A View Of The Development Of Hostility In Early Life

Hostile destructive affects, from irritability to anger, hostility, hate, and rage, develop progressively during the first three years of life. Whereas pleasurable experiences are core determiners of the degree to which positive emotions develop, excessive unpleasure experiences are the central determiner and ingredient of the negative emotions. The progressive evolving of positively and negatively valenced emotions organizes into ambivalence which develops in two sequential basic conflicts of ambivalence during the early years of life. A critical relationship suggested from empirical research is that "excessive unpleasure experiences generate hostile destructiveness." This hypothesis suggests the crucial part played by such affective experiences in the generation and intensification of hostile destructiveness in humans. The generation of this trend in the aggressive drive and the affects that will now flow from it stabilize in the psyche, have continuity in development like the positive emotions and ibidinal drive, and wield their influence on ego functioning and development, superego formation, personality development, and object relations.