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9 - From the Frustration–Aggression Hypothesis to Moral Reasoning and Action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2021

By
Gian Vittorio Caprara
Edited by
Richard E. Tremblay
Richard E. Tremblay
Affiliation:
Université de Montréal
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Summary

Gian Vittorio Caprara was born in Italy in 1944. He is Emeritus Professor in Psychology at the University of Rome and was also a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study and at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. He founded the Interuniversity Center for the Study of Prosocial and Antisocial Motivation in Italy. He studied three major topics – personality, aggression, political preferences and participation – with an interactionist and social cognitive approach in which personality is considered a self-regulatory system while biological potential is mostly conditioned by culture. He initiated the Genzano Longitudinal Study, which followed 10-year-old children from elementary school through adolescence. The study focused on the development of aggression and prosocial behavior; stability and change in personality; the determinants of academic achievement and vocational choices; family and romantic relations; and civic and political behavior. The study investigated how different aspects of personality operate in concert. The aim was to clarify pathways that lead to maladjusted and risky behaviors. The findings led to the development of a theory that assigns to marginal deviations from normative behaviors a crucial role in the development of maladjusted behavior. The study also led to psychosocial interventions promoting and sustaining healthy development.

Keywords

prosocial behaviorantisocial motivationlongitudinal studiespersonalityaggressionsocial cognitivecultureelementary schooladolescencepolitical preferences
Type
Chapter
Information
The Science of Violent Behavior Development and Prevention
Contributions of the Second World War Generation
 , pp. 215 - 240
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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