The affective component of moral development is associated with a person’s emotions and feelings caused by doing morally right or wrong actions. The psychoanalytic theory by Sigmund Freud is directly related to this affective component because the researcher focused on a specific role of people’s emotions in their moral development through the superego (Sigelman & Rider, 2018). Thus, the superego, or an individual’s conscience, acts as a supervisor of a person’s emotions and actions to guarantee that they are morally appropriate. According to the psychoanalytic theory, during their moral development, children are motivated to act ethically to feel positive moral emotions and avoid shame or guilt.
One should note that family and cultural environments play a crucial role in developing young persons’ aggressive behaviors. The reason is that children conclude about the acceptability of aggressive or violent behaviors with reference to what they see and hear in their family and community (Sigelman & Rider, 2018). If children do not understand the immoral character of aggression and violence and see how their close people and friends demonstrate aggressive behaviors, they are not aware of the necessity of controlling their anger.
Working with individuals who are inclined to demonstrate aggressive behaviors, it is necessary to determine how often and under which circumstances clients can observe aggression and violence in their community. It is also critical to identify reactions to aggression acceptable in their family, as well as the ways to monitor and control it (Labella & Masten, 2018).
The answers to these questions will help to demonstrate what surroundings and reactions or the absence of any can lead to the development of aggressive behaviors in individuals as their variant of a morally acceptable emotion or action. When communicating with both clients and members of their families on the topics of aggressive behaviors and morality, it is possible to gain insights important for the further practice and formulation of effective recommendations to follow.
References
Labella, M. H., & Masten, A. S. (2018). Family influences on the development of aggression and violence. Current Opinion in Psychology, 19, 11-16.
Sigelman, C. K., & Rider, E. A. (2018). Life-span human development (9th ed.). New York, NY: Cengage Learning.