Moderators and mediators of the stress-aggression relationship: executive function and state anger

The present study examined the effects of executive function (i.e., EF) and anger/hostility on the relationship between stress (across individual stress domains, as well as at the aggregate level) and aggression. Two independent groups of participants-a college sample and a low-income community sample-were administered a battery of self-report measures concerning the subjective experience of stress, aggressive behaviors, and feelings of state anger and hostility in the last month, along with a battery of well-validated neuropsychological tests of EF. Across both samples, the stress domains that demonstrated the strongest associations with aggression were those involving chronic strains of daily living (e.g., job, financial, health) versus interpersonal stressors (e.g., family, romantic). In the community sample, analyses also revealed a significant interaction between perceived stress (aggregated across domains) and EF in predicting aggressive behavior. Specifically, participants with relatively low EF abilities, across different EF processes, showed a stronger relationship between different domains of stress and aggression in the last month. Similar effects were demonstrated in the college sample, although the interaction was not significant. In both samples, experiences of anger and hostility in the last month mediated the relationship between perceived stress (aggregate) and aggressive behavior among those low, but not high, in EF. These findings highlight the importance of higher-order cognitive processes in regulating appropriate affective and behavioral responses across different types of individuals, particularly among those experiencing high levels of stress.     

The angry cognitions scale: a new inventory for assessing cognitions in anger

Although cognitive–behavioral therapy is the preferred anger management treatment, research on the cognitive processes associated with anger is relatively sparse. One reason for this has been a lack of adequate measures of the cognitive processes associated with anger. The current study addresses this limitation by developing a theoretically derived instrument to measure the cognitive processes thought to be associated with maladaptive anger. Pilot work identified a set of 72 items written to reflect 5 domains that cut across cognitive theories of anger: overgeneralizing, inflammatory labeling, demandingness, catastrophic evaluation, and misattributing causation. Items were administered to 362 participants and statistical analyses yielded the 54-item Angry Cognitions Scale (ACS). Evidence supporting the construct validity of the ACS was demonstrated through relationships with the experience and expression/control of anger, hostile thoughts, anger consequences, depression and anxiety, and other measures of positive and negative cognitions.     

Development of covert and overt hostility scales from the Buss-Durkee Inventory

The purpose of this study was to develop covert and overt hostility scales from the Buss-Durkee Inventory. First, 22 covert hostility and 29 overt hostility items were identified by the authors. Second, an item analysis was done to assess the content saturation of the individual items on these scales. This analysis yielded the final form for 7 items for covert hostility and 14 for overt hostility. Cronbach alphas for the covert and overt scales were .67 and .77, respectively, and their intercorrelation was .08. Correlations for these Buss-Durkee scales with several existing measures of anger expression were consistent with expectations.     

Psychological characteristics of aggressive drivers with and without intermittent explosive disorder

We compared two groups of aggressive drivers, those who met criteria for Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) (n=10) and comparable aggressive drivers who did not meet IED criteria (n=20), to a group of non-aggressive driving controls (n=20) on measures of psychological distress, anger, hostility, and Type A behavior as well as measures of aggressive driving and driving anger and their driving records. There were few differences between the aggressive drivers with IED and those without IED. The IED positive aggressive drivers endorsed more assaultiveness and resentment as well as more impatience and showed trends to have more hostility and angry temperament. When all aggressive drivers were compared to controls, differences emerged on anxiety, hostility, and anger as well as on measure specific to aggressive driving (competitiveness) and driving anger (at slow drivers and traffic obstructions).     

The relationship of sex-role stereotypy to anger expression and the report of psychosomatic symptoms

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the relationship between selected psychological and behavioral measures concenred with the expression of anger and the report of psychosomatic symptoms. Presumably healthy college students filled out a symptom inventory which served as the criterion measure. Additionally, questionnaires were used to measure sex-role stereotypy, assertiveness, various types of hostility, and hostility guilt, which were then employed in a series of related analyses. Results supporting predicted relationships consistently demonstrated a positive association between the number of symptoms and indirect expression of anger as well as certain stereotypically feminine traits. Significant negative correlations were found between the symptom measure and assertiveness and between the symptom measure and scores on masculinity scales. Predictions that symptom frequency would be negatively related to the direct expression of hostility and positively related to hostility-guilt were not supported.     

Lonely hearts and angry minds: Online dating rejection increases male (but not female) hostility

The present work explores the hostile tendencies elicited by romantic rejection in the increasingly common context of online dating. To empirically investigate this issue, we created an ad hoc online dating platform in which fictitious online dating partners romantically rejected heterosexual male and female participants. Results revealed that male—but not female—participants who were rejected by desired dating partners displayed increased hostility. This pattern of findings was consistent across different measures, which considered both aggressive tendencies against the rejecting partners and hostile attitudes against the opposite gender. Further, increased feelings of anger explained the relationship between online romantic rejection and increased male hostility. Our work and its findings have both theoretical and methodological implications for the understanding of interpersonal processes in online interactions and the growing body of literature on online dating.     

Initial Validation of a Knowledge-Based Measure of Social Information Processing and Anger Management

Over the past fifteen years many schools have utilized aggression prevention programs. Despite these apparent advances, many programs are not examined systematically to determine the areas in which they are most effective. One reason for this is that many programs, especially those in urban under-resourced areas, do not utilize outcome measures that are sensitive to the needs of ethnic minority students. The current study illustrates how a new knowledge-based measure of social information processing and anger management techniques was designed through a partnership-based process to ensure that it would be sensitive to the needs of urban, predominately African American youngsters, while also having broad potential applicability for use as an outcome assessment tool for aggression prevention programs focusing upon social information processing. The new measure was found to have strong psychometric properties within a sample of urban predominately African American youth, as item analyses suggested that almost all items discriminate well between more and less knowledgeable individuals, that the test-retest reliability of the measure is strong, and that the measure appears to be sensitive to treatment changes over time. In addition, the overall score of this new measure is moderately associated with attributions of hostility on two measures (negative correlations) and demonstrates a low to moderate negative association with peer and teacher report measures of overt and relational aggression. More research is needed to determine the measure’s utility outside of the urban school context.     

Anger and hostility from the perspective of the Big Five personality model

Sanz, J., García‐Vera, M. P. & Magán, I. (2010). Anger and hostility from the perspective of the Big Five personality model. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 262–270. This study was aimed at examining the relationships of the personality dimensions of the five‐factor model or Big Five with trait anger and with two specific traits of hostility (mistrust and confrontational attitude), and identifying the similarities and differences between trait anger and hostility in the framework of the Big Five. In a sample of 353 male and female adults, the Big Five explained a significant percentage of individual differences in trait anger and hostility after controlling the effects due to the relationship between both constructs and content overlapping across scales. In addition, trait anger was primarily associated with neuroticism, whereas mistrust and confrontational attitude were principally related to low agreeableness. These findings are discussed in the context of the anger‐hostility‐aggression syndrome and the capability of the Big Five for organizing and clarifying related personality constructs.     

A Study of Social and Political Attitudes Among Members of Propagandist Societies

Summary

The effects of anger arousal, type of expression, and communication destiny on anger and aggressive drive are examined. One hundred ten students were exposed to an insulting or a noninsulting communication. Subjects replied to the communication by supporting it, opposing it, or taking a neutral position. Some were told that their replies would be read by the person who had written the communication (target), and others that their responses would not be shown to the target. Results show that anger arousal produced more hostility than the nonarousal and that anger arousal interacted with type of expression. Angry subjects who had expressed their feelings became more hostile than subjects who had expressed the opposite of their feelings. Angry subjects who had taken a neutral position, however, were lowest in hostility. Experimental effects attributable to other variables were nonsignificant. The results are interpreted in terms of a cognitive interference hypothesis.     

Examining the Relationship Between Gender DIF and Language Complexity in Mathematics Assessments

This study investigated whether the linguistic complexity of items leads to gender differential item functioning (DIF) on mathematics assessments. Two forms of a mathematics test were developed. The first form consisted of algebra items based on mathematical expressions, terms, and equations. In the second form, the same items were written as word problems without changing their contents and solutions. The test forms were given to a sample of 671 sixth-grade students from 10 middle schools in Turkey. The tests were administered to the students with a 4-week interval. Explanatory item response modeling and logistic regression approaches were used to examine gender DIF. Several word problems were flagged as having gender DIF in favor of female examinees, whereas mathematically expressed forms of the same items did not function differently across male and female examinees. The verbal content of word problems seems to influence the way males and females respond to items.     

Reliability and validity of measures of anger/hostility in singapore: Cook & Medley Ho Scale, STAXI and Buss-Durkee hostility inventory

As part of a larger research programme concerned with the role of anger/hostility in heart disease in Singapore, three commonly used measures of anger/hostility (Cook & Medley Ho Scale, STAXI, Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory) were examined for reliability and validity in an Asian population. A total of 968 Singaporean Chinese, Malay and Indian respondents completed one or more of these measures together with measures of symptom and illness experience. In addition, blood pressure and heart rate measures were taken for 201 respondents. Overall, the Ho and STAXI measures had reasonably high internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability for the Buss Durkee measure were high for the total score but variable for the component scales. Correlation and regression showed that the Ho and STAXI appeared to be tapping a common core of variance, which can be characterized as trait anger. Correlations of the Ho and STAXI with health measures produced modest but statistically significant correlations for measures of symptom and illness experience and generally low and non-significant correlations for heart rate and blood pressure.     

Anger and psychopathology in prison inmates

The relationship between anger and psychopathology was examined in a sample of 137 inmates. The State-Trait Anger Scale and the Anger Expression Inventory were used to measure anger and the Basic Personality Inventory was used to measure psychopathology. State and trait anger correlated positively with 8 and 9, respectively, out of 12 scales of psychopathology. The factor scales for the State-Trait Anger Scale, anger/hostility, arousal and situational anger correlated positively with 8, 9 and 4, respectively, out of 12 measures of psychopathology. Anger-control had an inverse relationship with 8 out of 12 measures of psychopathology, anger-out was positively related to measures of interpersonal problems, alienation, impulse expression and deviation, and anger-in had positive correlations with 11 out of 12 indices of psychopathology. Alternative treatment approaches which are sensitive to individual differences in anger style were discussed.     

Comparison of two aggression inventories

Two recently developed questionnaire measures of aggression, the Aggression Questionnaire [Buss and Perry (1992; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63:452–459]; and the Aggression Inventory [Gladue (1991a); Psychological Reports 68:675–684], were administered to a British sample (N=320) of men and women undergraduates. Both questionnaires contain subscales measuring physical and verbal aggression; the other scales of the Aggression Questionnaire measure anger and hostility, and those of the Aggression Inventory measure impulsiveness and avoidance of aggression. The factor structure of scales were assessed using confirmatory factor analysis. The interrelations of the subscales were calculated in both cases: anger was independently related to verbal and physical aggression and to hostility on the Aggression Questionnaire; impulsivity, and verbal and physical aggression were associated on the Aggression Inventory. Sex differences were largest on the two physical subscales, of lesser magnitude but still significantly different for the two verbal subscales, but absent for anger and hostility. This supports the hypothesis that sex differences in aggression are larger for more escalated forms of aggression. The physical and verbal subscales of the two questionnaires were each highly correlated with one another and the impulsive subscale of the Aggression Inventory highly correlated with the anger subscale of the Aggresion Questionnaire. Thus, two aggression questionnaires developed in the US not only produce similar associations between subscales and sex differences among a British undergraduate sample, but also show high correlations between their respective scales. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Measurement of alcohol-related consequences among high school and college students: application of item response models to the Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index

The Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index (RAPI; H. R. White & E. W. Labouvie, 1989) is a frequently used measure of alcohol-related consequences in adolescents and college students, but psychometric evaluations of the RAPI are limited and it has not been validated with college students. This study used item response theory (IRT) to examine the RAPI on students (N = 895; 65% female, 35% male) assessed in both high school and college. A series of 2-parameter IRT models were computed, examining differential item functioning across gender and time points. A reduced 18-item measure demonstrating strong clinical utility is proposed, with scores of 8 or greater implying greater need for treatment.     

Decomposing coronary-prone behavior: Dimensions of type a behavior in the Videotaped Structured Interview

This study examined the factorial structure of data generated in the Videotaped Structured Interview for assessment of Type A behavior. Based on the literature, it was argued that there are at least three distinct concepts of Type A behavior, focused on competitiveness and pressured drive, speech characteristics, and hostility, respectively. These three concepts were clearly represented among the factors from factor analyses based on data from 282 subjects. Three factors represented speech and psychomotor characteristics, where the first reflected interactions between subject and interviewer (e.g., response latency, interruptions), the second tempo of speech (accelerating, dysrhythmic and rapid speech), and the third oral gestures (e.g., expiratory sighs). Hostility was reflected in two factors, one defined by emotional intensity (e.g., anger when recalling paat event) and the other hostility expressed towards the interviewer. Pressured drive dominated a content factor reflecting self-awareness of Type A behavior. Finally, there was one factor related to psychomotor tension. Through further factor and item analyses, it was possible to combine these factors into three homogeneous and moderately intercorrelated subscales of Type A behavior reflecting Hostility, Speech Characteristics, and Self-Awareness of Type A behavior. These scales showed good interrater agreement and stability over two years. The Self-Awareness Scale was highly correlated with self-report measures of Type A behavior. The Hostility Scale, on the other hand, was moderately related to measures of Type A behavior, anger and hostility, but was unrelated to anxiety. The Speech Characteristic Scale, finally, was virtually unrelated to psychometric measures.     

Measuring Processing Fluency: One versus Five Items

While there is an ample amount of consumer behavior research that recruits processing fluency as an explanatory construct, the question how to best measure the fluency experience has received little attention. Therefore, there is a lack of consistency in measuring the construct, particularly with regard to the use of single‐item versus multi‐item measures. The current research, thus, aims to investigate how processing fluency can be consistently measured across different experimental fluency manipulations and which type of measure has the highest validity. Based on classic scale development procedures, we propose a reliable and valid multi‐item measure and compare this measure against a single‐item measure in terms of predictive validity. We show that both measures mediate the effect of five established fluency manipulations and that the single‐item measure is sufficient. In addition to providing a measure for future research that can be adapted to different empirical settings, we provide empirical evidence on the replicability of fluency effects and on the theoretical conjecture that people have a uniform fluency experience across different manipulations of fluency.     

Type A behavior pattern and emotion expression in younger and older adults.

Eighty younger (less than 50 years, M = 28 years) and 80 older (more than 50 years, M = 69 years) Type A and Type B Ss were evaluated for Type A behavior pattern using the Structured Interview (SI) and given personality tests for anxiety, depression, anger, aggression, hostility, and anger-in-anger-out. Ss also underwent an emotion induction procedure. Videotapes of the emotion induction procedure (N = 160) and the SI (N = 80) were coded for facial expression of emotion. Type As did not differ from Bs on anxiety or depression but did on anger and aggression. Type As showed anger inhibition and anger bound to shame, as predicted by emotion socialization theory. The greatest number of differential effects were observed between age groups. Older individuals, in general, were more emotionally expressive than younger Ss across a range of emotions. Women appeared more conflicted about anger expression than men, and Type A women more so than Type A men.     

DEPRESSION IN WOMEN AS RELATED TO ANGER AND MUTUALITY IN RELATIONSHIPS

Self-in-relation theory (Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, & Surrey, 1991) proposes that a lack of mutuality in women's relationships predisposes them to depression and inhibits their ability to acknowledge and address effectively emotions such as anger. Research linking anger to depression has not examined women's emotional expressivity within the context of their partner relationships. Women's depression as a function of both their level of anger suppression or inappropriate anger expression and the level of perceived relationship mutuality was studied in a sample of 223 college women, aged 18 to 54. Lower levels of mutuality and higher levels of suppressed or inappropriately expressed anger were associated with depression. Moreover, mutuality made contributions to predicting depression beyond that explained by anger. Lower mutuality was also related to higher anger suppression, but unrelated to inappropriately expressed anger.     

Gender differences in aggression: The role of displaying facial emotional cues in a competitive situation

Prior studies have shown that facial emotion displays communicate emotional states and interpersonal intentions. This study addressed gender differences in aggression based on the facial emotional cues expressed from a fictional opponent. A modified version of the competitive reaction time task (CRTT) was used to measure aggression. Participants (N = 251), between 18 and 35 years of age, were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions of the fictional opponents’ facial emotional cue displayed during the CRTT: anger, sadness, neutral, or the absence of facial expression. After each trial, participants were asked to report their own feelings and to choose a level of noise to administer to their opponent. Finally, motives for aggression were assessed. Results showed that women were less aggressive than men when receiving emotional cues of sadness and anger from the sender. In contrast, no gender differences occurred when a neutral expression was displayed or in the absence of any expression. In addition, men displayed similar levels of aggression across the four conditions, whereas women were more aggressive in both neutral and no feedback conditions than in the sad and anger conditions. Instrumental motives contributed to explaining the overall gender differences in aggression. These results suggest important moderator and mediator factors of gender differences in aggressive behavior.