“That Really Hurt, Charlie!” Investigating the Role of Sympathy and Moral Respect in Children's Aggressive Behavior

ABSTRACT

The authors examined the role of sympathy and moral respect in children's overt aggression, and the subtypes of proactive and reactive aggression, in an ethnically diverse sample of 5-, 7-, and 10-year-olds (N = 110). Aggressive behaviors were measured through teacher reports and peer nominations. Sympathy was assessed through teacher reports. Children reported on their moral respect within an interview procedure where they were asked for their feelings of respect toward hypothetical peers who displayed morally relevant behaviors. Results revealed that sympathy and moral respect were both negatively related to overt aggression and to the proactive aggression subtype, but unrelated to the reactive aggression subtype. The authors discuss the implications of the findings in relation to developmental research on the affective antecedents of children's aggressive behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral respect
• overt aggression
• proactive aggression
• reactive aggression
• sympathy

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the graduate students who helped with data collection, and the children and teachers who participated in the study. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Joan Grusec for her helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.