Emotions, Aggression, and Morality in Children

Chapters demonstrate how early affective experiences and relationships provide a foundation for children’s subsequent social cognitive understanding of victimization, harm, and moral intentionality.

William F. Arsenio, PhD, was a preschool teacher and early education advocate before beginning his graduate studies in psychology and child development. He received his doctoral degree from Stanford University in 1986, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at University of California, Berkeley. He is currently professor of psychology and director of clinical research training at the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, Bronx, New York.
 
Dr. Arsenio is a fellow of the American Psychological Association. He has served on the editorial boards of Human Development and was a consulting editor for the Child Development monographs. He is currently an associate editor for Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, a consulting editor for Child Development, and an editorial board member for Early Education and Development and Merrill-Palmer Quarterly.
 
Dr. Arsenio is interested in how children and adolescents' affective tendencies and abilities influence their social competence, moral development, and aggression. An additional focus is on young children's affective competence and its connection with school adjustment and academic performance.
 
Elizabeth A. Lemerise, PhD, received her doctoral degree from The New School for Social Research in 1988, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University. She is currently University Distinguished Professor of Psychology and director of the Social Development Laboratory at Western Kentucky University.
 
Dr. Lemerise is a coeditor of Social Development and was an editorial consultant for Child Development.
 
She is interested in how different kinds of emotion processes influence children's social information processing, with a focus on comparing the social information processing of children who vary in social adjustment. Additionally, Dr. Lemerise is interested in how children's participation in friend and enemy relationships influences their adjustment and social cognition.
 

Why do some children's emerging affective tendencies and abilities make them more aggressive over time, while similar processes make most children less aggressive and more morally mature? Furthermore, what kinds of interventions are effective for altering these pathways? To answer these critical questions, this book takes a unique, integrative approach in two important ways. First, it integrates the psychopathology perspective with the developmental perspective, arguing that aggression and morality are two sides of the same basic developmental story. Second, it integrates research on cognitive processes with research on emotional processes. Drawing largely from social information processing and moral domain theories, the chapters demonstrate how early affective experiences and relationships provide a foundation for children's subsequent social cognitive understanding of victimization, harm, and moral intentionality. The book consists of three parts. Part I provides theoretical foundations, including the role of emotion in early conscience, empathic tendencies, and how principles of fairness and concern emerge from early parent-child and peer-peer interactions. Part II discusses factors influencing aggression and morality, from neuroscience to culture. Part III discusses implications for assessment and intervention. Bringing together a number of international scholars, this book will appeal to all researchers, clinicians, educators, and policy experts interested in understanding how emotions affect the development of children's morality and aggression.

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