Comparison of explicit and implicit associations of Moral foundations in students with bullying behavior: Application of implicit association test (IAT)

The aim of this study was to compare the explicit and implicit associations of moral foundations in students with bullying behavior. The research method was descriptive and the statistical population included high school male students in first and second cycle in Tehran. 113 students from four high schools were selected by cluster available sampling method in the academic year of 1998-99. To collect data, the Illinois Bullying Questionnaire, the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Hyatt and Graham, 2007) , and the Implicit Association Test for moral foundations (IAT) were used. Data were analyzed by using multiple regression analysis. The results showed that explicit associations in the ethical dimensions of care/harm and authority/subversion; and implicit associations in the dimensions of fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, and sanctity/degradation could predict bullying behavior with confidence (p≥ 0.0001). These results confirm the interaction of the explicit and implicit role of moral foundations in relation to bullying behavior and could be effective in better understanding and designing training, and psychological interventions.