U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Modularity in Everyday Life Judgments of Aggression and Violent Behavior

NCJ Number
186986
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Dated: January-February 2001 Pages: 1-34
Author(s)
Yuval Wolf
Editor(s)
Vincent B. Van Hasselt, Michel Hersen
Date Published
2001
Length
34 pages
Annotation
This review focuses on one aspect of moral judgment of aggression and violent behavior in the context of the psycho-dynamics of everyday life, judgmental modularity.
Abstract
The central hypothesis asserts that, from the victim's perspective, the severity of judgments or the relative weight assigned to physical damage will be maximized when information on intent and damage is available, whereas inverse trends will typify judgments of the same person from the assailant's perspective. This view resembles the spirit of the functional approach to moral judgments of violent behavior. In this light, related studies conducted within the framework of functional measurement were reviewed, and judgmental modularity is documented in the majority of the findings. However, in two studies, the same participants exhibited judgmental consistency in the first phase and judgmental modularity in the second phase which manipulated other types of judgmental perspectives. Implications for the issue of judgmental modularity, for the issue of modularity in violent behavior, and for a proposal to establish a functional definition of aggression are discussed. 87 references, 10 tables, and 8 figures

Downloads

No download available

Availability