Do parenting styles influence bullying through moral disengagement? Evidence from psychosocially at-risk Colombian adolescents

This study examined the mediating role of moral disengagement in the relationship between parenting styles and school bullying, in both victimization and perpetration roles, among Colombian adolescents living in high psychosocial risk contexts. The sample comprised 447 students (48.3% female) aged 12 to 17 years, attending public schools in socially vulnerable areas of Medellín, Colombia. Instruments included the Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement Scale, the European Bullying Intervention Project Questionnaire, and the Child’s Reports of Parental Behavior Inventory. Structural equation modeling revealed that moral disengagement positively predicted school bullying and partially mediated the effects of specific parenting styles. For mothers, communicative, hostile, and permissive styles were significantly associated with moral disengagement, while communicative, hostile, and overprotective styles were linked to school bullying. For fathers, only communicative and permissive styles were associated with moral disengagement, whereas hostile and overprotective styles were linked to school bullying. In both models, hostile and permissive parenting styles showed small but significant direct associations with school bullying, over and above their indirect effects via moral disengagement, and the magnitude of moral disengagement’s effect on school bullying was greater in the paternal model. Overall, the findings indicate that certain parenting styles exert both direct and indirect effects on school bullying through moral disengagement, supporting the view of moral disengagement as a key cognitive mechanism through which parenting practices influence adolescents’ bullying involvement and underscoring the need for family-based interventions that strengthen moral socialization processes to reduce both victimization and perpetration.