Understanding Youths’ Retaliatory Experiences through the Lens of Moral Agency

doi:10.1017/9781108776684.005

Chapter 5 - Understanding Youths’ Retaliatory Experiences through the Lens of Moral Agency

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 July 2021

Holly Recchia and

Cecilia Wainryb

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Holly Recchia and

Cecilia Wainryb

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Holly Recchia: Affiliation:
Concordia University, Montréal
Cecilia Wainryb: Affiliation:
University of Utah

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Summary

In this chapter, we consider how youth make sense of their own retaliatory goals and actions in the aftermath of being harmed, and we elaborate on the implications of their meaning-making for processes of moral development and behavior. We begin by describing how youths’ experiences of revenge are distinct from other forms of harmdoing, and how these unique features of revenge may inform the meanings that they construct from their retaliatory desires and actions. Next, we describe age-related changes in these constructive processes, and discuss how youths’ histories of interactions in their social milieu may undergird their constructions of meaning about revenge. We conclude by articulating implications of our analyses for intervening with children and adolescents surrounding issues of revenge.

Keywords

Revenge Moral Agency Moral development Peer conflict Narrative Meaning-making Justice Harm Exposure to Violence

Type: Chapter
Information: Revenge across Childhood and Adolescence , pp. 100 - 126

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108776684.005 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2021

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Chapter 5 - Understanding Youths’ Retaliatory Experiences through the Lens of Moral Agency

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