PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
Bushman / VENTING ANGER FEEDS THE FLAME

Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame?
Catharsis, Rumination, Distraction,
Anger, and Aggressive Responding
Brad J. Bushman
Iowa State University
Does distraction or rumination work better to diffuse anger?
Catharsis theory predicts that rumination works best, but empirical evidence is lacking. In this study, angered participants hit apunching bag and thought about the person who had angered
them (rumination group) or thought about becoming physicallyfit (distraction group). After hitting the punching bag, theyreported how angry they felt. Next, they were given the chance toadminister loud blasts of noise to the person who had angered
them. There also was a no punching bag control group. People in
the rumination group felt angrier than did people in the distraction or control groups. People in the rumination group were also
most aggressive, followed respectively by people in the distraction
and control groups. Rumination increased rather thandecreased anger and aggression. Doing nothing at all was more
effective than venting anger. These results directly contradict
catharsis theory.

coming from.” . . . Your boxing trainer knows it’s in there.
And he wants you to give it to him. (“Fighting Fit,” 1993,
p. 179)In a New York Times Magazine article about hate crimes,
Andrew Sullivan writes, “Some expression of prejudiceserves a useful purpose. It lets off steam; it allows natural
tensions to express themselves incrementally; it cansiphon off conflict through words, rather than actions”(Sullivan, 1999, p. 113). A large billboard in Missouri
states, “Hit a Pillow, Hit a Wall, But Don’t Hit Your Kids!”
Catharsis Theory
The theory of catharsis is one popular and authoritative statement that venting one’s anger will produce a
positive improvement in one’s psychological state. The
word catharsis comes from the Greek word katharsis,
which literally translated means a cleansing or purging.
According to catharsis theory, acting aggressively or evenviewing aggression is an effective way to purge angry andaggressive feelings.
Sigmund Freud believed that repressed negative emotions could build up inside an individual and cause psychological symptoms, such as hysteria (nervous outbursts). Breuer and Freud (1893-1895/1955) proposedthat the treatment of hysteria required the discharge ofthe emotional state previously associated with trauma.
They claimed that for interpersonal traumas, such as

The belief in the value of venting anger has become

widespread in our culture. In movies, magazine articles,
and even on billboards, people are encouraged to venttheir anger and “blow off steam.” For example, in themovie Analyze This, a psychiatrist (played by Billy Crystal)tells his New York gangster client (played by Robert De
Niro), “You know what I do when I’m angry? I hit a pillow. Try that.” The client promptly pulls out his gun,points it at the couch, and fires several bullets into thepillow. “Feel better?” asks the psychiatrist. “Yeah, I do,”says the gunman. In a Vogue magazine article, female
model Shalom concludes that boxing helps her releasepent-up anger. She said,

Author’s Note: I would like to thank Remy Reinier for her help scanning photo IDs of students and photographs from health magazines. I
also would like to thank Angelica Bonacci for her helpful comments onan early draft of this article. Correspondence concerning this article
should be addressed to Brad J. Bushman, Department of Psychology,
Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3180; e-mail: bushman@
iastate.edu.

I found myself looking forward to the chance to poundout the frustrations of the week against Carlos’s (hertrainer) mitts. Let’s face it: A personal boxing trainer has
advantages over a husband or lover. He won’t look at you
accusingly and say, “I don’t know where this irritation is

PSPB, Vol. 28 No. 6, June 2002 724-731© 2002 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

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Bushman / VENTING ANGER FEEDS THE FLAME
insults and threats to the ego, emotional expression
could be obtained through direct aggression: “The reaction of an injured person to a trauma has really only . . . a‘cathartic’ effect if it is expressed in an adequate reaction
like revenge” (p. PAGE?). Breuer and Freud believedthat expressing anger was much better than bottling it
up inside.
Freud’s therapeutic ideas on emotional catharsis
form the basis of the hydraulic model of anger. The
hydraulic model suggests that frustrations lead to anger
and that anger, in turn, builds up inside an individual,
similar to hydraulic pressure inside a closed environment, until it is released in some way. If people do not let
their anger out but try to keep it bottled up inside, it will
eventually cause them to explode in an aggressive rage.
The modern theories of catharsis are based on thismodel. Catharsis is seen as a way of relieving the pressurethat the anger creates inside the psyche. The core idea isthat it is better to let the anger out here and there in little
bits as opposed to keeping it inside as it builds up to thepoint at which a more dangerous explosion results.
If venting really does get anger “out of your system,”then venting should decrease aggression because people
are less angry. Almost as soon as psychology researchersbegan conducting scientific tests of catharsis theory, thetheory ran into trouble. In one of the first experimentson the topic (Hornberger, 1959), participants firstreceived an insulting remark from a confederate. Next,
half of the participants pounded nails for 10 minutes—
an activity that resembles many of the “venting” techniques that people who believe in catharsis continue torecommend even today. The other half did not get achance to vent their anger by pounding nails. After this,all participants had a chance to criticize the person who
had insulted them. If catharsis theory is true, the act ofpounding nails should reduce subsequent aggression.
The results showed the opposite effect. The people who
had hammered the nails were more (rather than less)hostile toward the confederate afterward than were theones who did not get to pound any nails.
In 1973, Albert Bandura issued a statement calling fora moratorium on catharsis theory and the use of venting
in therapy. Four years later, Geen and Quanty (1977)
published their influential review of catharsis theory in
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. After reviewing
the relevant data, they concluded that venting anger
does not reduce aggression. If anything, they concluded,
it makes people more aggressive afterward. More recent
research has come to similar conclusions (e.g.,
Bushman, Baumeister, & Stack, 1999). Geen and Quanty
also concluded that venting anger can reduce physiological arousal but people must express their anger directlyagainst the provocateur. People also must believe that725

the provocateur will not retaliate. Venting against substitute targets does not reduce arousal.
Cognitive Neoassociation Theory
According to cognitive neoassociation theory(Berkowitz, 1993), aversive events (e.g., frustrations,provocations, hot temperatures) produce negative
affect. Negative affect, in turn, automatically stimulates
thoughts, memories, expressive motor reactions, andphysiological responses associated with both fight andflight tendencies. The fight associations give rise to rudimentary feelings of anger, whereas the flight associations
give rise to rudimentary feelings of fear.
Cognitive neoassociation theory posits that aggressive
thoughts are linked together in memory, thereby forming an associative network. Once an aggressive thought isprocessed or stimulated, activation spreads out along the
network links and primes or activates associatedthoughts as well. Not only are associated aggressive
thoughts linked together in memory but thoughts arealso linked along the same sort of associative lines toemotional reactions and action tendencies (Bower,
1981; Lang, 1979). Thus, the activation of aggressive
thoughts can engender a complex of associations consisting of aggressive ideas, emotions related to violence,and the impetus for aggressive actions.
Cognitive neoassociation theory predicts that venting
should increase rather than decrease angry feelings andaggressive behaviors. Venting involves behaving aggressively, often against “safe” inanimate objects. To vent,people punch pillows, wallop punching bags, beat on
couches with foam baseball bats, throw dishes on the
ground, kick trash cans, scream and swear into pillows,
and so forth. In essence, venting is practicing how tobehave aggressively. Such aggressive activity shouldprime aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavioral tendencies, especially if the people think about the sourceof their anger while venting. Thus, venting should keep
angry feelings active in memory and also should increase
the likelihood of subsequent aggressive responses.
Rumination and Distraction
Most pop psychology and self-help books implicitly
assume that people are ruminating about their provocateur while venting anger. Some authors, however, aremore explicit. For example, John Lee (1993) gives thefollowing advice to angry people in his popular book Facing the Fire: Experiencing and Expressing Anger Appropriately:
Punch a pillow or a punching bag. Punch with all thefrenzy you can. If you are angry at a particular person,
imagine his or her face on the pillow or punching bag,and vent your rage physically and verbally. You will bedoing violence to a pillow or punching bag so that you

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PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN

can stop doing violence to yourself by holding in poisonous anger. (p. 96)

Some devices for venting anger make it easy for people
to ruminate about their provocateur. For example, consider the following advertisement from a toy catalog:
WHEN YOU NEED SOMETHING THAT WON’T HIT
BACK. Wham-It stands 42” tall and takes abuse from kids
and adults alike. When you feel like you just have tostrike out, Wham-It is always on call. New clear vinyl
pocket lets you insert a photo or drawing.

Rumination is defined as “self-focused attention,” ordirecting attention inward on the self, and particularly
on one’s negative mood (Lyubomirsky & NolenHoeksema, 1995). Any process that serves to exacerbate
a negative mood, such as rumination, should increase
anger and aggression. In contrast, any process that distracts attention away from an angry mood should reduceanger and aggression. If provoked individuals are
induced to think about how they feel, they will maintain,
or exacerbate, their angry mood. If they are induced tothink about something else, however, the anger will dissipate in time.
Previous research has shown that rumination
increases angry feelings. In one study (Rusting & NolenHoeksema, 1998), college students were angered byreading a story about a professor who treated a student
unfairly and were told to imagine themselves in a similar
situation. Some students ruminated by writing about
emotion-focused and self-focused topics (i.e., “Why do
you think the way you do”), whereas others were distracted by writing about nonemotional, irrelevant topics(i.e., “the layout of the local post office”). Participants
who ruminated for 20 minutes reported being angrier
than did participants who were distracted. Another study
found that aggression toward an insulting confederate
was decreased by having people solve distracting mathproblems (Konecni, 1974). Solving the math problems
presumably distracted people from the source of theiranger. Two other studies found that rumination
increased displaced aggression after a minor triggering
event (Bushman, Pedersen, Vasquez, Bonacci, & Miller,
2001). In Study 1, provoked participants focused attention on or away from their negative mood and later
engaged in displaced aggression against a competent or
fumbling confederate. Provoked participants who ruminated engaged in more displaced aggression against the
fumbling confederate than did participants who were
distracted. Study 2 replicated the findings from Study 1
using different operational definitions and a substantially longer (8-hour) rumination period.
To date, no research has examined the effects of rumination and distraction in the effects of venting activities

on anger and subsequent aggression. According to cognitive neoassociation theory, ruminating while venting
should prime aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavioral tendencies.
Overview
In the present study, 600 college students (300 men,
300 women) were first angered by another participant
who criticized an essay they had written. In fact, there wasno other participant. Next, participants were randomly
assigned to rumination, distraction, or control groups.
Participants in the rumination group hit a punching bag
as long, as hard, and as many times as they wanted to.
While they hit the bag, they were told to think about theother participant who had criticized their essay. For avisual aid, they were shown a photo ID of a same-sex college student described as the “other participant” on a 15inch computer monitor. Participants in the distractiongroup also hit a punching bag as long, as hard, and as
many times as they wanted to. While they hit the bag,they were told to think about becoming physically fit. Asa visual aid, they were shown a photo ID of a same-sex
athlete from a health magazine on a 15-inch computer
monitor. Participants in the control group did not hit thepunching bag. Instead, they sat quietly for a couple minutes while the experimenter supposedly worked on theother participant’s computer. No attempt was made to
reduce the anger of participants in the control group.
Anger was measured using a mood form. Aggression wasmeasured by allowing participants to blast their provocateur with loud and long noises through a pair of headphones on a competitive reaction time task. Catharsis
theory would predict the lowest levels of anger andaggression among participants in the rumination condition. Cognitive neoassociation theory would predict theexact opposite results.
METHOD

ParticipantsParticipants were 600 undergraduate college students(300 men and 302 women) enrolled in introductory psychology courses.1 Students received extra course credit
in exchange for their voluntary participation. The datafrom 2 women were discarded because they refused tohit the punching bag. The final sample consisted of 300
men and 300 women. There were 100 men and 100
women in each of the three experimental conditions(i.e., rumination, distraction, control).
Procedure
Participants were tested individually, but each was led
to believe that he or she would be interacting with

Bushman / VENTING ANGER FEEDS THE FLAME
another participant of the same sex. They were told thatthe researchers were studying first impressions.
After giving informed consent, each participant wrote
a one-paragraph essay on abortion, either pro-choice or
pro-life (whichever the participant supported). After finishing, the participant’s essay was taken away to be shown
to the other participant (who was in fact nonexistent) for
evaluation. Meanwhile, the participant was permitted toevaluate the partner’s essay, which expressed the opposite view on abortion (e.g., if the participant’s essay waspro-choice, the partner’s essay was pro-life).
A short time later, the experimenter brought the participant’s own essay back with comments ostensibly
made by the other participant. All participants received
bad evaluations consisting of negative ratings on organization, originality, writing style, clarity of expression, persuasiveness of arguments, and overall quality. The ratings ranged from –10 to –8 on a 21-point scale ranging
from –10 (very bad) to +10 (very good). There was also a
handwritten comment stating “This is one of the worst
essays I have read!” Previous research has shown that thisprocedure makes people quite angry (e.g., Bushman &Baumeister, 1998; Bushman et al., 1999; Bushman,
Baumeister, & Phillips, 2001).
After reading the evaluation, the participant rated
how much they wanted to perform each of 10 activities
on a list. Included in this list of activities was “hitting apunching bag.” Other activities included playing solitaire, reading a short story, watching a comedy, and playing a computer game. Ratings were made on a 10-point
scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 10 (extremely).
The punching bag manipulation came next. Twothirds of participants received the punching bag procedure. If the participant did not rank the punching bag
activity first, the experiment asked if the participant
would be willing to hit the punching bag, explaining thatratings were needed for each activity on the list and that
more ratings were needed for the punching bag activity.
By requesting the participant to agree, we were able toensure that the punching bag activity was the result of
choice by all participants, including those who had not
originally listed it as their top choice.
Participants who received the punching bag procedure were told that because physical appearance could
influence their impression of their partner, a coin would
be tossed to determine whether they would know what
their partner looked like. On the basis of the coin toss,participants were assigned to rumination or distraction
conditions. Participants in the rumination condition
were told that they would know what their partner
looked like. On a 15-inch computer monitor, participants were shown a photo ID of another Iowa State University student of the same sex. The experimenter actually rolled a die to determine which of six photo IDs to

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show. The names and identification numbers were
removed from all IDs. The experiment then gave theparticipant some boxing gloves and demonstrated how
to hit the 70-pound punching bag (Everlast, Model4820). Participants were told that they should think
about their partner while hitting the bag.2
Participants in the distraction condition were toldthat they would not know what their partner looked like.
Instead of thinking about their partner while hitting thebag, they were told to think about becoming physically
fit. Instead of seeing a photo ID of their partner on thecomputer screen, they saw a photo of someone of thesame sex exercising. The photos were taken from fitness
magazines and the experimenter rolled a die to determine which photo to show.
Participants in both the rumination and distraction
condition were told that their partner would not see
them (due to the coin toss). The participant was left
alone to hit the punching bag. They were told they could
hit it as long and as many times as they wanted to.
Because there was an intercom system in the participant’s room, the experimenter was able to time how longthe participant hit the bag and count the number oftimes the participant hit the bag. The experimenter also
rated how hard the participant hit the bag on a 10-point
scale ranging from 1 (very soft) to 10 (very hard). The
experimenter also asked the participant how hard he or
she hit the bag (using the same 10-point scale). Participants then indicated how much they enjoyed hitting thepunching bag on a 10-point scale ranging from 1 (not atall) to 10 (extremely).
Participants in the control condition did not hit thepunching bag. Instead, they sat quietly for 2 minutes.
The justification for the delay was that the experimenter
was fixing their partner’s computer. No attempt wasmade to reduce participant’s anger during the 2-minutedelay. Instead, participants in the no punching bag
group did nothing at all. This allowed us to test whether
angry people are better off doing nothing at all thanengaging in cathartic activities.
Next, participants completed a mood form that measured anger and positive affect. The anger measure consisted of 15 adjectives (e.g., angry, annoyed, furious) fromthe hostility subscale of the revised Multiple Affect
Adjective Checklist (Zuckerman & Lubin, 1985). The
positive affect measure consisted of 10 adjectives (e.g.,
alert, determined, enthusiastic) from the positive affectsubscale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule(Watson, Clarke, & Tellegen, 1988). Watson and his colleagues define positive affect as a state of “high energy,
full concentration, and pleasurable engagement” (p.
1063). All adjectives were rated along a 5-point Likerttype scale, where 1 = very slightly or not at all, 2 = a little, 3 =moderately, 4 = quite a bit, and 5 = extremely. Participants

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were told to “indicate to what extent you feel this way
right now, that is, at the present moment.” The alphacoefficients for the measures of anger and positive affectwere .88 and .89, respectively.
The next part of the procedure was presented as acompetitive reaction time task, based on a paradigm
developed by Taylor (1967). Previous studies have established the construct validity of this paradigm (e.g.,Bernstein, Richardson, & Hammock, 1987; Giancola &Zeichner, 1995). The participant was told that he or she
and the partner would have to press a button as fast as
possible on each trial and whoever was slower would
receive a blast of noise. The participant was permitted to
set in advance the intensity of the noise that the otherperson would receive between 60 decibels (level 1) and
105 decibels (level 10) if the other lost. A nonaggressive
no-noise setting (level 0) also was offered. In addition todeciding the intensity, the winner decided the durationof the loser’s suffering because the duration of the noise
depended on how long the winner held the buttonpressed down. In effect, each participant controlled aweapon that could be used to blast the other person if
the participant won the competition to react faster.
The reaction time task consisted of 25 trials. After the
initial (no provocation) trial, the remaining 24 trials
were divided into three blocks with eight trials in eachblock. Within each block of trials, the other participant
set random noise levels (ranging from 65 decibels to 100
decibels) and random noise durations (ranging from0.25 seconds to 2.5 seconds). The participant heard
noise on half of the trials within each block (randomly
determined). An iMac computer controlled the eventsin the reaction time task and recorded the noise levels
and noise durations the participant set for the other person. The white noise was delivered through a pair of
Telephonics TDH-39P headphones.
Half of participants completed the mood form first,
followed by the competitive reaction time task. The
other half of the participants completed the competitive
reaction time task first, followed by the mood checklist. A
full oral debriefing (with probe for suspicion) followed.
Because none of the participants expressed any suspicion, all 300 were included in the data analyses.
RESULTS

Preliminary Analyses
COUNTERBALANCE ORDERCounterbalance order did not significantly influence
responses on any of the measures (ps > .05). Thus, datafrom the two counterbalance orders were combined for
subsequent analyses.

PUNCHING BAG PREFERENCE

It was important to determine whether participants inthe three groups differed in their desire to hit the punching bag after they had been angered. Because participants were randomly assigned to conditions, no differences were expected. We also tested for sex differencesin punching bag preferences. Because aggressive activities are more socially acceptable among men thanamong women, punching bag preferences were
expected to be higher among men.
Desire to hit the punching bag. Ratings of how much participants wanted to hit the punching bag were analyzed
using a 3 (rumination, distraction, control) × 2 (men,women) analysis of variance. Men wanted to hit thepunching bag more than did women, M = 4.33, SD = 2.77
and M = 3.10, SD = 2.33, F(1, 588) = 33.87, p < .0001, d =0.48. As expected, the effects involving experimental
condition were nonsignificant (ps > .05).
Punching bag selected as top activity choice. Whether participants selected hitting a punching bag as their top
choice of activities was a dichotomous variable (1 =selected hitting a punching bag as top choice, 0 =selected another activity as top choice). Thus, these data
were analyzed using a 3 (rumination, distraction, control) × 2 (men, women) log-linear analysis. Men weremore likely to select hitting a punching bag as their top
choice than were women, 6% and 1%, χ2(1, N = 600) =6.58, p < .01, φ = .13. As expected, the effects involving
experimental condition were nonsignificant (ps > .05).
PUNCHING BAG MEASURESIt was important to test whether participants in therumination group vented more than did participants inthe distraction group.
How hard the punching bag was hit. The intraclass correlation between experimenter and participant ratings of
how hard the bag was hit was .69 (Shrout & Fleiss, 1979).
The same pattern of results also was found for the two
ratings. Thus, the two ratings were averaged.
Overall, men hit the punching bag harder than did
women, M = 6.69, SD = 2.05 and M = 4.73, SD = 1.88, F(1,396) = 99.14, p < .0001, d = 1.00. No other effects were significant (ps > .05).
Number of times punching bag was hit. Participants who
thought about becoming physically fit hit the punchingbag more times than did participants who thought about
the person who insulted them, M = 127.5, SD = 63.5 andM = 112.2, SD = 57.5, F(1, 396) = 6.31, p < .05, d = 0.25. Inother words, participants in the rumination groupvented less than did participants in the distractiongroup. No other effects were significant (ps > .05).

Bushman / VENTING ANGER FEEDS THE FLAME
Time spent hitting punching bag. No significant effects
were found for time spent hitting the punching bag (ps >.05).

TABLE 1:

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Anger and Aggression Levels for Participants in theControl, Distraction, and Rumination Groups

MeasureControl

Distraction

Rumination

29.61a (7.34)
26.25b (10.98)–0.21b (1.27)

29.71a (7.86)
27.32b (10.88)
0.01ab (1.39)

30.11a (8.23)
29.78a (11.56)
0.21a (1.54)

Enjoyed hitting the punching bag. Men enjoyed hitting
the punching bag more than did women, M = 6.11, SD =2.53 and M = 4.96, SD = 2.51, F(1, 396) = 20.85, p < .0001,
d = 0.46. No other effects were significant (ps > .05).

Positive mood
Anger
Aggression

Primary Analyses

NOTE: n = 200 in each group. Standard deviations are in parentheses.
Subscripts refer to within-row comparisons. Means having the same
subscript are not significantly different at the .05 significance level.

POSITIVE MOOD

There was no significant effect for experimental condition on positive mood, F(2, 594) = 0.24, p > .05 (seeTable 1). Regardless of the condition they were in, menwere in a more positive mood than were women, M =31.51, SD = 7.85 and M = 28.12, SD = 7.40, F(1, 594) =29.31, p < .0001, d = 0.44.
ANGER

There was a main effect for experimental condition
on anger, F(2, 594) = 5.23, p < .01 (see Table 1). Participants in the rumination group felt more angry than did
participants in the distraction and control groups,t(594) = 2.20, p < .05, d = 0.22 and t(594) = 3.15, p < .005,
d = 0.31. Participants in distraction and control groups
did not differ in terms of how angry they felt, t(594) =0.95, p > .05.
AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

The same pattern of results was found for the two
measures of aggression—noise intensity and noise duration. Thus, the two measures were standardized andsummed to form a more reliable measure of aggression.
The same pattern of results also was obtained on Trial 1and on the remaining 24 trials of the competitive reaction-time task. Thus, the responses on the 25 trials werestandardized and summed.
There was a main effect for experimental condition
on aggression, F(2, 594) = 5.03, p < .01 (see Table 1). Participants in the rumination group were more aggressive
than participants in the control group, t(594) = 3.17,
p < .005, d = 0.30. Participants in the distraction groupwere more aggressive than participants in the control
group and were less aggressive than participants in therumination group, although neither difference was statistically significant, ts(594) = 1.68 and 1.49, ps > .05. Men
were also more aggressive than were women, M = 0.44,
SD = 1.62 and M = –0.44, SD = 0.99, F(1, 594) = 66.52, p <.0001, d = 0.33.
DISCUSSION

Does venting anger extinguish or feed the flame? The
results from the present research show that venting to
reduce anger is like using gasoline to put out a fire—it
only feeds the flame. By fueling aggressive thoughts andfeelings, venting also increases aggressive responding.
People who walloped the punching bag while thinking
about the person who had provoked them were the mostangry and the most aggressive in the present experiment. Venting did not lead to a more positive moodeither.
People in the distraction group were less angry thanwere people in the rumination group, but they were notless aggressive. Thus, performing an aggressive activity
such as hitting a punching bag can increase aggression
even if people are distracted while performing theactivity.
In the present experiment, people were best off doing
nothing at all than venting their anger. No attempt wasmade to reduce anger or aggressive impulses in the control group. Even so, anger and aggression levels were
lowest in the control group. The results might have been
more dramatic if participants in the control group
actively sought to reduce their angry feelings.
Overall, the present results support cognitive
neoassociation theory (Berkowitz, 1993) and directly
contradict catharsis theory. Venting while ruminating
about the source of provocation kept aggressive
thoughts and angry feelings active in memory and only
made people more angry and more aggressive. These
results provide one more nail in the coffin containing
catharsis theory.
Magnitude of Observed Effects
Although the effects obtained in the present study
were small to moderate in size (see Cohen, 1988), they
are in the opposite direction predicted by catharsis theory. In the present study, the distraction activity was anaggressive one—angered people hit a punching bag.
Larger effects might have been obtained if distraction
activity would have been a nonaggressive one, such as
working a crossword puzzle. Similarly, larger effects
might have been obtained if angered people would haveengaged in a behavior incompatible with anger andaggression, such as watching a funny TV program or petting a puppy (e.g., Baron, 1976, 1983).

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PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETINCan These Findings Be Due to Arousal?

NOTES

One well-known finding in psychology is that arousal
enhances whatever response is dominant (e.g., Cottrell& Wack, 1967; Criddle, 1971; Eysenck, 1975; Markovsky& Berger, 1983; Zajonc, Heingartner, & Herman, 1969;
Zajonc & Sales, 1966). This finding is central to the drive
theory of social facilitation (e.g., Geen & Bushman,
1987, 1989). Walloping a punching bag for a few minutes
can certainly increase arousal levels. Because participants in the present study all were provoked, it seems
likely that aggression would be a dominant response forthem. Arousal cannot, however, explain the pattern ofresults obtained in the present study. If anything, people
in the distraction group should have been more aggressive than people in the rumination group because they
hit the punching bag a greater number of times. The
results, however, were in the opposite direction.

1. According to Cohen (1988), most of the effects in the social sciences are small to moderate in size. I assumed that the effect obtainedin the present study would be in this range. A power analysis (Cohen,1988) revealed that with power = .80 and two-sided significance level =.05, 400 participants were needed in each group to detect a small effect(i.e., d = 0.20) and 64 participants were needed in each group to detecta moderate effect (i.e., d = 0.50). Thus, the present study included 200
participants in each group.
2. One man in the rumination group became so angry while hitting
the punching bag that he also punched a hole in the laboratory wall.

Is Intense Physical Activity an
Effective Technique for Managing Anger?
If used as a form of distraction, intense physical activity does not necessarily increase anger, even if the activity
is aggressive in nature (e.g., hitting a punching bag).
Physical activity should, however, increase anger if theperson is provoked after engaging in the intense physicalactivity. According to excitation transfer theory, thearousal from the physical activity will be misattributed tothe provocation and will therefore transfer to the provocation (e.g., Zillmann, 1979). Mislabeling the arousal
from the physical activity as anger would therefore
increase aggressive responding (e.g., Zillmann, Katcher,& Milavsky, 1972). In the present study, participants were
provoked before engaging in an intense physical activity,
so excitation transfer should not occur. Although it
might be good for your heart, intense physical activity isprobably not an effective technique for reducing anger
and aggression.
Conclusion
Catharsis theory predicts that venting anger should
get rid of it and should therefore reduce subsequent
aggression. The present findings, as well as previous
findings, directly contradict catharsis theory (e.g.,
Bushman et al., 1999; Geen & Quanty, 1977). For reducing anger and aggression, the worst possible advice togive people is to tell them to imagine their provocateur’s
face on a pillow or punching bag as they wallop it, yet thisis precisely what many pop psychologists advise people todo. If followed, such advice will only make people
angrier and more aggressive.

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Received March 20, 2001
Revision accepted September 8, 2001