Browsing by Subject "Anger"
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Item Anger and the politics of compromise(2015-12) Blank, Joshua M.; Shaw, Daron R., 1966-; Albertson, Bethany; McDaniel, Eric; Roberts, Brian; Jessee, StephenIn recent years, the inability of the federal government to respond to public policy crises with a timely, commensurate solution has been a seemingly regular cause for alarm. These inactions have not been due to constitutional restraints nor, should we take them at their word, the desire of the citizenry, but have most often resulted -- and in some cases emanated -- from the inability or unwillingness of elected officials to regularly engage in compromise. Public opinion polls conducted during many of these crises have routinely found a citizenry more than willing to endorse the principles of compromise, but the officials that they have elected, and those that they continue to elect, appear increasingly emboldened to engage in behaviors that hinder the reaching of a commendable solution. This discontinuity, between public expectations and the actions of many prominent, elected officials, leaves one left to ponder if, in the current age, the representational link between citizen and legislator is broken? I will argue that this link is, in fact, not broken (at least on this particular point), and that anger at politicians and the political system makes citizens, and especially the most politically engaged among them, endorse behaviors by elected officials that hinder compromise without influencing citizens' belief in the normative good of compromise itself.Item Anger Suppression and Depressive Symptoms among Chinese Women in the United States(2010-01-14) Chen, SylviaThis study was designed to remedy the current lack of information on the causes of depression among Chinese women in the United States. It is based on an integrated understanding of depression, anger, female gender socialization, acculturation processes, and Chinese cultural values. More specifically, this study aims to investigate the depressive symptoms in this population using a psychoanalytic conceptualization of depression as anger "turn-inward." The researcher hypothesized that after controlling for the effects of female gender role identification and acculturation level, anger suppression has a direct positive effect on depressive symptoms. It was also hypothesized that female gender role identification has a direct positive effect on depressive symptoms. Statistically significant strong positive relationships were found for both relationships. Results also suggested that acculturation level has a direct negative effect on depressive symptoms. However, neither the Chinese culture orientation nor the European American culture orientation was found to have a statistically significant effect on depressive symptoms. It is worth noting that the results of this study revealed that 90% of the variance in depressive symptoms was explained by variables included the path model in this study. Recommendations for future research and clinical practice are also discussed.Item Assessing the psychosocial risk factors for coronary artery disease: an investigation of predictive validity for the psychosocial inventory for cardiovascular illness(2009-08) Baker, Maria Kathryn; McCarthy, Christopher J.This dissertation investigated the psychometric properties and clinical applications of the Psychosocial Inventory for Cardiovascular Illness (PICI). The PICI is an inventory developed to measure the psychosocial risk factors for heart disease including anxiety, depression, stress, social isolation, and anger. The inventory was developed to measure the ways that each psychosocial risk factor contributes to the coronary artery disease process through the lifestyle behaviors and pathophysiological mechanisms with which they are associated. The primary purpose of the study was to examine predictive validity for the PICI. With support for predictive validity, the inventory may aid in early identification of individuals at increased risk for coronary artery disease (CAD) so that behavioral, psychosocial, and medical interventions can be implemented. Both healthy and cardiac samples were used in the inventory development and validation process. The PICI was administered in conjunction with similar inventories and physiological markers of CAD were collected including percent of coronary artery blockage and history of heart attacks. Item analysis and factor analysis were used to yield a 20-item PICI comprised of three subscales to include Negative Affect, Social Isolation, and Anger. It was hypothesized that the PICI subscales would predict group membership; whether or not a participant carried a diagnosis of CAD, and would be have a strong relationship to the physiological markers of CAD that were measured. Analysis revealed that the PICI was unable to predict diagnostic status and did not have a strong relationship with the physiological markers of CAD. Results suggest that the PICI has acceptable reliability and construct validity as demonstrated in the current sample, yet further investigation must be conducted to gain support for the instrument’s predictive abilities.Item Emotion and aggression : the role of anger in predicting direct and indirect aggression(2016-05) Wyckoff, Joy Plumeri; Buss, David M.; Swann, William BMany psychologists have theorized that negative emotions lead to aggression but remain vague on what contexts trigger these emotions and how these emotions predict aggression. According to the recalibrational theory of anger, signals that an interaction partner places low relational evaluations on oneself trigger anger, which motivates aggression (Sell, Tooby, & Cosmides, 2009). In the present study, we test the theory that anger mediates aggression and examine how other negative emotions relate to aggression. In an online study, we found that anger partially mediated the relationship between relative mate value and direct aggression as well as between relative mate value and indirect aggression. Further, anger fully mediated the relationship between self-perceived strength and direct aggression. For men, anger fully mediated the relationship between self-perceived mate value and indirect aggression. However, fear, embarrassment, and sadness did not predict aggression in any analyses. We conclude that anger, but not negative emotions more generally, predict aggression.Item The regulation of negative emotions in depression : exploring the use of reappraisal and acceptance during a stressful task(2012-08) Ellis, Alissa Joan, 1981-; Beevers, Christopher G.; Telch, Michael; Tucker, David; Haley, Andreana; Bartholomew, JohnDepression is a serious mental health concern affecting nearly 20% of the population (Kessler, 2002). A hallmark feature of depression is a prolonged period (i.e., 2 weeks or more) of sad mood. Because of this, recent conceptualizations have described Major Depressive Disorder as a dysfunction of emotion regulation (e.g., Kring & Bachorowski, 1999). However, the nature of this emotion regulation dysfunction in MDD is not well understood. The current study examined whether experimentally manipulating emotion regulation during a stressful task would help depressed individuals more effectively regulate subjective and physiological emotional responses. Although theorists have speculated that depression may potentiate certain emotional states, few empirical studies have been completed. One study found that depressed individuals reacted with significantly greater anger in response to a distressing and frustrating task than non-depressed individuals (Ellis, Fischer & Beevers, 2010). That study suggested that emotion regulation difficulties may contribute to the potentiation of some negative emotions, such as anger, among depressed individuals. Altering the emotion regulation strategies typically used by depressed individuals could therefore attenuate emotional reactivity to stressful experiences. Gross (1998) posits that emotion regulation can occur at two distinct points--either manipulating the input or the output of the emotional process. He refers to these as antecedent-focused (e.g., reappraisal of cognitions) or response-focused (e.g., acceptance of experience) emotion regulation. This theoretical framework provides a model through which to examine strategies to reduce distress and anger in depression. Specifically, the current dissertation examined the differential effects of manipulating an emotional response before generated (reappraisal; antecedent-focused) and after elicited (acceptance; response-focused). Depressed and non-depressed individuals were randomized to an emotion regulation strategy: reappraisal, acceptance or no strategy. They then completed a standardized, distressing task previously shown to potentiate anger (Ellis et al., 2010) and affect physiological responding (Matthews & Stoney, 1988). Subjective (i.e., anger, anxiety) and physiological (i.e., heart rate, galvanic skin response, respiration) emotional responses were collected to determine whether manipulating emotion regulation attenuates emotional reactivity to the distressing task. Results indicated that depressed individuals responded with greater anger, had lower galvanic skin conductance response, and persisted for shorter duration on the task than non-depressed individuals. Results also indicated that instructions to accept emotions increased anger during the task compared to reappraisal or no strategy. However, depression status and emotion regulation strategy did not interact, suggesting the effect of emotion regulation strategy did not differ across depression groups. Further, there were no differences between strategies for task persistence or skin conductance. Results suggest that acceptance is not an effective strategy for the acute reduction of anger. Results also emphasize the importance of anger potentiation and distress intolerance and highlight the need for continued work that identifies more effective strategies for emotion dysregulation in depression.Item The Expression of Determination: Similarities Between Anger and Approach-related Positive Affect(2011-02-22) Harmon-Jones, CindyThis study examines the valence and motivational direction components of affect using facial expressions of determination, anger and joy. Determination is a positive, approach-related emotion; anger is a negative, approach-related emotion; and joy is a positive, low-approach emotion. Thus, determination and anger share a motivational direction, but determination and joy share a valence. Participants created facial expressions intended to express joy, anger, fear, sadness, disgust and determination. Naive judges attempted to identify these expressions. Correct identifications of intended determination expressions were positively correlated with misidentifications of the expressions as anger, suggesting that determination is perceived as more similar to anger than to joy. This emphasizes the importance of the motivational component of emotion, as distinct from the valence of emotion.Item The validation of the Anger Implicit Association Test(Texas A&M University, 2005-11-01) Cuellar, RafaelThe present study investigated the Anger IAT as a valid measure of anger. In order to answer this question the relationship between the Anger IAT and traditional measures of anger, anxiety, and self esteem were examined for convergent and divergent validity. It was hypothesized that the Anger IAT measure would be moderately to highly correlated with the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory- 2 (STAXI-2), correlated less with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and correlated least with the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (RSES). Additionally, to demonstrate that the Anger IAT measure reduces a person??s ability to fake good, social desirability is hypothesized to have a moderating effect between the Anger IAT and the STAXI-2. A total of 60 subjects participated in this investigation, 42 of which were female and 18 were males. Furthermore, there were 20 Caucasian, 34 Hispanic, and 6 African American participants. It was found that the Anger IAT was correlated with several scales of the STAXI-2. The Anger IAT correlated less with the STAI and least with the RSES. Furthermore, it was found that the Anger IAT measure reduced the participant??s ability to fake good.Item Thumos in Aristotle’s Politics(2009-12) Morgan, Dorothy Lam; Pangle, Thomas L.; Stauffer, DevinRecent interest and scholarship in the role of emotions in politics provide an opportunity for revisiting the idea of ancient Greek thumos as understood by Aristotle. In Aristotle’s Politics, thumos is a capacity of the soul for affection; it is most clearly seen in anger and righteous indignation; and it is indispensable for understanding the nature of politics. Aristotle shows that thumos motivates political actions that can be beneficial as well as destructive to the city. This ambivalence has an enormous impact on what is possible or desirable in political life and raises important questions about the extent to which thumos should be cultivated in society and in individuals.