Abstract

The present study investigated the validity of a new scale to assess moral disengagement in everyday life. Moral disengagement is a construct developed by Bandura (1986) as a part of a social-cognitive theory and it has been extensively studied in relation to aggressive and violent behavior. The present contribution extends the study of moral disengagement beyond aggression to "minor" transgressions occurring in daily life. Two studies corroborate the validity of a new scale to assess moral-civic disengagement in adolescents and adults. Findings support the generalizability of the factor structure of the moral disengagement scale in everyday life and its construct validity. In both groups (adolescents and adults) males result more inlined to moral-civic disengagement than females.