This article aims to conceptualize, for the first time, an implicit form of moral disengagement and investigate its role in relation to cheating behavior. In line with the implicit social-cognition models, we argue that the implicit moral disengagement would represent an unintentional, automatic, and less accessible form of the mechanisms bypassing the moral self-regulatory system. We anticipate that in situations implying on-the-spot decisions and where individuals might suffer no consequences for the misconduct, the implicit moral disengagement would predict the actual behavior while the explicit moral disengagement would predict self-reported conduct. The results of three empirical studies provide support for the theorization of an implicit moral disengagement and its assessment through a newly developed implicit measurement procedure using the relational responding task. Results of the structural equation models, including both implicit and explicit moral disengagement, demonstrated that only the implicit one was associated with the actual misconduct.

本文旨在首次将隐含形式的道德脱离概念化，并研究其与作弊行为相关的作用。与隐含的社会认知模型一致，我们认为隐含的道德脱离将代表绕过道德自我调节系统的机制的一种无意的、自动的和不易获得的形式。我们预计，在暗示当场决定的情况下，并且个人可能不会因不当行为而遭受任何后果，隐含的道德脱离将预测实际行为，而明确的道德脱离将预测自我报告的行为。三项实证研究的结果通过使用关系响应任务的新开发的内隐测量程序，为内隐道德脱离的理论化及其评估提供了支持。结构方程模型的结果，包括隐性和显性的道德脱离，表明只有隐性的道德脱离与实际的不当行为有关。