BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1583706
How Legal Motivation Buffers the Effects of Moral Disengagement on School Bullying among Chinese College Students
Provisionally accepted
- 1Tongling University, Tongling, Anhui, China
- 2Taizhou University, Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, China
- 3Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
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Background：Grounded in Bandura's social cognitive theory and the risk-buffering model, this study investigates how moral disengagement and legal motivation jointly influence school bullying among Chinese university students.Methods：A cross-sectional survey was administered to 409 students across mainland China. Confirmatory factor analysis established measurement validity. Pearson's correlations and independent-samples t-tests assessed bivariate relationships, and moderation analysis using Hayes' PROCESS macro tested whether legal motivation buffered the effect of moral disengagement on bullying.Results：Moral disengagement correlated positively with bullying perpetration, while legal motivation correlated negatively. Moderation analysis revealed that higher levels of legal motivation attenuated the positive link between moral disengagement and school bullying. Conclusions：Enhancing legal motivation may mitigate the influence of moral disengagement on bullying. Integrating legal-education initiatives with moral development interventions could therefore offer a more effective strategy for reducing school bullying.
Keywords: Moral disengagement, school bullying, Legal motivation, Legal education, legal socialization
Received: 26 Feb 2025; Accepted: 06 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 He, Wang and XU. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shuhui XU, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, 325035, Zhejiang Province, China
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