The Social Matrix of Aggression

Abstract

In this paper, we build on a developing body of work that addresses the various contributions to the child's emerging definition of self in the first five years of life. Described is the role of aggression in the shaping of the child's predominant modes of viewing and experiencing the world. How aggression toward another mixes with desire for another in the formation of early capacities for object relatedness is a central question for any developmental theory of aggression, for aggression is first experienced, shaped, refined, and remodeled in the context of loving relations. Studies from related disciplines provide observational data about how aggression is modified in the first five to six years of life and how the capacity to interpret the intentions of others is crucial to those modifications. Understanding the intentions of others relates also to the capacity to attribute affects, beliefs, and other mental states to others, a capacity referred to elsewhere as a theory of mind. The ability to reflect upon thoughts and feelings in oneself and others provides children with a fuller range of responses to their own and others' perceived aggression. Finally, external experiences of violence, abuse, and deprivation influence the child's experience of his own and others' aggression and prevent the normal modulation of aggression in the social matrix.