Social reasoning: a source of influence on aggression

Aggressive children show deficits and biases in their social information processing. Cognitions based on early experience and social schemas are also related to development and maintenance of aggressive behavior. Social reasoning can be linked to these aspects of social cognition, impacting on the situational cues individuals encode, their interpretations of events, and influencing response decisions. Past experience also influences development of social reasoning and social schema. Despite this, current discussion of the links between cognition and aggression rarely involves consideration of the influence of social reasoning. In this review, domain theory (E. Turiel, 1978, 1983) underpins an examination of links between social reasoning and aggression using empirical evidence drawn from research on the social reasoning of normal and aggressive children. Children as young as 3 appear to use consistent patterns of social reasoning when making judgments about transgressions and other social events, and these patterns are linked to social reasoning domains. We propose that aggressive children access information from the underlying social reasoning domains differently than their prosocial peers. This in turn affects their decision making and subsequent behavior in social situations. Our review explores developmental and clinical implications of the proposal and provides directions for future research.