Do individualizing moral foundations protect from higher moral disengagement in imprisoned men and women?

Abstract

We aimed to analyze whether the individualizing moral foundations play a protective role against moral disengagement in a sample of 367 women and men in prison, and whether, in addition, moral foundations promote the intention to change the behaviors that led them to prison. Controlling for gender differences, we found support for the hypothesized connection between the individualizing moral foundations, as proposed by the Moral Foundations Theory (i.e., care and fairness), and the vast majority of moral disengagement mechanisms, especially with the two cruelest (attribution of blame and dehumanization). Regarding the intention to change the immoral behavior that brought our participants into prison, we found that, as hypothesized, the individualizing moral foundations positively and victim locus category negatively showed significant predictive power. This particular result could be especially relevant to improve the re-education interventions formulated for people in prison.