicit moral disengagement would predict self-reported conduct. The results of three empirical studies provide support for the theorization of an implicit moral disengagement and its assessment through

SUBMITTER: Fida R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8652371 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature