The After-Effects of Regulating Anger and Anger-Related Emotions on Self-Report Ratings and Behavior: Divergent Consequences for Men and Women

Abstract

Despite the reported frequency of anger in everyday life, comparatively little is known about the psychological consequences of regulating this emotion. In the present study male and female participants were exposed to a short anger arousing film clip under one of three conditions: Expression (participants were asked to respond spontaneously to the events depicted in the film clip); suppression (participants were asked to inhibit outward expressions of emotion); and substitution (participants were asked to replace feelings of anger with a previously recalled happy memory). Analysis of participants' emotional state following the period of emotion regulation showed that whereas suppression led to an increase in females' self reports of anger and related affective states, substitution led to an increase in males' ratings of anger and related affective states. Analysis of participants' expressive behavior following the period of anger regulation also showed an increase in expressions of outrage and disgust by female suppressors. Overall, the effects of anger regulation upon expressive behavior were less marked than those for self-reports of emotion. The results are discussed in the wider context of research on gender differences in emotion, the concurrent effects of regulating emotion, and thought suppression. Key words: anger, emotion regulation, genderSelf-report studies of the incidence of anger in everyday life have consistently shown that people experience anger, or are the target of someone else's anger, at least several times a week (Anastasi, Cohen, & Spatz, 1948;Averill, 1982;Gates, 1926;Meltzer, 1933;Richardson, 1918). Despite its frequency, however, comparatively little is known about the psychological consequences of expressing, or inhibiting the expression of this emotion.To date, research into anger has tended to focus upon its medical and social consequences. On the one hand, medical research suggests that both the propensity to express anger, and the way that anger is managed, have implications for the incidence and severity of coronary heart disease (Everson, Goldberg, Kaplan, Julkunen, & Salonen, 1998). In particular, individuals whom habitually suppress feelings of anger (i.e., feel angry but do not show it) are at greater risk of developing coronary heart disease, hypertension, and even minor ailments such as recurrent headaches, than individuals whom adopt alternative methods of anger control (Gallacher, Yarnell, Sweetnam, Elwood, The research reported in this paper was funded by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC: Grant Number R000 22 3261) awarded to J. A. Hosie and A. B. Milne. We would like to thank our colleague Louise Phillips for her helpful comments on a draft of this manuscript.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Judith A Hosie, School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, King's College, Aberdeen, AB24 2UB, Scotland, UK (e-mail: j.hosie@abdn.ac.uk). THE AFTER-EFFECTS OF REGULATING ANGER AND ANGER-RELATED EMOTIONS 289& Stansfeld, 19...

Family emotion expressivity, emotion regulation, and the link to psychopathology: Examination across race

“…It may also be that the present study did not assess certain facets of ER shown in past literature to capture sex differences. For instance, research has demonstrated that, in Western cultures, there are sex differences in how anger and sadness are regulated across age groups (e.g., Hosie, Milne, & McArthur, 2005; Thomsen, Mehlsen, Viidik, Sommerlund, & Zachariae, 2005; Zeman & Garber, 1996), but the present study did not assess ER difficulties by emotion type.…”