Assistant Professor Long Island University - Post Patchogue, New York, United States
Abstract Text: Anger is a negative, psychobiological emotion that can result in verbal and motor aggression (Averill, 1983; Brondolo et al., 1997; Tafrate et al., 2002). Anger is associated with increased heart diseases (Williams et al., 2000), substance abuse (Tafrate et al., 2002), revenge and impulsivity (DiBlasi & Kassinove, 2018), and road rage (Deffenbacher et al., 2003). There is a dearth of research on the topic of anger; for every one article on anger there are seven on anxiety, and ten on depression (Kassinove & Sukhodolsky, 1995). One explanation for this disparity is the difficulty in effectively evoking anger in an experimental setting. In order to examine effective interventions to treat anger, there must be effective ways to experimentally evoke state anger. The autobiographical essay memory task (AEMT) has had success in evoking state anger (Mills & D’Mello, 2014). Vince (1995) suggested that drawing may elicit more state emotions compared to other tools. As such, the present study adapted the AEMT into drawing form (i.e., autobiographical drawing memory task) as a novel approach to evoke state anger. There was a significant main effect of intervention on time, t(16) = -2.99, p = .009. Participants reported increased state anger post-intervention (M = 22.00, SD = 7.54) compared to pre-intervention (M = 16.35, SD = 2.18). Implications are discussed.
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