ABSTRACT
History suggests that the most rapid and widespread advances in our knowledge of basic scientific processes often occur in pursuit of the solution to a practical and applied problem. The applied problem guiding the field of research to be described in this chapter is a simple one: How can aggressive children be taught to adopt nonaggressive behavioral patterns in their interactions with peers? In pursuing the solution to this problem I have frequently borrowed ideas from the theories of cognitive, social, and developmental psychology. At the same time, one outcome of this research program may well be a contribution to those theories. The interplay between the basic and the applied is an aspect of this research which seems to have a favorable impact on both theory and practice.
