How to push someone's buttons: A comparison of four anger-induction methods

Abstract

This study compared the effects of four ways of inducing anger: film, stress interview, punishment, and harassment. Sixty-four healthy participants were randomly assigned to one of these conditions. Effects were examined by means of self-report and physiological measures (blood pressure, heart rate, skin conductance level, and skin conductance response). All four methods produced comparable levels of self-reported anger, while harassment and interview produced the largest cardiovascular effects, and electrodermal activity increased more in reaction to harassment, interview, and punishment conditions compared to film. Thus, physiological reactivity was especially increased by anger-induction methods that included personal contact (harassment and interview). Regarding specificity of self-reported emotions, fear and frustration were the only emotions out of nine non-target emotions that increased in comparable degree to anger following film, interview, and punishment, while harassment produced more self-reported anger than fear. Possible explanations and further recommendations are discussed.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Denise Jacobs and Lieke Noblesse for their help in collecting data, to Charlie Bonnemayer for the development of the EAST, to Theo van Aerts for his help with the equipment of the Vitaport, and to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

¹In this study, we also included an adapted version of the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST; De Houwer, 2003), in which we indirectly wanted to assess associations between the self-concept and aggression. However, results indicate the reliabilities of the attribute categories were extremely low, and analyses of the reaction time and error percentages revealed no significant effects. This is in line with the finding that the EAST does not perform well as a measure of interindividual differences in attitudes or other associations in memory (De Houwer & De Bruycker, 2007). Details on the design and results of this task can be obtained from the corresponding author.

²Further information on the design of these methods can be obtained from the corresponding author.

³Internal reliability of the frustration subscale was .62. This was the only subscale with a low alpha value, which can probably be attributed to the fact that this subscale consisted of only 3 items. It was decided to maintain frustration as a separate scale since comparing anger and frustration was of importance in this study.

In the present study, facial EMG over corrugator supercilii (involved in frowning) and zygomaticus major (smiling) were also measured. However, due to technical failure, these EMG results are not reported in this manuscript.

⁵Analyses did revealed a main effect of gender on SCR, indicating that, in general, women had higher numbers of SCR than men, M _men=1.94, SD=3.2; M _women=3.5, SD=3.2; F(3, 56) = 7.37, p=.009.

⁶Since frustration and other anger-related emotions were not analysed separately from anger, no conclusions can be drawn concerning the differentiation with these emotions.