This book, the first of its kind, summarizes the psychological research on the concept of mattering, and outcomes associated with the presence or absence of feelings of being valued to others. Mattering, the felt experience of being valued and necessary to others, is a unique and complex psychological construct. Individual differences in mattering…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the campus resource utilization experiences of university students with childhood domestic violence exposure (CDV) histories. Participants: 368 students attending a large, flagship, land-grant, predominantly White university in the Southeastern United States. Methods: Participants completed a…

We assessed 5-to 11-year-olds' (N = 76) judgments of straightforward moral transgressions (prototypical harm) as well as their evaluations of complex, hypothetical scenarios in which an actor transgresses in order to prevent injury (necessary harm). The nature of the actor's transgression (psychological or physical harm) varied across…

There is a need for proactive support and early intervention to meet the needs of behaviorally at-risk students. There is limited opportunity to intervene with effective results, given that stability of antisocial behavior increases dramatically over time. Moreover, if antisocial behavior patterns are not addressed early on, these children tend to…

This study addresses the longitudinal relationships between three kinds of moral cognitions--self-serving cognitive distortions, moral judgment, perception of community--and antisocial behavior in young adolescents. Aims were to gain insight in direct and indirect relationships, stability, and causality. The sample included 724 students (M age =…

This study reports a qualitative phenomenological investigation of anger and anger-related aggression in the context of the lives of individual women. Semistructured interviews with five women are analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. This inductive approach aims to capture the richness and complexity of the lived experience of…

Reports on a study of moral judgments in aggressive and nonaggressive children. Assessed moral judgment by presenting the children with stories of moral conflict in everyday life using peer rating. Results showed significant differences according to gender and no constant level of moral reasoning was measured in either aggressive or nonaggressive…

Presents a theoretical perspective for the psychological study of moral development which does not rely on the notion that different types of moral view have different logical structures and which provides a framework for specific predictions about moral content and moral reasoning, motivation, and behavior. (Author/RH)

Turiel (1978, 1979) has proposed that children have distinct concepts of moral and social rules and can distinguish between them at a very early age. Assuming this perspective, a study was conducted to examine how adolescents who exhibit antisocial behaviors understand and interpret school rules with moral and social-conventional underlying…

Adults must be willing to accept attitudes of criticism and rebellion as serious and valuable components of children's literature, but they should also expect a good children's book to make some sort of moral evaluation of those attitudes. For example, while one may respect the candor with which "Hansel and Gretel" depicts the struggle of children…

A study compared moral reasoning patterns of 17 violent children (ages 10-13) with emotional and behavioral disorders and their aggressive parents to matched controls. When presented with family and peer violence scenarios, the violent children and parents referred more to rules prohibiting provocation rather than to rules prohibiting physical…

Examines the effect of the severity and causal nature of initial provocation on seventy-two five- to ten-year-old children's retaliation judgments. Children's perceptions of the provocation were more differentiated than those that had previously been reported. Evaluation of the retaliator varied systematically according to perceptions of the…

In an attempt to understand human aggressive behavior, psychologists have explored and emphasized variables related to the aggressor, the victim, and the situation, e.g., intentions of the aggressor and the consequences for the victim. Observer-related variables, such as level of moral reasoning have not been studied. To examine the relationship…

This study examined how sociomoral judgments and other evaluations of aggression related to potentially aggressogenic social-cognitive factors and patterns of conduct problem behaviors. Participating were 124 ninth graders in the seventh, eighth, or ninth year of a developmental research project on social competence. Subjects were assessed across…

Highlighting the issue of violence, this Forum issue contains 12 essays. Titles and authors are: "Passivity in the Face of Violence" (Henri Laborit); "Democratisation without Violence?" (Friedrich Hacker); "Ritualised Violence in Sport" (Christian Bromberger); "Violence in Prisons" (Luige Daga); "Racial Aggression" (Geoffrey Bindman); "Violence in…