Introducing a new scale for the measurement of moral disengagement in peace and conflict research

Abstract

As part of his Social Cognitive Theory, Albert Bandura (e.g. 1986) introduces a process called moral disengagement. Eight different mechanisms are described through which behavior can be disengaged from moral self-control, thus enabling inhumane conduct without negative consequences for the person's self. These mechanisms will be briefly reviewed and the development of a new scale for measuring moral disengagement will be described. An existing measurement of moral disengagement developed by Grussendorf et al. (2002) and McAlister (2000, 2001) will be introduced and criticized. The necessity for the construction of a new scale, its development, psychometric properties and possible weaknesses will be discussed. As a related but conceptually different construct militarism-pacifism is introduced and first results regarding the relationship between the newly developed scale and the militarism-pacifism scale from Cohrs et al. (2002) are reported. First applications of the scale in two different studies will be outlined mainly in reference to properties of the new scale. Finally, critical questions about the construct will be raised and proposals for further research will be given.

Keywords

• Social Cognitive Theory
• moral disengagement
• militarism
• pacifism
• scale construction