Cognitive-Relaxation and Social Skills Treatments of Anger: A Year Later.

The purpose of this study by Deffenbacher was to provide a 12-month follow-up of a general anger reduction program for college students.  This study was quasi-experimental. Subjects in the initial study were 49 (26 men and 23 women) introductory psychology students who: a) scored in the upper quartile on the Trait portion of the State-Trait Anger Scale (STAS-T), b) described themselves as having an anger problem and seeking help for it, and c) volunteered when contacted by phone. Of these, 37 returned data for the 12-month follow-up, which resulted in samples of 11 for cognitive relaxation, 12 for social skills, and 14 for control condition. Subjects in the initial study were randomly assigned to conditions and received research credit for their participation. Three measures of anger and one of general anxiety were employed. General anger was measured by the 10-item STAS-T, a Likert scale on which individuals indicated how they generally felt. The Anger Symptom and Anger Situation techniques were utilized in order to measure idiographic, person-specific elements of anger. In other words, the personally most salient aspect of anger-related physiological arousal and anger in the person was measured. The Anger Symptom test assessed self-reported physiological activity when angered. The Anger Situation required the respondents to describe the ongoing situation that provoked the greatest anger experienced. Lastly, a measure of general anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, or STAI) was included to assess treatment generalization to nontargeted anxiety. Twelve months after treatment, subjects were sent a letter, the STAS-T, Anger Symptom, Anger Situation, and STAI measures, and a stamped return envelope. Six weeks later the materials were mailed again to nonrespondents. Initial treatments consisted of eight weekly, 1-hour group sessions with 7 or 8 subjects in each group. Two male, advanced graduate students who had extensive training procedures conducted the sessions. Therapists were randomly assigned to one group in each intervention condition. Control subjects were given no expectation of treatment and simply received experimental credit for completing the assessments.  Correlations between pretreatment measures were significant between the STAS-T and Anger Situation test, the Anger Symptom and Anger Situation tests, and the Anger Symptom test and the STAI. Those between the Anger Situation test and the STAI were not significant. A one-way multivariate analysis was employed and revealed significant effects for treatment in reducing anger. Post hoc tests of treatment effects were done only on 12-month follow-up data. At the 1-year follow-up, cognitive-relaxation and social skills groups reported significantly less general anger, anger-related psychophysiological arousal, and general anxiety than the control group and did not differ from one another on these measures.  The author contended that further replicated studies be employed using different populations and different therapists, as well as measures that do not rely totally on self-reported data.

Field of study: Psychology