Cognitive and affective components of the type A hostility dimension

Powerlessness, anger, and stress in African American women: implications for physical and emotional health

African American women find themselves at a high risk of experiencing feelings of powerlessness associated with socioeconomic disparities rooted in a history of racism and sexism. The authors present a conceptual model that discusses powerlessness as a significant variable that contributes to the experience of anger and stress in African American women, and consequently to the adverse health consequences of such anger and stress. The authors review the current literature as well as census and health statistics to discern critical historical, social, and cognitive aspects of powerlessness and anger in African American women. Implications for practitioners are addressed.

Personality and aggressive behavior under provoking and neutral conditions: A meta-analytic review

The authors conducted a comprehensive review to understand the relation between personality and aggressive behavior, under provoking and nonprovoking conditions. The qualitative review revealed that some personality variables influenced aggressive behavior under both neutral and provocation conditions, whereas others influenced aggressive behavior only under provocation. Studies that assessed personality variables and that directly measured aggressive behavior were included in the quantitative review. Analyses revealed that trait aggressiveness and trait irritability influenced aggressive behavior under both provoking and neutral conditions but that other personality variables (e.g., trait anger, Type A personality, dissipation-rumination) influenced aggressive behavior only under provoking conditions. The authors discuss possible relations between these patterns of aggressive behavior and the personality dimensions of Agreeableness and Neuroticism and consider implications for theories of aggression.

The Clinical Anger Scale: preliminary reliability and validity

This article reports preliminary evidence for the development and validation of the Clinical Anger Scale (CAS), an objective self-report instrument designed to measure the syndrome of clinical anger. Factor analysis of the CAS confirmed a unidimensional item structure; reliability analyses also demonstrated adequate internal consistency and test-retest stability for the CAS; other results indicated that the CAS was unrelated to social desirability influences. Additional findings indicated that clinical anger was associated positively with several anger-related concepts (e.g., trait anger, state anger, anger-in, anger-out, anger-control) and that the CAS was related in predictable ways to people's psychopathological symptoms, personality traits, and early family environments. Implications for future research and therapeutic assessment with the Clinical Anger Scale are discussed.