Anger Management and Domestic Violence

Anger Management and Domestic Violence

Anger

As we all know, anger is a common experience. Everyone feels angry at some point and some people feel angry all the time or get angry easily (Averill, 1983). Being angry means that someone is dissatisfied with someone else, him or herself or with the current state of affairs. Furthermore, anger motivates people to initiate a corrective action to change their state of affairs. Anger is not inherently pathological, even if it is commonly experienced as unpleasant by either the angry person or by others interacting with the angry person. Anger is sometimes confused with aggression and hostility, but these constructs differ. Anger is an emotional experience, whereas aggression is a behavior, and hostility is an attitude. There are several major models of anger, each with their own definitions of anger. These include cognitive appraisal models of anger, the cognitive-neo-associationistic model of anger, the systemic model of anger, and DiGiuseppe & Tafrate's (2007) model of anger. All of them build on Schachter and Singer's two-factor theory of emotions. Briefly, Schachter and Singer (1962) posit that in emotion-evoking situations people first feel general physiological arousal, and then they look for environmental cues as to what might have caused that arousal. They then label their emotions according to those cues. In their seminal experiment, Schachter and Singer (1962) exposed the participants to either a euphoric cue (someone acting happy) or an anger cue (someone acting angry).

Prior to the exposure, half the participants received an adrenaline injection, which created physiological arousal, while the other half received a placebo injection. Participants who received an adrenaline injection were significantly more likely to act in accordance with the situational cue and experience increased happiness or anger compared with participants who received a placebo injection. Schachter and Singer concluded that participants' emotions resulted from a combination of the state of arousal and their cognitive interpretations of the situation. It is the essence of their two-factor theory of emotions, which generated numerous research studies and contributed to the development of the contemporary understanding of emotions. It is now possible to discuss the four models of anger mentioned above that build on the two-factor theory of emotion: The cognitive appraisal model, the cognitive-neoassociationistic model, the systemic model, and the integrated model.

Anger and Violence

Difficulties controlling angry reactions contribute to interpersonal violence, which affects individuals, families, and societies. Although the literature indicates that only ten percent of angry individuals act aggressively and that most of the time the aggression is verbal rather than physical, the relationship between anger and violence cannot be denied. The instances of violent crimes, such as physical or sexual assaults bring attention to their perpetrators, who are often perceived as angry and aggressive. The literature of violent crimes makes the distinction between instrumental and hostile aggression. Instrumental aggression refers to violent acts which are carefully planned and seemingly void of any emotions, while the hostile aggression refers to violent acts in which hostility and anger are clearly ...