ArticleBMC public health2025
From victim to bully: unpacking moral disengagement and the buffering effect of legal cognition.
Article in BMC public health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Victims' Coping Strategies Model of School Bullying Coping: A Grounded Theory Study of Chinese Students' Retrospective View.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Childhood emotional abuse and adolescent anxiety: a moderated mediation model of bullying victimization, perceived teacher legitimacy, and negative legal emotion.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundAdolescents who experience both bullying victimisation and bullying perpetration face more severe psychological challenges than those in a single role. Whereas prior research has examined bullies and victims separately, this study draws on frustration–aggression theory to explore how some victims become perpetrators, and it examines the moderating roles of moral disengagement and legal cognition in this transition.
methodsStudy 1 used convenience sampling to survey 448 adolescents with the Bullying-Victimization Scale and the Moral Disengagement Questionnaire. From these, 43 dual-role adolescents (i.e., those reporting both bullying victimisation and bullying perpetration) were identified to test moral disengagement as a moderator of the association between victimisation and perpetration. Study 2, with an independent sample of 442 adolescents, employed the Bullying-Victimization Scale and a Legal Cognition Scale to identify 44 dual-role youth and to examine legal cognition as a moderator of the victimisation–perpetration link.
resultsBullying victimisation correlated positively with bullying perpetration (r₁ = 0.86, p < 0.001; r₂ = 0.58, p < 0.01) and with moral disengagement (r = 0.51, p < 0.001), and negatively with legal cognition (r = − 0.39, p < 0.01). Moral disengagement significantly moderated the relationship between victimisation and perpetration (β = 0.18, t = 3.93, p < 0.001), such that the association was stronger at higher levels of moral disengagement. Legal cognition also significantly moderated this pathway (β = − 0.40, t = − 2.95, p < 0.01), with the link between victimisation and perpetration weakening as legal cognition increased.
conclusionsAcross two samples, moral disengagement and legal cognition emerged as key moderators influencing the shift from bullying victim to bullying perpetrator. These insights suggest that interventions aimed at reducing moral disengagement and enhancing legal cognition may help prevent the emergence of dual-role bullying involvement.
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