Aggression as successful self‐control

Abstract

AbstractA dominant narrative is that aggression starts when self‐control stops – unchecked aggressive impulses manifest in violence as self‐control fails to inhibit them. Yet this ‘low self‐control syndrome’ approach to aggression fails to accommodate numerous findings in which aggression arises from successful self‐control. I summarize these key findings while identifying how current theories of aggression can be molded to accommodate them. This balanced perspective, which allows aggression to arise from successful and unsuccessful self‐control, suggests exciting new hypotheses alongside confounding questions for aggression and self‐regulation scholars. It also supports ongoing and broader paradigm shifts away from treating self‐control as a purely adaptive and desirable psychological capacity and toward approaching self‐control interventions with greater care, as they may amplify aggression instead of reducing it, with costly consequences.