Luppo Kuillman

Moral reasoning explained by personality traits 59 3 In contrast to the FCM, Bandura stressed that there is much more involved in the process that regulates human conduct related to solving moral dilemmas (Bandura 1999). Bandura’s social cognitive theory (Bandura 1986) suggests that moral reasoning may lead to action, but that it is only possible through self-regulation rooted in one’s own moral standard. He proposed that moral self-control can be selectively activated or disengaged (Bandura 1990). Bandura sees this self-influence as a continuous process that motivates and regulates moral conduct. However, in later work Bandura introduced the concept of moral disengagement or detachment from moral self-control (Bandura et al. 1996). Within the conceptual framework of moral disengagement, he proposed that eight mechanisms play a role in the self-regulatory process of detrimental conduct: moral justification, euphemistic labeling, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, distorting consequences, attribution of blame and dehumanization. People use these mechanisms to justify behavior that does not comply with their own standard of moral values and beliefs and thus avoid self-sanction (Bandura et al. 1996). As such, moral disengagement is a manifestation of a lack of moral self- regulation. Moral reasoning and mechanisms of moral disengagement Carroll (Carroll 2009) reported that moral disengagement negatively correlated ( r = -.34, p < .01) with moral reasoning (estimated with the N2 score). This means that people who have a stronger control or self-censure over the tendency to morally disengage exhibit a higher level of moral reasoning. Dineen (2012) explored moral disengagement of medical providers as a contributing factor to ethical decision- making. She found that the reality of clinical practice, which abounds with morally distressing factors, often perpetuates inadequate treatment which occurs through progressive disengagement of self-censure (Dineen 2012). Moral disengagement and personality In addition to moral reasoning, personality also correlates with moral disengagement. In research among nurses about bypassing moral and ethical codes, Fida et al. (2015) showed that a higher propensity to morally disengage was associated ( r = -.15*) with lower degrees of the Big Five personality trait conscientiousness (Fida et al. 2016). Theoretically, the association between moral disengagement and