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Selective Activation and Disengagement of Moral Control
https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Bandura/B...
Moral conduct is motivated and regulated mainly by the ongoing exercise of selfreactive influence. But self-regulatory mechanisms do not operate unless they are activated, and there are different psychological mechanisms by which moral control can be selectively activated or disengaged from inhumane conduct. Self-sanctions can be disengaged by reconstruing detrimental conduct through moral justification, euphemistic labeling, and advantageous contrast with other inhumanities; by obscuring personal agency in detrimental activities through diffusion and displacement of responsibility; by disregarding or misrepresenting the harmful consequences of inhumane conduct; and by blaming and dehumanizing the victims. These mechanisms of moral disengagement operate not only in the perpetration of inhumanities under extraordinary circumstances, but in everyday situations where people routinely perform activities that bring personal benefits at injurious costs to others. Given the many psychological devices for disengagement of moral control, societies cannot rely solely on individuals, however honorable their standards, to provide safeguards against inhumanities. To function humanely, societies must establish effective social safeguards against moral disengagement practices that foster exploitive and destructive conduct.
Moral conduct is motivated and regulated mainly by the ongoing exercise of selfreactive influence. But self-regulatory mechanisms do not operate unless they are activated, and there are different psychological mechanisms by which moral control can be selectively activated or disengaged from inhumane conduct. Self-sanctions can be disengaged by reconstruing detrimental conduct through moral justification, euphemistic labeling, and advantageous contrast with other inhumanities; by obscuring personal agency in detrimental activities through diffusion and displacement of responsibility; by disregarding or misrepresenting the harmful consequences of inhumane conduct; and by blaming and dehumanizing the victims. These mechanisms of moral disengagement operate not only in the perpetration of inhumanities under extraordinary circumstances, but in everyday situations where people routinely perform activities that bring personal benefits at injurious costs to others. Given the many psychological devices for disengagement of moral control, societies cannot rely solely on individuals, however honorable their standards, to provide safeguards against inhumanities. To function humanely, societies must establish effective social safeguards against moral disengagement practices that foster exploitive and destructive conduct.
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Published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Albert Bandura
47 books183 followersAlbert Bandura OC is a psychologist who is the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University. For almost six decades, he has been responsible for contributions to the field of education and to many fields of psychology, including social cognitive theory, therapy, and personality psychology, and was also influential in the transition between behaviorism and cognitive psychology. He is known as the originator of social learning theory (renamed the social cognitive theory) and the theoretical construct of self-efficacy, and is also responsible for the influential 1961 Bobo doll experiment.
Social cognitive theory is how people learn through observing others. An example of social cognitive theory would be the students imitating the teacher. Self-efficacy is "the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations." To paraphrase, self-efficacy is believing in yourself to take action. The Bobo Doll Experiment was how Albert Bandura studied aggression and non-aggression in children.
A 2002 survey ranked Bandura as the fourth most-frequently cited psychologist of all time, behind B. F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, and Jean Piaget, and as the most cited living one. Bandura is widely described as the greatest living psychologist, and as one of the most influential psychologists of all time.
In 1974 Bandura was elected to be the Eighty-Second President of the American Psychological Association (APA). He was one of the youngest president-elects in the history of the APA at the age of 48. Bandura served as a member of the APA Board of Scientific Affairs from 1968 to 1970 and is well known as a member of the editorial board of nine psychology journals including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology from 1963 to 1972. At the age of 82, Bandura was awarded the Grawemeyer Award for psychology.
Social cognitive theory is how people learn through observing others. An example of social cognitive theory would be the students imitating the teacher. Self-efficacy is "the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations." To paraphrase, self-efficacy is believing in yourself to take action. The Bobo Doll Experiment was how Albert Bandura studied aggression and non-aggression in children.
A 2002 survey ranked Bandura as the fourth most-frequently cited psychologist of all time, behind B. F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, and Jean Piaget, and as the most cited living one. Bandura is widely described as the greatest living psychologist, and as one of the most influential psychologists of all time.
In 1974 Bandura was elected to be the Eighty-Second President of the American Psychological Association (APA). He was one of the youngest president-elects in the history of the APA at the age of 48. Bandura served as a member of the APA Board of Scientific Affairs from 1968 to 1970 and is well known as a member of the editorial board of nine psychology journals including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology from 1963 to 1972. At the age of 82, Bandura was awarded the Grawemeyer Award for psychology.
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April 22, 2019
From 1990, but a good concise description of the various ways in which people rationalize immoral behavior (selective disengagement of self-sanctions).
Self-sanctions can be disengaged by:
1) Reconstruing Conduct:
a) Moral Justification -- Detrimental conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it as in service of a moral purpose (eg: the Crusades). Violent acts are different things to different people. One group's 'terrorist activity' is another group's 'liberation movement'. Adversaries sanctify their own militant actions but condemn those of their antagonists.
b) Euphemistic Labeling -- Adults behave more aggressively when the act of assaulting a person is given a sanitized label (eg: When a mercenary "fulfills a contract", murder is transformed into the honorable discharge of a duty; Bombing attacks become "surgical strikes", invoking imagery of clean, healthful, restorative work). The agentless passive wording creates the appearance that acts are the work of nameless forces rather than people.
c) Advantageous Comparison – An awful act can be made to seem righteous by contrasting it with a greater-evil.
2) Obscuring Causal Agency:
a) Displacing Responsibility -- When people feel they are not the actual agent of their actions, they do not experience guilt (eg: a nazi "just following orders"). Authorities may invite or support detrimental conduct in insidious ways to minimize personal responsibility (eg: boss tells the delivery driver to "deliver faster", driver replies "I'd have to break traffic laws to do that", boss responds with "just get it done"). Modeled Disobedience (eg: non-violent civil disobedience; conscientious objectors) counters displacement of responsibility by causing observers to question the legitimacy of the authoritarian/commanded-actions.
b) Diffusion of Responsibility -- Most enterprises require the services of many people performing fragmentary jobs that seem harmless in themselves, with the fractional contribution isolated from the eventual function (eg: the widget-maker at the bomb factory only makes widgets; we all contribute to environmental degradation through participating in capitalism).
3) Disregarding or Misrepresenting Injurious Consequences: When suffering is not visible, people feel less guilt. Perceptions of responsibility are reduced if the harmful consequences of actions are viewed as unintended or unforeseeable.
4) Blaming and Devaluing Victims:
a) Dehumanization -- Bureaucratization, automation, urbanization, and high geographic mobility lead people to relate to eachother in anonymous, impersonal ways. Social practices that divide people into ingroups and outgroups produce estrangement.
b) Attribution of Blame -- Ascriptions of blame are usually accompanied by discriminatory social practices that create the very failings that serve as excuses for maltreatment.
"Analyses of moral disengagement mechanisms usually draw heavily on examples from military and political violence. This tends to convey the impression that selective disengagement of self-sanctions occurs only under extraordinary circumstances. The truth is quite the contrary. Such mechanisms operate in everyday situations in which decent people routinely perform activities having injurious human effects, to further their own interests or for profit."
Self-sanctions can be disengaged by:
1) Reconstruing Conduct:
a) Moral Justification -- Detrimental conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it as in service of a moral purpose (eg: the Crusades). Violent acts are different things to different people. One group's 'terrorist activity' is another group's 'liberation movement'. Adversaries sanctify their own militant actions but condemn those of their antagonists.
b) Euphemistic Labeling -- Adults behave more aggressively when the act of assaulting a person is given a sanitized label (eg: When a mercenary "fulfills a contract", murder is transformed into the honorable discharge of a duty; Bombing attacks become "surgical strikes", invoking imagery of clean, healthful, restorative work). The agentless passive wording creates the appearance that acts are the work of nameless forces rather than people.
c) Advantageous Comparison – An awful act can be made to seem righteous by contrasting it with a greater-evil.
2) Obscuring Causal Agency:
a) Displacing Responsibility -- When people feel they are not the actual agent of their actions, they do not experience guilt (eg: a nazi "just following orders"). Authorities may invite or support detrimental conduct in insidious ways to minimize personal responsibility (eg: boss tells the delivery driver to "deliver faster", driver replies "I'd have to break traffic laws to do that", boss responds with "just get it done"). Modeled Disobedience (eg: non-violent civil disobedience; conscientious objectors) counters displacement of responsibility by causing observers to question the legitimacy of the authoritarian/commanded-actions.
b) Diffusion of Responsibility -- Most enterprises require the services of many people performing fragmentary jobs that seem harmless in themselves, with the fractional contribution isolated from the eventual function (eg: the widget-maker at the bomb factory only makes widgets; we all contribute to environmental degradation through participating in capitalism).
3) Disregarding or Misrepresenting Injurious Consequences: When suffering is not visible, people feel less guilt. Perceptions of responsibility are reduced if the harmful consequences of actions are viewed as unintended or unforeseeable.
4) Blaming and Devaluing Victims:
a) Dehumanization -- Bureaucratization, automation, urbanization, and high geographic mobility lead people to relate to eachother in anonymous, impersonal ways. Social practices that divide people into ingroups and outgroups produce estrangement.
b) Attribution of Blame -- Ascriptions of blame are usually accompanied by discriminatory social practices that create the very failings that serve as excuses for maltreatment.
"Analyses of moral disengagement mechanisms usually draw heavily on examples from military and political violence. This tends to convey the impression that selective disengagement of self-sanctions occurs only under extraordinary circumstances. The truth is quite the contrary. Such mechanisms operate in everyday situations in which decent people routinely perform activities having injurious human effects, to further their own interests or for profit."
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