Level of anger, coping and factors influences anger amongst adolescents

Purpose: To assess the level of anger, identify the factors influencing anger, coping and to determine the relationship between anger and coping among the adolescents. The findings would help the teachers and parents to recognize what makes them angry and to allow new direction for developing modalities to manage anger. Design: Correlational survey design. Settings: Selected English Medium Schools. Subjects: 453 high school students (210 boys and 243 girls) between the age group of 13-16 years. Measures: State-Trait anger expression inventory (STAXI-2CA), Rating scale on factors influencing anger, and Behavioral anger response questionnaire (BARQ-C) were used, to assess level of anger, factors influencing anger and coping respectively. Analysis: Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis and Pearson correlation. Results: Out of 453, 93.8% had average level of anger, 5.7% had elevated level of anger and only 0.4% had very high level of anger. Factor analysis identified seven factor solution namely social impact, emotional self-regulation, and gratification of needs, perception, and influence of family environment, over-expectations and feelings of frustration. The study found a weak positive correlation between anger and coping. Conclusion: The study findings suggest that higher the level of anger more coping was used by the adolescents. Thus if anger is expressed in a healthy way and appropriately one can avoid loss of control and can reduce various negative effects.