Copyright Malvin Porter, Jr. 2010 - acumen - The University of ...

Children engage in social reasoning about their behaviors when they consider the
outcomes of those behaviors (M. S. Tisak et al., 2006). For example, children may reason, “Will
I get the toy if I hit that kid?” or “If I hit the kid, will I hurt him?” or “Am I a mean person if I hit
the kid?” These examples reflect beliefs about personal abilities to obtain objects of desire,
inflict harm, or recognize a moral theme. Bandura and colleagues (Bandura, 1999; Bandura,
Capra, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli, & Regalia, 2001) proposed the process of moral agency, which
has two parts—inhibitive agency and proactive agency. Inhibitive agency refers to the cognitions
that prevent the child from acting in an aggressive manner toward others (e.g., “If I hit that kid, I
will hurt him” or “If I hit that kid, others will see me as a really mean person”). Proactive agency
refers to cognitions that encourage the child to behave prosocially toward others with
expectations for similar future behavior (e.g., “If I am fair to others, then they were fair with me”
or “If I help my friends to succeed, then I was a leader”).
Bandura (1991, 1999) also proposed that moral disengagement occurs when an individual
suspends or disengages from moral behavior that inhibits inappropriate, aggressive, or
reprehensible conduct in order to justify or make those behaviors rationally acceptable (Bandura,
1991, 1999). Individuals do this by comparing different forms of aggressive behaviors and rating
the morality of those behaviors. Examples include thinking that name-calling is acceptable
because it is not as bad as hitting or threatening somebody with a knife, or that fighting back is
acceptable if someone else starts it, or that treating another person badly is acceptable if he or she
deserves it, or that making fun of a person is acceptable because the person isn’t really popular or
because it doesn’t really bother the target of teasing. Social-cognitive learning theory suggests
that bullying behavior will continue as long as children justify or minimize the harmful effects of
their aggressive behavior on the victim.
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