Moral disengagement and cyberbullying perpetration among adolescents: The moderating role of empathy

The correlation between adolescent moral disengagement and cyberbullying perpetration remains unclear to date. Using a representative sample of 4969 adolescents surveyed in Jiangsu Province, China, we investigated the association between moral disengagement and cyberbullying perpetration, focusing on the mitigating effect of empathy. Our findings indicated that the majority of participants held high ethical standards and considered cyberbullying unacceptable. However, perpetrators often use moral disengagement as a way to justify their actions, leading to a correlation between moral disengagement and increased cyberbullying perpetration. Empathy was found to be a protective factor against cyberbullying. The correlation between moral disengagement and cyberbullying was reduced when empathy was taken into consideration in the analysis. Additionally, cyberbullying perpetration was more prevalent among boys than girls. These results suggest that efforts to reduce moral disengagement, especially among those with lower empathy, need to be conducted.