The Development of Aggressive Behavior From the Perspective of a Developing Behaviorism

This article describes theoretical developments that have guided the interpretation of findings in a large-scale longitudinal study of the development of aggression over 22 years. The original variables were selected on the basis of their relevance to Hull-Spence theory, and the data were collected in conformity with the positivistic criteria that theory dictated. However, these data, as they accumulate, have also been found to be relevant to operant formulations as well as to social learning theory and, most recently, cognitive behaviorism. Indeed, as theories of learning have become broader they have been progressively better able to account for the data.