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The present study examined the relation between disengagement of moral self-sanctions and support of military force. The modes of moral disengagement included moral sanctioning of lethal means, disavowal of personal responsibility for detrimental effects accompanying military campaigns, minimization of civilian casualties, and attribution of blame and dehumanization of one's foes. The respondents were drawn nationally through a random digit dialing interview system. Partway during this nationwide study the country experienced the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 terrorist strikes raised the level of moral disengagement for the use of military force compared to the pre-strike level. The higher the moral disengagement the stronger the public support for immediate retaliatory strikes against suspected terrorist sanctuaries abroad and for aerial bombardment of Iraq. Moral disengagement completely mediated the effect of the terrorist attack. Moreover, moral disengagement completely mediated the effect of sociodemographic factors on support of military force against terrorist sanctuaries and partially mediated the effect on military force against Iraq.
In the development of moral agency, individuals construct standards of right and wrong that serve as guides and deterrents for conduct. In the ongoing exercise of moral agency individuals judge their conduct against their personal standards and situational circumstances and react to it with affective self-sanctions (Bandura, 1991; 1986). They do things that give them satisfaction and a sense of self-worth, and refrain from behaving in ways that violate their moral standards because such conduct will bring self-condemnation. It is through the ongoing exercise of evaluative self-sanctions that moral conduct is motivated and regulated.
Development of self-regulatory capabilities does not create an immutable internal moral control system. The self-regulatory mechanisms governing moral conduct do not operate unless they are activated and there are many psychosocial maneuvers by which moral self-sanctions can be selectively disengaged from inhumane conduct (Bandura, 1999). Selective disengagement of moral control permits different types of conduct with the same moral standards. Figure 1 shows the points at which the disengagement of moral control can occur. The figure is a schematic designation of the loci at which the different mechanisms of moral disengagement operate not a sequential process model.
At the behavior locus, people transform lethal means into benevolent and moral ones through moral justification, advantageous...