پیش بینی روانی از خشم در میان دانشجویان دانشگاه

Anger is regarded as one of the basic human emotions and has been linked to adverse health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to investigate mental health predictors of anger among university students in Jordan. Methods: A sample of 241 university students from private and governmental universities in Jordan answered self-report questionnaires that include state-trait anger, perceived social support, personal mastery, and life satisfaction scale. The results showed that university students have moderate level of state and trait anger, and that student's perception of life satisfaction is a strong predictor of state and trait anger (p < .001) while social support and personal mastery were not. Number of smoked cigarette has significant correlation with trait anger (r = .18, p = .009), and no differences were found between male and female university students in their level of anger. The study's implications for educational and counseling programs, and research interventions were discussed.

Over the past few decades, university students have become a target population for number of research studies. Literature showed that university students are coming to universities overwhelmed with psychosocial and economical demands, and suffer several psychosocial and mental health problems (Hamdan-Mansour, 2009, Hamdan-Mansour et al., 2009, Hickie, 2001, Kitzrow, 2003 and Marmorstein and Iacono, 2004). Changes in social, economic, family, and demographic factors have increased the challenges and stressors that university students are exposed to on daily basis (Kitzrow, 2003). This makes university students vulnerable to a number of psychosocial problems such as depression, hostility, and substance abuse (Hamdan-Mansour, 2009 and Kitzrow, 2003). Among these psychosocial issues stands the anger expression and feeling, an issue that requires further investigation for its correlates. Anger is regarded as one of the basic human emotions (Plutchik, 2002) experienced by most people in the course of their everyday life. It has been reported that one in four people are concerned about the level of anger they experience, and that approximately one in ten people have difficulty controlling their anger (Mental Health Foundation, 2008). In addition, one in five people found to have problems in their social relationships due to their way of expressing and managing anger (Mental Health Foundation, 2008). Anger is defined as “a negative, phenomenological (or internal) feeling state associated with specific cognitive and perceptual distortions and deficiencies (e.g., misappraisals, errors, and attributions of blame, injustice, preventability, and/or intentionality), subjective labeling, physiological changes, and action tendencies to engage in socially constructed and reinforced recognized behavioral scripts” (Kassinove & Sukhodolsky, 1995, p.7). While Spielberger, Jacobs, Rusell, and Crane (1983, p. 16) defined anger as “an emotional state that consists of feelings that vary in intensity, from mild irritation or annoyance to intense fury and rage”, the current conceptions, however, tend to regard anger as a multidimensional construct that encompasses physiological, cognitive, phenomenological, and behavioral variables (Kassinove & Sukhodolsky, 1995). Anger is viewed to have two facets: the affective one, known as state anger, is defined as a psychobiological, subjective experience that varies in intensity (Spielberger et al., 1983) and fluctuates over time (Ramirez, Fujihara, & Van Goozen, 2001). The other cognitive facet on the other hand, known as trait anger, consists of thoughts and attitudes that tend to be relatively stable overtime. It may be seen as a personality trait in terms of individual differences in the frequency that state anger was experienced overtime (Spielberger, 1999a and Spielberger, 1999b). Anger can vary in the degree of feeling and expression. If the magnitude, duration, and frequency of anger go beyond individual's ability to control and adjust, it will have a harmful destructive effect on the individual and consequently be considered pathological (Howells, 2004). Anger is one of the major indicators of psychological distress and well-being associated with long-term negative health outcomes (Chida and Steptoe, 2009 and Giegling et al., 2009). Anger was linked to aggression, and indeed, a substantial overlap has been found between anger, hostility, and aggression (Ramírez & Andreu, 2005). Moreover, the literature showed that almost 1.6 million people die in violent acts every year, and that millions of people injured by violence and/or left to suffer the long-term consequences of violent acts (World Health Organization, 2002). According to the Centers for Disease Control (2006), uncontrolled anger contributes to adolescent and youths' homicide, suicide, and injuries. In addition, anger was associated with increased mortality rate among young and adult people (Harburg, Julius, Kaciroti, Gleiberman, & Schork, 2003). Various studies reported that anger feeling and expression is associated with reduced social support, interpersonal difficulties, coping deficits, and a variety of physical and mental health problems (Chida and Steptoe, 2009, Dahlen and Martin, 2005 and Wolf and Foshee, 2003). Previous studies also showed that increasing level of social support could offset the negative effects of anger by encouraging health-promoting behaviors and positively affecting the individual's adaptation (Dahlen and Martin, 2005, Puskar et al., 1999, Spielberger, 1999a and Spielberger, 1999b). Interestingly, Arslan (2009) found that increasing support from families and teachers contributed to lower trait anger and anger-out behaviors, however; peer social support was not. Generally, negative emotions have been found to oppose the individual's ability to master their lives and are negatively correlated with individual's life satisfaction (Baumeister et al., 2001 and Suh et al., 1998). Although previous studies emphasized anger as contributing factor to individual's mental health, these studies were concerned about the social perspective rather than the psychological one. Studies that connected anger to factors such as personal mastery, perception of social support and life satisfaction among young people are limited in the literature, particularly; the Arabian literature. Therefore, this study came to extend our understanding for the correlates of anger among Jordanian university students. The study attempts to predict trait anger and state anger from students' perception of social support, life satisfaction and personal mastery of their life. The specific aims were: • To examine the prediction power of personal mastery, life satisfaction, and perceived social support for trait anger and state anger among university students in Jordan. • To examine the differences in level of anger in regard to selected demographic characteristics among university students in Jordan.

The results of the current study indicate a relationship between anger and life satisfaction, while no association was found between anger, social support and personal mastery. These results indicate that, for educational and counseling programs that deal with anger among young people, life satisfaction has to be emphasized. Moreover, there should be an emphasis on the role of family as a source of positive adaptation skills. University students in this study showed that their families had negative impact on their anger feeling and expression. The counseling programs should target the role of family and dynamics that enhance the psychosocial well-being of young adults. In addition, the results indicate that families and faculty members must develop understanding and supportive relationships with students. Components of positive perception of life satisfaction have to be also included in this relationship. It may be relevant to explore possibilities of engaging students in peer support groups, and provide them with the necessary support to undertake these activities. There is a need for research-based interventions that aim at diffusing anger, building resiliency, and strengthening the support received from family and friends among the youth.