Subject: Social/Emotional Learning

Posted by Zachary Lawrence on 1/7/2010
In Reply To:Social/Emotional Learning Posted by Philip Abode on 1/6/2010

Message:

Phillip – I wouldn’t call a hard and fast rule that ill emotional health leads to aggression. I imagined this model falling into the “wrong, but helpful” category in talking through the causes and consequences of aggression with an eye towards bullying in a school context. This model is probably most compatible with drive theories of aggression as a response to frustration, modified to address a lack of coping skills for stress. It’s also geared toward a specific population (I work primarily with adolescents / young adults with emotional disturbances).

Alex – In my school our counselors tend towards cognitive theories, so much of our interventions are variations on cognitive therapy. This model supports those efforts and does not really take into account parallel or competing theories of aggression.

Heather – I agree with you that many children who grow up in emotionally supportive, stable environments do not need to be explicitly taught coping skills. I would argue that they have them and use them already, though they may not be aware of them as such. The proponents of cognitive or talking therapies assert that these deficits can be overcome rationally, and that is the viewpoint from which the model is constructed.

I think that one sense of “all models are wrong; some are useful” is that each model is constructed from a particular viewpoint which should be made explicit when using the model to increase understanding. This can account for differences in models that purport to address the same thing. I suppose one question might then be, what would a model of a competing theory of aggression look like? How would the two models be different? How would those differences reflect the differences in the theories? How could those differences be reconciled?