33 the degree of increase is not the same for high and low anger individuals. That is, as provocation increases, the high anger individual responds with more anger than does the low anger individual at the same level of provocation. For example, high and low anger individuals did not differ when driving unimpeded on an open country road, but as stress/provocation increased through ordinary traffic and heavy rush hour traffic, high anger drivers experienced greater anger than the low anger drivers (Deffenbacher et al., 2000; Deffenbacher, 2009). In summary, when there is no provocation, low and high anger individuals do not differ, but under provocation, high anger individuals experience higher levels of anger than low anger individuals. Aggression hypothesis. Because of more frequent, intense, and/or prolonged anger arousal and because aggression is often prompted by anger, high anger individuals engage in more aggression. Research strongly supports the hypothesis. Compared to low trait anger individuals, those with high trait anger express their anger through verbal and physical antagonism towards others, through loud noisy arguing and verbal denigration, through pushing, hitting or throwing things at other people, through damaging property, through things such as using a vehicle as a weapon, and the like (Alcázar, Deffenbacher, Hernández-Guzmán, & Wilson, 2011; Deffenbacher, 2009; Deffenbacher et al., 1996, Spielberger, 1998, 1999). Aggression toward others, often people the person knows, is more frequent, probably because other persons are seen as responsible of the anger. Reduced positive coping hypothesis. It is easy to think that positive, adaptive handling of one’s anger is the opposite of aggressive or otherwise dysfunctional anger expression. In fact, the correlation between the two is far from perfect. For example, high anger individuals report greater tendencies to both suppress anger, a concept known as anger-in (e.g., harboring grudges) and negatively express anger, a concept known as anger-out (e.g., arguing) (Alcázar, Deffenbacher, Hernández-Guzmán, & Wilson, 2011; Deffenbacher et al., 1996; Spielberger, 1988, 1999). Anger-in and anger-out, however, are unrelated or minimally correlated (Alcázar, Deffenbacher, & Byrne, 2011; Deffenbacher et al., 1996; Spielberger, 1988, 1999). Moreover, while anger-out and anger-control are negatively correlated, they too are somewhat orthogonal, such that lower anger-out does not guarantee high anger-control. Parallel to suppress or express anger, high anger individuals find difficult to control their anger, which is reflected in not managing the own behavior when angry (e.g., being patient with others) or not being able to relax or breathe deeply to reduce anger. The lack of control when angry is associated with low cognitive control. Unlike low anger individuals who have developed a habitual tendency to recruit effortful control resources following the activation of hostile thoughts, high-anger individuals fail to recruit effortful control resources in hostility-related contexts (Wilkowski & Robinson, 2010; Wilkowski, Robinson, & Troop-Gordon, 2010). Additionally, low anger individuals have a clear preference for high anger-control and low anger-out and anger-in, whereas high anger individuals are moderately high on all dimensions, sometimes employing one strategy and sometimes another. Negative consequences hypothesis. Because of the conditions outlined previously, high anger individuals are at risk for more frequent and/or more severe anger consequences. For example, high anger individuals reported that their anger lead to from two to 14 times more consequences such as negative feelings, relationship and friendship difficulties, property damage, problems at work and school, legal and other official sanctions and the like (Deffenbacher et al., 1996; Deffenbacher & Kellaway, 2010). Tafrate et al. (2002) reported similar findings for relationships. High anger individuals reported weakened relationships and lessened time with others following anger episodes, whereas low anger individuals reported equal time with and improved relationships. High anger individuals also reported more severe or negative consequences (e.g., relationship damage, injury to self and others, and lowered self-esteem) in their worst anger-involved incidences as well (Deffenbacher et al., 1996; Deffenbacher & Kellaway, 2011). Moreover, they experienced more different types of consequences as well. Gender and trait anger. Gender stereotypes that men are angrier and more aggressive would lead one to think that there would be a gender hypothesis as well. Contrary to expectations, gender is rarely associated with anger (Archer, 2004). Women are more likely to cry than men when angry (Averill, 1983), and, in some studies, men are slightly more physically aggressive than women. However, gender, when differences are found at all, explains a small percentage of the differences between men and women on anger, between 1.2 and 1.4% (Alcázar, Deffenbacher, & Byrne, 2011), suggesting that men and women are more alike on their experience and expression of anger. If, as the state-trait theory of anger suggests, people differ on this fundamental dimension of anger proneness, then high anger and low anger individuals should differ in predictable ways.
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