The Present Study
The present study provided a temporal evaluation of the relation between
moral disengagement and children’s involvement in bullying behavior
by investigating the relation between changes in bullying behavior and
changes in moral disengagement. Specifically, the study investigated changes
in disengagement levels among children who had either experienced a
decrease in bullying behavior (+T1 to −T2, desisted bullies) or children
who had shown stable high levels of bullying behavior (+T1 to +T2, stable
bullies). Based upon the disengagement theory as well as previous empirical
findings, two hypotheses were tested: