The Contribution of Moral Disengagement to Dating Violence and General Aggression: The Gender and Age Moderating Effects

The main aims of this study were, first to analyze the partial effects of specific mechanisms of moral disengagement (MMD) on different manifestations of general aggression and dating violence (DV) in adolescents and youths; second, to explore the moderating effects of gender and age on these relations. Moral disengagement, and different forms of aggression and DV, were evaluated in a sample of 424 participants (61.1% women) aged 15 to 25 years (M = 18.80; SD = 2.69). Pearson correlations and different hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses were conducted. All regressions were controlled by social desirability. MMD contributed to physical aggression with a medium effect size (R-2 = .22) and verbal aggression with a small effect size (R-2 = .10). Conversely, MMD did not appear to clearly contribute to DV. In conclusion, depersonalization and rationalization were the most important MMD for physical aggression, rationalization for verbal aggression, and irresponsibility for verbal-emotional violence in dating relationships. Moreover, the relationships between physical aggression and rationalization mechanism were significantly moderated by gender: there appears to be a stronger relationship between rationalization and physical aggression in boys than in girls. Moderating effects of age on these relations were not found.