Moral disengagement

•This review focuses on central questions in moral disengagement theory.•Theory and empirical evidence confirms that MD can both mediate and moderate outcomes.•This research clarifies MD has both dispositional and a state instantiations.•Current directions include studying its malleability over time, and interventions to reduce it.

Moral disengagement refers to a set of eight cognitive mechanisms that decouple one's internal moral standards from one's actions, facilitating engaging in unethical behavior without feeling distress. A compelling predictor of a number of morally undesirable behaviors, including childhood aggression, workplace deviance, and misconduct in sport, this review focuses on more recent research that explores how moral disengagement operates, both as a process (mediator) and as a disposition (moderator) to affect individuals’ responses to morally problematic opportunities. It also speaks to central questions in moral disengagement theory, such as its malleability over time, and interventions that can be used to reduce it.