Studies on anger and aggression: Implications for theories of emotion.

Abstract

Describes a series of surveys on the everyday experience of anger, and a sample of data from these surveys is used to address a number of issues related to the social bases of anger. These issues include the connection between anger and aggression; the targets, instigations, and consequences of typical episodes of anger; the differences between anger and annoyance; and possible sex differences in the experience and/or expression of anger. However, the primary focus of the present paper is not on anger and aggression, but anger is used as a paradigm case to explore a number of issues in the study of emotion, including the advantages and limitations of laboratory research, the use of self-reports, the proper unit of analysis for the study of emotion, the relationship between human and animal emotion, and the authenticity of socially constituted emotional responses. (68 ref)