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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2021

By
Holly Recchia  and
Cecilia Wainryb
Edited by
Holly Recchia  and
Cecilia Wainryb
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

RevengeMoral AgencyMoral developmentPeer conflictNarrativeMeaning-makingJusticeHarmExposure to Violence
Type
Chapter
Information
Revenge across Childhood and Adolescence , pp. 100 - 126
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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