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3-082 - Sympathy, Moral Reasoning, and Aggression: new Developmental Perspectives

Sat, March 23, 9:45 to 11:15am, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 3, Room 346

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

There is evidence that both emotions and reasoning about issues involving fairness, harm, and caring contribute to aggressive behavior (Romera et al., 2018). Yet, less is known about the differential contribution of these processes to aggression, as well as the underlying neural processes across development (Green et al., 2001).
This symposium advances research in this area by bringing together new research from international contributions. The first two papers investigate the unique and moderating role of sympathy in aggression (Papers 1 and 2), whereas the third and fourth papers focus on reasoning related to aggression, as well as the associated underlying neural processes across different age groups (Papers 3 and 4).
Paper 1 documents that lower sympathy is linked to proactive aggression but not reactive aggression in a multi-method framework. Using a longitudinal design, Paper 2 shows that other-oriented, caring emotions moderate the associations between peer popularity and relational aggression. Paper 3 explores links between aggression and reasoning across moral and social-conventional domains. Only reasoning in the former domain was associated with aggressive behavior, and differences in the reaction time and patterns of responses across domains suggest differences in the implicated neural processes. Paper 4 examines moral reasoning related to aggressive behaviors by comparing groups of youths with and without neurological challenges. Results shed light on the relevance of neural processes involved in moral reasoning and aggression. Taken together, the papers provide new perspectives on the roles of sympathy and reasoning in aggression across ages.

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