Moral disengagement is a cognitive mechanism that seeks to avoid the feeling of guilt in the face of transgressive behaviors and seems to be present in behaviors such as cyberbullying, cybergossip or bullying in adolescence. Few studies have explored this connection in the primary school years, even though gossip, bullying and cyberbullying are…

In order to unify two major theories of moral judgment, a novel task is employed which combines elements of Kohlberg's stage theory and of the theory of information integration. In contrast to the format of Kohlberg's moral judgment interview, a nonverbal and quantitative response which makes low demands on verbal facility was used. Moral…

The present study tested the hypothesis of the cognitively competent but morally insensitive bully. On the basis of teacher and peer ratings, 212 young elementary school children were selected and categorized as bullies, bully-victims, victims, and prosocial children. Children's perspective-taking skills were assessed using theory-of-mind tasks,…