Raging Rick to Tranquil Tom: An empirically based multidimensional anger typology for adolescent males
✍ Scribed by Michael J. Furlong; Douglas C. Smith
- Book ID
- 101300660
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 83 KB
- Volume
- 35
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0033-3085
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Anger-related problems among children and youth are of considerable interest to school psychologists and others concerned about the prevention and reduction of school violence. Both research and clinical efforts, however, have suffered from a lack of conceptual clarity with regard to anger, an emotion that is highly correlated with aggressive behavior. This article reviews efforts to categorize anger-related patterns among youth and proposes an empirically derived typology for males based upon a multidimensional conceptualization of anger in school settings. Utilizing a two-stage clustering procedure (hierarchical and K-means procedures), six anger preference styles were described for a sample of 200 participants in grades 6-12. As a heuristic to aid in the interpretation of the six styles, they were labeled "Raging Rick" (Cluster 1: Extreme Anger subtype), "Bitter Bill" (Cluster 2: Cynical subtype), "Dynamic Don" (Cluster 3: Impulsive subtype), "Sociable Sam" (Cluster 4: Prosocial subtype), "Suppressive Sal" (Cluster 5: Low Arousal-Low Coping subtype), and "Tranquil Tom" (Cluster 6: Low Arousal-High Coping subtype). External validity of the resultant groupings was evaluated by comparing subgroup profiles on both teacher and self-reported ratings of anger and aggression within school settings. This typology of anger-related styles has implications for diagnosis, prevention programs, and treatment planning within school settings.