نشخوار خشم در هنگ کنگ و بریتانیا: اعتبار سنجی مقیاس و یک مقایسه میان فرهنگی

English and Chinese versions of the Anger Rumination Scale (ARS; Sukhodolsky, Golub, & Cromwell, 2001) were distributed to 495 British and 453 Hong Kong Chinese participants. Confirmatory factor analysis verified factorial equivalence between the English and Chinese versions replicating the previously reported four factor structure of Angry Memories, Thoughts of Revenge, Angry Afterthoughts and Understanding of Causes. Internal reliability of the Chinese ARS ranged from .68 to .85. Chinese participants scored higher than British on all subscales, suggesting higher levels of anger rumination. The pattern of scores on the four scales was similar with highest endorsement of Understanding of Causes items and lowest for Thoughts of Revenge. It was concluded that the Chinese version of the Anger Rumination Scale may be useful for cross-cultural research.

Emotions can be triggered by a multitude of events that may occur externally or internally (Deffenbacher, 1999). Verbal abuse from a partner (an external trigger) may instigate feelings of depression, anger or fear (or even a mishmash of all three) and, subsequently, memories of the event (internal) may rouse the same emotions. The tendency to think over past events repetitively has been labelled rumination and is more often associated with negative thoughts (Lyubomirsky and Nolen-Hoeksema, 1995, Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991 and Watkins, 2004). Previous research has tended to focus on the interaction between rumination and sadness, depression or stress (Conway et al., 2000, Martin and Tesser, 1996, Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991 and Roger and Najarian, 1998). Rumination has been linked to depression exacerbation, onset, remission, chronicity and maintenance (e.g. Just and Alloy, 1997, Kuehner and Weber, 1999, Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000, Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 1994 and Watkins, 2004). Recently, there has been increasing interest concerning the relationship between rumination and high-activation moods, such as anger, which may not respond to rumination in the same way as low-activation moods such as depression (Rusting & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1998). Anger is defined as a subjective, negative emotion associated with threat, negative appraisal, activating physiological responses and engaging behavioural tendencies (Kassinove & Sukhodolsky, 1995). Anger is likely to involve beliefs of self-justification or blaming of others (Averill, 1982, Baumeister et al., 1990, Frijda, 1986 and Rusting and Nolen-Hoeksema, 1998). Anger ranges in intensity from mild annoyance through to extreme rage depending on the situation and can be inflamed by a variety of provocations including memories of past anger. Anger rumination, therefore, is the tendency to think over and over anger inducing past events and may be employed in a conscious attempt to resolve negative feelings or may intrude despite the intentions of the individual to avoid such thoughts (Langlois et al., 2000a, Langlois et al., 2000b, Sukhodolsky et al., 2001, Watkins, 2004 and Wenzlaff and Wegner, 2000). Evidence that anger rumination increases negative affect by ‘feeding the flame’ (Bushman, 2002 and Bushman et al., 2001), rather than cathartically releasing the negative emotion, has been provided by several researchers. For example, Rusting and Nolen-Hoeksema (1998) discovered that rumination following anger induction tended to increase experienced anger and that women were more likely to ruminate than were men. Distraction reportedly either had no effect or decreased angry feelings and was the preferred male strategy. In a similar study, Bushman (2002) had participants hit a punching bag after being angered by a negative appraisal. Participants were required to either ruminate about the person who had insulted them or think about getting fit (distraction). The rumination group were significantly angrier than the distraction group after the punch bag session and were more likely to respond aggressively when subsequently given the opportunity to punish the person who had angered them. Anger rumination, particularly thoughts of revenge, has also been associated with increased athlete aggression (Maxwell, 2004). Recent evidence suggests that anger rumination is also associated with suicidal ideation (Miros, 2000), ineffective coping (Stoeber, 2003), and elevated blood pressure (Hogan & Linden, 2004). The content of ruminative thought is likely to affect subsequently displayed behavioural and physiological responses. For example, vengeful thoughts may increase cardiovascular activity or the probability of subsequent aggression. By contrast, attempts to understand the causes of one’s anger, may have a calming effect. In order to investigate these and similar associations, a measure of anger rumination, the Anger Rumination Scale (ARS), was developed by Sukhodolsky et al. (2001). Factor analysis of items related to the concept of anger rumination led to the development of a questionnaire with four subscales measuring Angry Afterthoughts (associated with recent/immediate events), Angry Memories (pertaining to distant events), Thoughts of Revenge, and Understanding of Causes. ARS subscales were positively correlated with anger experience, expression, and negative affectivity, and negatively correlated with anger control and adaptive mood regulation. Cross-cultural differences and similarities in anger experience and expression have been studied extensively (Kassinove et al., 1997, Malgady et al., 1996 and Tanaka-Matsumi, 1995), but the study of anger rumination has been confined to Western, English speaking populations. It is possible that Western and Eastern cultures differ in terms of internal structure of the anger rumination construct as well as in terms of individual differences in self-reported anger rumination. Kövecses (2000) describes remarkably similar English, Chinese, Japanese and Hungarian metaphors depicting a ‘filling up with [fluid] anger’ and giving a sense of the graveness, controllability and intensity of the emotion. A metaphorical depiction of why continued rumination (‘feeding the flames’ or ‘heating’) can sometimes lead to an overspill of contained anger is also provided (i.e. when the ‘fluid’ is brought to boiling point). Some cultural idiosyncrasies do exist, for example, the English often refer to ‘blood boiling’ whereas Chinese refer to the flow of qi, an internal energy force that requires balance for the harmonious functioning of the body and mind, and often make no reference to heat. The existence of linguistic parity and disparity hints that a cross-cultural analysis, particularly between Western and Eastern cultures, may inform theories of cognitive, behavioural and emotional aspects of anger. Several studies have examined anger in Asian cultures (e.g. Bishop and Quah, 1998 and Lam, 1999). Lam (1999), for example, discovered a relationship between stress, trait anger, and anger expression amongst Hong Kong Chinese parents, particularly when coping with difficult children. Bishop and Quah (1998), however, reported no significant differences between Chinese, Malay and Indian groups on scores for the STAXI, but significantly lower scores for the Chinese on the Assault, Resentment and Suspicion subscales of the Buss–Durkee Hostility Inventory (Buss & Durkee, 1957), partially supporting the common belief that the Chinese tend to restrain aggressive expressions of anger (Tavris, 1989). However, the concept of anger rumination has not been studied across diverse cultures mostly due to a lack of theoretically driven measures that are comparable despite language differences. The aim of the current study was to address this shortcoming through the development of a Chinese version of the Anger Rumination Scale and to compare Chinese responses with those of British respondents.