| dc.description.abstract | The concept of moral injury has been researched mostly
on military personnel who have either witnessed or
engaged in acts generally deemed to be moral
transgressions, during combat. Although, it is explored
mostly among war veterans, moral injury among nonmilitary
personnel who have committed moral
transgressions, too, ought to be investigated for the
greater good of society. The purpose of this research was
to qualitatively explore the presentation and the
correlates of moral injury in a non-military prisoner
sample, using a working model, postulated by Litz (2009)
and his colleagues. Fifteen prisoners who had committed
acts of manslaughter or pre-meditated murderspresently
kept at the Welikada Prison, Colombo Sri Lanka were
interviewed. Using the qualitative method helped to
explore each step of the model in-depth. The research
revealed that despite the sample experiencing cognitive
dissonance, they did not progress to Litz’s et.al.,(2009)
next step; that is ‘global, internal’ attribution, but they
engaged in ‘moral justification and externalization’ as
attribution, which became a prevalent protective factor in
the prevention of psychological, social and emotional
impairment. According to the model shame and guilt are
jointly expected to lead to social withdrawal. However,
that was not observed in this sample. Interestingly though
the use of the spiritual attribution both to justify and
rationalize their actions as well as a mechanism in distress
management was observed frequently among the subjects. | en_US |
