Abstract
Childhood aggression is of great interest because of the impact such behavior has on the welfare of others. Recent advances in understanding the development of children’s aggressive behavior have emphasized the role of cognitive factors, since an individual’s aggressive behavior is ultimately subject to cognitive control (Dodge, 1986; Huesmann, 1988). Paradoxically, the literature on cognition and aggression has not been informed by the literature on the development of children’s moral reasoning. Instead, they have developed in two separate strands that minimally relate to one another. In large part, the lack of connection between these two literatures stems from a paradigmatic clash which has made the integration of research on cognitive correlates of childhood aggression and research on children’s moral development problematic. Recent advances in theory and research in moral development, however, offer the possibility of a rapproachment between these two paradigms.
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Guerra, N.G., Nucci, L., Huesmann, L.R. (1994). Moral Cognition and Childhood Aggression. In: Huesmann, L.R. (eds) Aggressive Behavior. The Plenum Series in Social/Clinical Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9116-7_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9116-7_2
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