Why Good Teens Do Cruel Things Online

Your child is kind. Thoughtful. The sort of person who'd help a friend in distress. So why did they just send a message that made someone cry?

It's a question that troubles many parents — and the answer lies not in character flaws but in a psychological phenomenon researchers call moral disengagement. Understanding it won't excuse cruel behaviour, but it helps explain why punishment alone doesn't work.

The mental gymnastics of online cruelty

Research conducted by Guidi et al (2022) suggests that moral disengagement is one of the strongest predictors of cyberbullying perpetration. Moral disengagement is, essentially, the set of cognitive tricks we use to behave badly without feeling bad about it. It allows people to commit harmful acts without experiencing guilt or remorse — not because they lack a moral compass, but because they've temporarily switched it off.

How the tricks work

Teenagers (and adults) use several strategies to disconnect their actions from their moral standards. Recognising these patterns in your child's language can help you intervene before harmful behaviour becomes habitual.

Strategy	What it sounds like
Moral justification	"She deserved it after what she did." The behaviour is reframed as righteous — justice rather than cruelty.
Minimising language	"It was just a joke" or "I was only messing around." By downplaying the action, the harm becomes invisible.
Diffusion of responsibility	"Everyone was doing it" or "I only shared it." When many participate, individual responsibility dissolves.
Dehumanisation	"They're so annoying" or reducing someone to a label. When targets become less than human, harming them feels less wrong.

Why this matters for parents

Moral disengagement isn't a fixed trait — it's a learned pattern of thinking. It as part of an aggressive knowledge structure that develops through experience and reinforcement. This is actually good news: what's learned can be unlearned.

When you hear your child using the language of moral disengagement: justifying, minimising, deflecting, you're getting a window into the cognitive habits that enable cruelty. These are the moments that matter, the opportunities to gently challenge the logic and reconnect actions to consequences.

The goal isn't to make your child feel terrible. It's to help them feel appropriately — to restore the connection between what they do and how it affects others. That connection is the foundation of genuine kindness, online and off.

For practical steps on having these conversations, see "Your child cyberbullied someone. Here's how to respond".

Citation: Guidi S, Palmitesta P, Bracci M, Marchigiani E, Di Pomponio I, Parlangeli O (2022) How many cyberbullying(s)? A non-unitary perspective for offensive online behaviours. PLoS ONE 17(7): e0268838. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268838