Anger cognitions and cardiovascular recovery following provocation.
The current study describes the creation and validation of the Anger Cognitions Inventory (ACI) to assess the cognitive appraisals associated with resentful and reflective anger. The ACI was created based on a content analysis of self-reports of participants' thoughts and feelings following anger provocation in the laboratory. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on two separate college student samples (N = 267 and N = 276, respectively) revealed five subscales which could validly be grouped into resentful and reflective anger. Convergent and divergent validity data showed that resentful anger correlated positively with anger-out/trait anger and reflective anger correlated positively with anger-in/brooding. A second study showed positive correlations between rumination and delayed cardiovascular recovery following anger provocation. Limitations of both studies include restricted samples which limit generalizability of results and cardiovascular recovery data collected in Study II which does not include assessment of autonomic balance between vagal and sympathetic responsivity.
Suchday
Sonia
S
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, Bronx, New York 10461, USA. ssuchday@aecom.yu.edu
Carter
Michele M
MM
Ewart
Craig K
CK
Larkin
Kevin T
KT
Desiderato
Otello
O
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000786:Anger / Q000502:physiology*; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001341:Autonomic Nervous System / Q000502:physiology; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D019260:Expressed Emotion / Q000502:physiology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology