(no subject)
Gender Differences in the Expression of Anger in School-Age Children
Personality theorists have an interest in the parallels between people’s psychological structure and how they respond to analogous stimulus. For example, what is the common structure in people who are aggressive? People who are passive? How are they different? And what role does cognition play in the expression of anger?
“The field of personality psychology stretches from a fairly simple empirical search for differences between people to a rather philosophical search for the meaning of life!” (Boeree, 2000, np). By conducting anger studies, and drawing parallels, researchers can develop theories regarding the human capacity for change. Continued research in the area of anger expression may help to create a less corrosive society, offering a clearer understanding of how to more effectively achieve personal contentment and social order, without the use of violence.
People have the potential to use violence or, more particularly, anger, to seriously damage their lives and the lives of others (Veylanswami, 2004). The use of anger, in stark contrast, has the potential, as well, to save a life (Sadashiva, 2005; Anonymous, 2005). Between these two extremes we may find hundreds of other uses for anger, each expression often very unique to the individual. Understanding the core function of anger in humans, particularly in school-age children, may offer hope for more focused, structured and meaningful interventions.
Does anger have its roots in cognition? Is anger a biological response to threats to survival? Is there a relationship between the expression of anger and gender? Or is it a combination of these and other factors? Peter Bowman (2003) carried out an anger study with school-age children in South Australia. The study was conducted for the purposes of detecting a correlation between gender and the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components of anger. The results of that study, although not surprising, found that adolescent males may very well have the potential to express their displeasure through violence at a higher frequency than adolescent females. Furthermore, adolescent males may have lower frustration tolerance for hindrances to their hedonic calculi than adolescent females (Bowman, 2003, p.75). This study, along with the many others of its kind, may provoke us as a society to continue to examine this issue, until such time as we can find a useful technique for dealing with this gender-specific correlation.
Adolescents, especially school-age children who are beginning to explore and establish themselves in a social environment away from home, almost immediately recognize differences in their new surroundings and in the new people they meet (Hostein, 1976). And, in response, school children begin to acquire coping mechanisms, continually reconciling themselves with the variations they encounter in others, especially those who do not share their same goals and ambitions (Barrett & Campos, 1987; Campos, Mumme, Kermoian, & Campos, 1994; Saarni, Mumme, & Campos, 1998). According to American Psychological Association (2003), children may use anger as a coping strategy, to achieve their ambitions. Or they may use anger to adapt or contend with stress.
According to Albert Ellis (2003), emotional fitness, which includes the ability to rationally address anger-provoking stimuli, can only be achieved by negotiating a balance between the “cognitive, emotive, and behavioral” components of personality (p. 241-242). Ellis endorses the notion that we had better, as a society, teach children to recognize that their self-talk can lead to irrational, unhealthy emotion such as unmanageable anger. Ellis offers a host of imagery, visualizations, symbolic thinking, in vivo experiences and exposure desensitization techniques to his inventory of therapeutic methods, to help reduce the incidence of unmanageable emotion. Parents and educators can become aware of the emotional upset that children can experience when they are refused what they believe they should get, and focus on ways of deescalating the student’s anger by focusing on the child’s self talk. Together, in this way, parents and teachers can help to increase the child’s potential to manage inconvenience and diversity, increase frustration tolerance, and decrease the incidence of unmanageable anger, which may lead to more apposite behaviors in adulthood.
The previously noted Bowman (2003) study rested on the participation of 102 South Australian school-age children (p.71). These children were in the process of completing their first year in a high school and were asked to participate in an anonymous inquiry of “their feelings and thoughts on school” (p. 74). The study, in fact, was conducted for the purposes of detecting a correlation between gender and the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components of anger. Do girls and boys experience anger differently? The sample size consisted of 55 males and 47 females. The students were predominately of European decent (82%), with 13% being Asian. 1 The Multidimensional School Anger Inventory (MSAI) was used to measure the students’ responses to 19 affective, 13 cognitive, and 22 behavioral measures of potentially anger-provoking experiences, and rated by the boys and girls on a Likert scale.
Following the administration of the questionnaire, Bowman calculated the mean and standard deviations of the subscales and found, as predicted, that no significant difference existed between males and females on the affective scale t(100)=.83, p=ns or how either sex experienced of anger. On the behavioral scale, however, boys were more likely to use negative coping strategies and were more likely to be more hostile towards school than girls t(100)=2.55, p=.006, with no specific stimuli noted in the researcher’s results. Girls, on the other hand, were found to be more likely to become angered, first, by rumor being spread about them and second, if someone were to criticize their hair or clothes. By contrast, however, girls were found to be more likely to “talk things over with someone, to share their feelings, and calm themselves by reading or writing when angry” when angered (Bowman, p.75). Similarly, girls were more likely to have somatic reactions to anger-provoking stimuli, while boys were found to be more likely to express anger outwardly, with or without violence, to get back at teachers or to disrupt class t(100)=2.75, p=.004, again with no specific stimuli noted. Finally, boys were found to be more easily angered by people or things in their school environment, while girls were more likely to feel they could trust adults in the school and that they had their best interests in mind when making decisions (Bowman, p. 75).
Although the study did not show a significant difference between males and females and how they experienced (understood) anger, Bowman (2003) found that, to some extent, males had the potential to use more destructive, coping skills than females and to outwardly express their anger, when confronted with anger-producing stimuli. Females were more likely to use positive, passive coping skills, e.g., to discuss feelings, to solicit advice, to talk things over.
Bowman’s study (2003), although quite predictable in its results, can be used as a catalyst for future discovery, if not for its perceptible limitations and unaccounted for, yet manifest lurking variables.
It may be more prudent for future researchers to include a larger sample size and, if a standardized measurement instrument is modified in any way, care may be taken in re-standardizing the instrument, in order to accommodate the modification, before administering it. In addition, the researcher may be mindful to ensure that 1) the sample size is equally populated with males and females, to avoid a Simpson Paradox, 2) factors such as socioeconomic class and learned anger responses are accounted for, 3) a set of demographic data is available, in order for the reader to determine additional correlations between anger and the whole person, rather than just gender, and 4) the addition of body chemistry, or the biological component, as a factor in the overall assessment of the individual, in order to make the study more complete.
Albert Ellis (2003) suggests that there may be reason to explore the possibility that emotion may have a biological component. It may be, according to Ellis, that emotion isn’t simply a matter of the human phenomenological experience. “Just about all people in all parts of the world take their socially imbibed preferences and standards and create and construct absolutist, unrealistic shoulds, oughts, musts, and demands about these goals” (p. 229). It may be that humans are programmed to think and act irrationally and that irrationality could be an element of the human condition. Ellis (2003) declares, “ . . . unrealistic and over generalized inferences and attributions are not only acquired from early upbringing but are also part of the human biological tendency to think crookedly and self defeatingly . . .” (p. 233).
Although Ellis (2003) offers very little proof in the way of science to his declaration that there is a biological component to irrational thinking, it is, to say the least, one of the intriguing questions we might see explored by future researchers of anger.
It should be emphasized that two anger-experience questions were added to the revised MSAI, in order to give the instrument balance and make it “more relevant to the female experience” (Bowman, p. 75). Bowman’s addition of female-specific questions seemed to have resulted in biasing the affective scale, making it seem as if boys and girls experience anger similarly, but express it differently, however insignificantly. Bowman may have easily predicted that males would not answer questions such as, “When someone starts a mean rumor about you that spreads all over the school . . .” and “Your best friend makes fun of your hair and clothes . . .” would predictably elicit more valid responses from girls than boys, simply because boys can easily detect from the phrasing that they were sexist, open-ended questions.
The author offered three suggestions, in relation to the findings in his study, e.g., more studies should be conducted on gender differences in the expression of anger, intervention programs should be designed around the results of this and future studies, in order to reduce the incidence of school violence, and teachers should be more vigilant in how and when they observe their students, especially males. Teachers may benefit from knowing what stimuli has the potential to trigger boys and girls to use anger, to detect these stimuli early, and to intervene before the anger manifests and escalates.
Footnotes
1 The MSAI was amended, making it the MSAI-R, to include two additional questions, in order to “render the MSAI more relevant to the female experience of anger” (Bowman, p. 75).
References
Anonymous. (2005). Domestic Violence Stories. Retrieved August 13, 2005 from
Mennonite Central Committee Web Site:
http://www.mcc.org/abuse/dom_violence/stories.html
American Psychological Association. (2003). Resilience for kids and Teens: A guide for
parents and teachers. Retrieved August 13, 2005 from the APA Help Center
from the American Psychological Association Web Site:
http://www.apahelpcenter.org/dl/resilience_guide-for_parents_and_teachers.pdf
Barrett, K., & Campos, J. (1987). Perspectives on emotional development: II. A
functionalist approach to emotions. In J. Osofsky (Ed.), Handbook of infant
development (2nd ed., pp. 555-578). New York: Wiley.
Boeree, G.C. (2000). Personality theories. Retrieved June 25, 2005 from Shippensburg
University Department for Psychology Web Site:
http://www.ship.edu/%7Ecgboeree/persintro.html
Campos, J., Mumme, D., Kermoian, R., & Campos, R. (1994). A functionalist
perspective on the nature of emotion. Monographs of the Society for Research in
Child Development, 59 (2-3), 284-304.
Ellis, A. (2003). Early theories and practices of rational emotive behavior therapy and
how they have been augmented and revised during the last decade. Journal of
Rational Emotive and Cognitive - Behavior Therapy, 21, 219-243. Retrieved August
14, 2005 from ProQuest Psychology Journals.
Saarni, C., Mumme, D. L., & Campos, J. (1998). Emotional development: Action,
communication, and understanding. In W Damon (Series Ed.) & N. Eisenberg (Vol.
Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality
development (5th ed., pp. 237-309). New York: Wiley.
Tirtha, Sadashiva. (2005). Why take the time to write about "good" anger? Retrieved
August 13, 2005 from Ayurveda Holistic Community Web Site:
http://www.ayurvedahc.com/articlelive/articles/24/1/Constructive-Anger
Personality theorists have an interest in the parallels between people’s psychological structure and how they respond to analogous stimulus. For example, what is the common structure in people who are aggressive? People who are passive? How are they different? And what role does cognition play in the expression of anger?
“The field of personality psychology stretches from a fairly simple empirical search for differences between people to a rather philosophical search for the meaning of life!” (Boeree, 2000, np). By conducting anger studies, and drawing parallels, researchers can develop theories regarding the human capacity for change. Continued research in the area of anger expression may help to create a less corrosive society, offering a clearer understanding of how to more effectively achieve personal contentment and social order, without the use of violence.
People have the potential to use violence or, more particularly, anger, to seriously damage their lives and the lives of others (Veylanswami, 2004). The use of anger, in stark contrast, has the potential, as well, to save a life (Sadashiva, 2005; Anonymous, 2005). Between these two extremes we may find hundreds of other uses for anger, each expression often very unique to the individual. Understanding the core function of anger in humans, particularly in school-age children, may offer hope for more focused, structured and meaningful interventions.
Does anger have its roots in cognition? Is anger a biological response to threats to survival? Is there a relationship between the expression of anger and gender? Or is it a combination of these and other factors? Peter Bowman (2003) carried out an anger study with school-age children in South Australia. The study was conducted for the purposes of detecting a correlation between gender and the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components of anger. The results of that study, although not surprising, found that adolescent males may very well have the potential to express their displeasure through violence at a higher frequency than adolescent females. Furthermore, adolescent males may have lower frustration tolerance for hindrances to their hedonic calculi than adolescent females (Bowman, 2003, p.75). This study, along with the many others of its kind, may provoke us as a society to continue to examine this issue, until such time as we can find a useful technique for dealing with this gender-specific correlation.
Adolescents, especially school-age children who are beginning to explore and establish themselves in a social environment away from home, almost immediately recognize differences in their new surroundings and in the new people they meet (Hostein, 1976). And, in response, school children begin to acquire coping mechanisms, continually reconciling themselves with the variations they encounter in others, especially those who do not share their same goals and ambitions (Barrett & Campos, 1987; Campos, Mumme, Kermoian, & Campos, 1994; Saarni, Mumme, & Campos, 1998). According to American Psychological Association (2003), children may use anger as a coping strategy, to achieve their ambitions. Or they may use anger to adapt or contend with stress.
According to Albert Ellis (2003), emotional fitness, which includes the ability to rationally address anger-provoking stimuli, can only be achieved by negotiating a balance between the “cognitive, emotive, and behavioral” components of personality (p. 241-242). Ellis endorses the notion that we had better, as a society, teach children to recognize that their self-talk can lead to irrational, unhealthy emotion such as unmanageable anger. Ellis offers a host of imagery, visualizations, symbolic thinking, in vivo experiences and exposure desensitization techniques to his inventory of therapeutic methods, to help reduce the incidence of unmanageable emotion. Parents and educators can become aware of the emotional upset that children can experience when they are refused what they believe they should get, and focus on ways of deescalating the student’s anger by focusing on the child’s self talk. Together, in this way, parents and teachers can help to increase the child’s potential to manage inconvenience and diversity, increase frustration tolerance, and decrease the incidence of unmanageable anger, which may lead to more apposite behaviors in adulthood.
The previously noted Bowman (2003) study rested on the participation of 102 South Australian school-age children (p.71). These children were in the process of completing their first year in a high school and were asked to participate in an anonymous inquiry of “their feelings and thoughts on school” (p. 74). The study, in fact, was conducted for the purposes of detecting a correlation between gender and the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components of anger. Do girls and boys experience anger differently? The sample size consisted of 55 males and 47 females. The students were predominately of European decent (82%), with 13% being Asian. 1 The Multidimensional School Anger Inventory (MSAI) was used to measure the students’ responses to 19 affective, 13 cognitive, and 22 behavioral measures of potentially anger-provoking experiences, and rated by the boys and girls on a Likert scale.
Following the administration of the questionnaire, Bowman calculated the mean and standard deviations of the subscales and found, as predicted, that no significant difference existed between males and females on the affective scale t(100)=.83, p=ns or how either sex experienced of anger. On the behavioral scale, however, boys were more likely to use negative coping strategies and were more likely to be more hostile towards school than girls t(100)=2.55, p=.006, with no specific stimuli noted in the researcher’s results. Girls, on the other hand, were found to be more likely to become angered, first, by rumor being spread about them and second, if someone were to criticize their hair or clothes. By contrast, however, girls were found to be more likely to “talk things over with someone, to share their feelings, and calm themselves by reading or writing when angry” when angered (Bowman, p.75). Similarly, girls were more likely to have somatic reactions to anger-provoking stimuli, while boys were found to be more likely to express anger outwardly, with or without violence, to get back at teachers or to disrupt class t(100)=2.75, p=.004, again with no specific stimuli noted. Finally, boys were found to be more easily angered by people or things in their school environment, while girls were more likely to feel they could trust adults in the school and that they had their best interests in mind when making decisions (Bowman, p. 75).
Although the study did not show a significant difference between males and females and how they experienced (understood) anger, Bowman (2003) found that, to some extent, males had the potential to use more destructive, coping skills than females and to outwardly express their anger, when confronted with anger-producing stimuli. Females were more likely to use positive, passive coping skills, e.g., to discuss feelings, to solicit advice, to talk things over.
Bowman’s study (2003), although quite predictable in its results, can be used as a catalyst for future discovery, if not for its perceptible limitations and unaccounted for, yet manifest lurking variables.
It may be more prudent for future researchers to include a larger sample size and, if a standardized measurement instrument is modified in any way, care may be taken in re-standardizing the instrument, in order to accommodate the modification, before administering it. In addition, the researcher may be mindful to ensure that 1) the sample size is equally populated with males and females, to avoid a Simpson Paradox, 2) factors such as socioeconomic class and learned anger responses are accounted for, 3) a set of demographic data is available, in order for the reader to determine additional correlations between anger and the whole person, rather than just gender, and 4) the addition of body chemistry, or the biological component, as a factor in the overall assessment of the individual, in order to make the study more complete.
Albert Ellis (2003) suggests that there may be reason to explore the possibility that emotion may have a biological component. It may be, according to Ellis, that emotion isn’t simply a matter of the human phenomenological experience. “Just about all people in all parts of the world take their socially imbibed preferences and standards and create and construct absolutist, unrealistic shoulds, oughts, musts, and demands about these goals” (p. 229). It may be that humans are programmed to think and act irrationally and that irrationality could be an element of the human condition. Ellis (2003) declares, “ . . . unrealistic and over generalized inferences and attributions are not only acquired from early upbringing but are also part of the human biological tendency to think crookedly and self defeatingly . . .” (p. 233).
Although Ellis (2003) offers very little proof in the way of science to his declaration that there is a biological component to irrational thinking, it is, to say the least, one of the intriguing questions we might see explored by future researchers of anger.
It should be emphasized that two anger-experience questions were added to the revised MSAI, in order to give the instrument balance and make it “more relevant to the female experience” (Bowman, p. 75). Bowman’s addition of female-specific questions seemed to have resulted in biasing the affective scale, making it seem as if boys and girls experience anger similarly, but express it differently, however insignificantly. Bowman may have easily predicted that males would not answer questions such as, “When someone starts a mean rumor about you that spreads all over the school . . .” and “Your best friend makes fun of your hair and clothes . . .” would predictably elicit more valid responses from girls than boys, simply because boys can easily detect from the phrasing that they were sexist, open-ended questions.
The author offered three suggestions, in relation to the findings in his study, e.g., more studies should be conducted on gender differences in the expression of anger, intervention programs should be designed around the results of this and future studies, in order to reduce the incidence of school violence, and teachers should be more vigilant in how and when they observe their students, especially males. Teachers may benefit from knowing what stimuli has the potential to trigger boys and girls to use anger, to detect these stimuli early, and to intervene before the anger manifests and escalates.
Footnotes
1 The MSAI was amended, making it the MSAI-R, to include two additional questions, in order to “render the MSAI more relevant to the female experience of anger” (Bowman, p. 75).
References
Anonymous. (2005). Domestic Violence Stories. Retrieved August 13, 2005 from
Mennonite Central Committee Web Site:
http://www.mcc.org/abuse/dom_violence/stories.html
American Psychological Association. (2003). Resilience for kids and Teens: A guide for
parents and teachers. Retrieved August 13, 2005 from the APA Help Center
from the American Psychological Association Web Site:
http://www.apahelpcenter.org/dl/resilience_guide-for_parents_and_teachers.pdf
Barrett, K., & Campos, J. (1987). Perspectives on emotional development: II. A
functionalist approach to emotions. In J. Osofsky (Ed.), Handbook of infant
development (2nd ed., pp. 555-578). New York: Wiley.
Boeree, G.C. (2000). Personality theories. Retrieved June 25, 2005 from Shippensburg
University Department for Psychology Web Site:
http://www.ship.edu/%7Ecgboeree/persintro.html
Campos, J., Mumme, D., Kermoian, R., & Campos, R. (1994). A functionalist
perspective on the nature of emotion. Monographs of the Society for Research in
Child Development, 59 (2-3), 284-304.
Ellis, A. (2003). Early theories and practices of rational emotive behavior therapy and
how they have been augmented and revised during the last decade. Journal of
Rational Emotive and Cognitive - Behavior Therapy, 21, 219-243. Retrieved August
14, 2005 from ProQuest Psychology Journals.
Saarni, C., Mumme, D. L., & Campos, J. (1998). Emotional development: Action,
communication, and understanding. In W Damon (Series Ed.) & N. Eisenberg (Vol.
Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality
development (5th ed., pp. 237-309). New York: Wiley.
Tirtha, Sadashiva. (2005). Why take the time to write about "good" anger? Retrieved
August 13, 2005 from Ayurveda Holistic Community Web Site:
http://www.ayurvedahc.com/articlelive/articles/24/1/Constructive-Anger