The Moral Disengagement Scale-24: Factorial Structure and Cross-Cultural - Comparison in Spanish and Colombian Adolescents

Abstract

Objective: Moral disengagement is one of the most explored cognitive strategies for understanding why adolescents engage in aggressive behavior. Moral disengagement research has been lacking in Latin American countries, as there is limited research on cultural differences between adolescents. The Moral Disengagement Scale (MDS) is the most commonly measure used but previous studies applied different factorial structures. This study aimed to compare the three commonly used factorial structure of MDS-24 in a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and its association with bullying. Using a cross-sectional design, the study also explored the cross-cultural measurement invariance in MDS-24 and the differences between Spanish and Colombian adolescents. Method: Data were collected from Spanish (n = 1,396; Mage = 13.6; 49% girls) and Colombian adolescents (n = 1,298; Mage = 14.12; 49% girls). Results: The CFA showed that the eight-factor structure had the best model fit. The eight moral disengagement mechanisms were positively associated with both bullying perpetration and victimization. Furthermore, moral disengagement mechanisms evidenced their predictive utility for Spanish and Colombian adolescents' involvement in bullying perpetration, once the effects of gender, age and bullying victimization were controlled for. After confirming cross-cultural measurement invariance, Colombian adolescents generally reported higher levels of moral disengagement mechanisms than their Spanish peers. Conclusions: The findings contribute to the development of a measure of a cognitive risk strategy for bullying behavior. It also provides a valuable exploration of the MDS among Spanish speaking adolescents and contributes to the scarcely explored field of cross-cultural differences in justification of transgressive behavior.