Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement between Emotional Manipulation and Psychological Well-Being: Does Age Matter?

Background/Aims: When people hone their emotional skills, they become better at manipulating others. They use their emotional skills for coping with the demands of life. This study investigated the mediating role of moral disengagement between emotional manipulation and psychological well-being. Further, the moderating role of age is tested for the mediation model of the study. Methods: This study has a cross-sectional design. Participants included students from private and public institutions (n = 542; Mean age = 18.59 years, SD = 2.10 years; gender = 46% males). Responses were collected on emotional manipulation, moral disengagement, and psychological well-being questionnaires. Analyses were conducted using SPSS 21 and PROCESS 3.1. Results: The correlation analysis showed that both in late adolescents and young adults, moral disengagement negatively correlated with psychological well-being. However, the correlation is much stronger for young adults as compared to late adolescents. Similarly, emotional manipulation has a stronger positive correlation with moral disengagement in young adults compared to late adolescents. Results also showed that moral disengagement and emotional manipulation is higher in males than females, and psychological well-being is higher in females than males. Moral disengagement appeared to be a negative mediator for the relationship between emotional manipulation and psychological well-being. Further, age moderated the indirect effect of emotional manipulation on psychological well-being through moral disengagement. The moderation of age suggests that young adults are more inclined toward moral disengagement behaviors for manipulating emotions in comparison to late adolescents. Conclusions: It is concluded that use of emotional manipulation is associated with a direct increase in psychological well-being; however, indirect emotional manipulation decreases psychological well-being, with an increased use of moral disengagement. Moreover, this indirect effect is stronger in young adults compared to late adolescents, as young adults are more inclined toward moral disengagement.