关键词: 道德推脱, 个体化, 社会正义, 大中学生, 社会变迁, 横断历史元分析

Abstract: Moral disengagement refers to the cognitive tendency for an individual to break away from moral self-regulation. People who are morally disengaged often look for an excuse for their immoral behavior. Previous studies have mainly investigated the causes and consequences of moral disengagement at the individual level, whereas little attention has been paid to its diachronic change and the associated macro causes, particularly in China. To address these research gaps, by integrating the theoretical model of social change and psychological development with the analytical framework of socio-ecological psychology, we hypothesized that the level of moral disengagement among Chinese middle school and college students develop or change on the social time scale and that such trends are affected by the factors caused by macrosocial change during a specific period. To test these hypotheses, the present research, composed of two separate studies, examined the changing trends of moral disengagement among Chinese middle school and college students based on the findings of existing studies by conducting two cross-temporal meta-analyses, using the moral disengagement scale developed by Bandura and Caprara et al. The current research also examined the relationship between the level of moral disengagement and the macro indicators that reflect the levels of individualization and social justice of the society. In Study 1, a cross-temporal meta-analysis was performed on 79 valid articles using the moral disengagement scale developed by Bandura et al. Data of this study were collected from 2010 to 2021, with 60,478 middle school students involved as participants. Focused on college students, Study 2 was conducted based on 54 valid papers, using both the moral disengagement scale compiled by Bandura et al. and the citizen moral disengagement scale developed by Caprara et al. Data of this study were gleaned from 2008 to 2020, involving 34,224 college students. The results showed that: (1) from 2010 to 2021, moral disengagement level of middle school students in China showed a downward trend progressively (Study 1); (2) from 2008 to 2020, moral disengagement level among Chinese college students also declined gradually (Study 2). In the two studies, moreover, the decreasing trends of moral disengagement level among Chinese middle school and college students were negatively predicted by China’s rising individualization (including the marketization level, the urbanization level, and the divorce-to-marriage ratio) and social justice (the amount of current effective legislation). In conclusion, China has witnessed the reduction in moral disengagement among middle school and college students in the past decade. Furthermore, it was found that such declines were related to the increases in China’s individualization (emphasizing individual autonomous responsibility for their behavior) and social justice (representing more external constraints on behavior) during this period. Taken together, the current research contributes to our understanding of moral disengagement by expanding its theoretical framework from the individual level to the macro-social level based on the perspective of social change.

Key words: moral disengagement, individualization, social justice, college and middle school students, social change, cross-temporal meta-analysis