what makes people angry? laypersons' and psychologists' categorisations of anger in the...

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What Makes PeopleAngry? Laypersons'and Psychologists'Categorisations ofAnger in the FamilySandra Carpenter & Amy G.HalberstadtPublished online: 10 Sep 2010.

To cite this article: Sandra Carpenter & Amy G. Halberstadt(1996) What Makes People Angry? Laypersons' and Psychologists'Categorisations of Anger in the Family, Cognition and Emotion, 10:6,627-656, DOI: 10.1080/026999396380088

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What Makes People Angry?

Laypersons’ and Psychologists’

Categorisations of Anger in the Family

Sandra Carpenter

The University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA

Amy G. Halberstadt

North Carolina State University, USA

People’ s categorisations of anger causes were examined in these studies, in

order to obtain a layperson taxonomy of anger causes in families, and to

compare this taxonomy to those created by psychologists. In Study 1, college

students sorted descriptions of anger-eliciting events in family relationships.Hierarchical cluster analyses of their classi ® cations resulted in a total of 15

separate categories of causes for the three types of familial relationships.

These categories conformed to a prototypical format and varied in interesting

ways across relationship and gender. Study 2 compared the students’ classi-

® cation schemes to ® ve different schemes developed by psychologists.

Considerable overlap in students’ and psychologists’ categorisations was

demonstrated for some categories of causes, but not for others. Study 3

examined the three dimensions along which layperson and psychologist

classi ® cations might differ. The dimensions of speci ® c versus abstract andexperiential versus scienti ® c seemed to account for some of the differences

between psychologists’ and laypersons’ classi ® cations found in Study 2. The

dimension of description versus explanation did not account for differences,

but may account for similarities in the two types of classi ® cations. We

suggest that people’ s perceptions of causes better capture the phenomenal

experience of anger, whereas psychologists’ theoretical models of anger

better capture the underlying structures.

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 1996, 10 (6), 627± 656

Requests for reprints should be sent to Sandra Carpenter, Department of Psychology, The

University of Alabama, Huntsville , AL 35899, USA. Email: [email protected]

Support for this research was provided to Sandra Carpenter by a grant from The University

of Alabama in Huntsville, and to Amy Halberstadt by a NIMH grant (No. 1 R03 MH42425).

Portions of this manuscript were presented as a paper, Anger within family relationships, at

the 1993 meeting of the Society for Research on Child Development, held in New Orleans,

Louisiana. Other portions were presented as a paper, Categories of anger in relationships, at

the 1992 meeting of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, held in San Antonio,

Texas. We thank our coders: Susan Trentham, Eileen Sampson, Jean Haake, Terry Sterry,

and Jennifer Lacher-Smith for help in classifying the data.

q 1996 Psychology Press, an imprint of Erlbaum (UK) Taylor & Francis Ltd

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628 CAR PENTER AN D HALBERSTA DT

INTRODUCTION

Anger is an ubiquitous emotion. Anger was the emotion most frequently

reported when people were asked to describe their most recent emotional

experience (Scherer & Tannenbaum, 1986) . Research focused speci® cally

on social anger (that is, anger directed at other persons) found that 80 ± 83%

of respondents reported feeling angry at least once a week (Averill, 1982;

Halberstadt & Carpenter, 1994). Because of the frequency with which

anger is experienced and the important interpersonal consequences that

follow from its expression, an understanding of the causes of anger has

both theoretical and practical usefulness. Further, `̀ good science’ ’ dictates

that clear and extensive description of a phenomenon is prerequisite to

effective theory-build ing. The present research develops a layperson’ s

taxonomy of the causes of anger, in order to facilitate such theory-build-

ing. The empirically obtained taxonomy is then analysed in terms of three

theoretical issues. (1) Are causes of anger socially constructed, such that

they differ across types of interpersonal relationships ? (2) Are causes of

anger cognitively represented as prototypes? (3) Does the layperson tax-

onomy differ from psychologis ts’ previously developed taxonomies of

anger causes, and in what ways? Answers to these questions will provide

us with a strong basis for developing new theories of why people become

angry and in what relationships .

Several taxonomies of anger have been generated in the last 10 years or

so, usually within the context of identifying a prototype for anger or

creating a universal taxonomy for all emotional experience (Averill ,

1982; Camras & Allison, 1989; Fisher & Johnson, 1990; Fisher, Reid, &

Melendez, 1989; Scherer & Tannenbaum, 1986; Scherer, Wallbott, &

Summer® eld, 1986; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O’ Connor, 1987) . How-

ever, if anger is considered to be socially constructed, causes of anger

should differ as a function of relations in `̀ social structures’ ’ (e.g. power

and interdependence). The degree to which events elicit anger may there-

fore depend on recipient and instigator characteristics, such as gender and

age. Thus, because the experience of anger may be affected by the social

context, speci® cally by the relationship between the interactants, it is

important to create taxonomies that re¯ ect the unique structures of differ-

ent relationships.

The family provides an excellent opportunity to examine perceived

causes of anger as a function of relationship differences. Researchers

who have begun to study anger in familial relationships propose that

many episodes of anger are due to inabiliti es to conform to the norms or

rules that family members expect each other to accept and to honour

(Fisher & Johnson, 1990; Fisher et al., 1989), and it makes sense that

familial expectations differ as a function of the type of relationship (i.e.

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parent to parent, parent to child, child to parent). For example, children are

considered to be less `̀ in control ’ ’ of their behaviours than are adults.

Perhaps because we tend to be less angry at those who cannot control

their behaviours, anger is often less extreme toward children than toward

adults (Savitzky, Czyzewski, Dubord, & Kaminsky, 1975). Family rela-

tionships also vary as a function of age and power, and age and power

differences may create different types of anger experiences (Averill , 1982).

Therefore, we predicted that different causes of anger will predominate for

different types of familial relationships .

In addition, we propose to study causes of anger in terms of their

cognitive representations . Several theorists and researchers (Fehr, Rus-

sell, & Ward, 1982; Russell, 1991; Shaver et al., 1987) have suggested

that individual emotions are cognitively represented as prototypes. Russell

(1991) proposes that emotions can be conceived of as prototypes because

instances of emotions: (a) are organised into differing categories (e.g. fear,

sadness, happiness, anger), (b) are hierarchically structured (e.g. fury and

rage are subordinate types of anger, which in turn is a subordinate type of

emotion), and (c) have overlapping , fuzzy boundaries (fear and anger could

coincide, for example). However, emotions also share several compo-

nents Ð antecedents, physical signs, behavioural consequences, and influ-

ence on perceptions and thoughts Ð and these may themselves be organised

in terms of a prototype. Thus, we predicted that one component of the

prototype of angerÐ the antecedent or `̀ cause’ ’ Ð is, itself, represented as a

prototype. To test this, the three criteria just mentioned will be applied to

classi® cations of the causes of anger.

Theorists who have attempted to delineate the prototype of anger have

typically developed categorisation schemes by perusing the responses of

their participants, creating categories on the basis of these responses, then

having research assistants code the responses into categories (Averill ,

1982; Camras & Allison, 1989; Scherer & Tannenbaum, 1986; Shaver et

al., 1987). Averill (1983) and Anderson (1991) suggest, however, that the

`̀ person in the street’ ’ may have different conceptions of the causes of their

anger than do psychologis ts, even though psychologica l theories are based

on the self-reports of those persons. Averill and Anderson provide evidence

that laypersons’ knowledge is phenomenal, intuitive, and unsystematic,

whereas psychologists, as scientists, work toward making that knowledge

explicit in scienti® c descriptions . Anderson speci® es that laypersons’ and

theorists’ descriptions may differ in terms of the type of description given

(phenomenal experience vs. underlying structure), how the description is

organised (categorical vs. dimensional) , and how generalisable the descrip-

tion is (what people typically do vs. what people can do). The degree to

which people’ s representations of the causes of anger match psychologists ’

theories of anger causes has yet to be ascertained. Thus, our third purpose

W HAT M AKES PEO PLE AN G RY ? 629D

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was to compare our obtained layperson taxonomy to categorisations

derived by psychologists. We expected that laypersons’ and psycholo-

gists’ taxonomies of anger would differ, as suggested by Anderson and

by Averill.

Study 1 was designed to determine how laypersons categorise causes of

anger within different relationships, and whether these anger causes are

cognitively represented as prototypes. Study 2 was designed to determine

the similarities and differences between the obtained layperson categorisa-

tions and psychologists’ taxonomies created for this purpose. When differ-

ences emerged in Study 2, Study 3 was designed to identify dimensions

that might underly differences between psychologists’ and laypersons’

taxonomies.

STUDY 1

Method

The method of Study 1 required participants (mothers) to generate descrip-

tions of causes (of anger) across a range of situations (relationship types).

These causal descriptions were then sorted into categories by an indepen-

dent group of participants (students) who were given no a priori structure

for categorisation. Rather, they were allowed to categorise the stimuli in

any ways they wished. This sorting technique has previously been used in

several studies to investigate cognitive representations. For example,

researchers have used this technique to ascertain the perceived causes of

emotions (Scherer, 1984; Shaver et al., 1987), the representational structure

of causes (Anderson, 1991), the perceived importance of gender and age as

categories in person perception (Brewer & Lui, 1989) , and the subjective

organisation s of lexical information (Miller, 1969).

Participants

Descriptions of anger causes were generated by 60 mothers from the

environs of Washington, DC, who had at least one child between the

ages of 5 and 7 years participating in another study (Halberstadt, Fox, &

Jones, 1993). The majority were married (48 married, 5 remarried, 6

divorced or separated, 1 never married), and they had one to nine children

(a median of two). Their mean age was 35.5 years. The sample was 78%

white, 17% African-American, and 5% other racial/ethnic groups.

Mothers’ descriptions of anger causes were sorted by 59 female and 68

male college students who participated for course credit. The vast majority

of the sample had never been married (56 of the males and 36 of the

females) and had no children (61 of the males and 49 of the females). Their

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W HAT M AKES PEO PLE AN G RY ? 631

mean age was 25.37 years. Students at this southeastern university are

primarily white (85%), with minorities of African-American (9%) and

other racial/cultural groups (6%).

Materials

The responses of the mothers were used as the stimuli in this study. The

reliability and validity of mothers’ reports of their own anger and anger of

family members have been documented elsewhere (Carpenter & Halber-

stadt, submitted).1

The six relationships explored, and the number of different items

generated for each relationship, were as follows: (a) mother’ s anger at

father: 54 items, (b) father’ s anger at mother: 52 items, (c) mother’ s anger

at child: 45 items, (d) father’ s anger at child: 41 items, (e) child’ s anger at

mother: 47 items, and (f ) child’ s anger at father: 44 items.2

Each of the

items was typed on to a separate strip of 8.5inch 3 2inch paper, which was

then laminated.

1Stringent rules for establishing temporal reliability and consensual validity by parents

about anger causes were used. Items were coded dichotomously : as agreements if the

responses were synonyms (i.e. `̀ money troubles’’ and `̀ ® nancial matters’’ ); but as disagree-

ments if one response differed in content or level of speci® city (e.g. mother mad at father for

his insults toward her vs. his `̀ disrespect’ ’ toward her). As a reliability check, a graduate

student blind to the hypotheses of this study coded all items for two of the eight relation-

ships; agreement with the ® rst coder was 100%. The degree to which mothers provided

exactly the same anger event description across the two-week period ranged from 51% (for

child’ s anger at father) to 78% (for sibling anger at target child) across the eight relationships

(M = 60%). These percentages need to be interpreted within the context of an almost in® nite

number of possible speci ® c causes. For example, in the sample, 52 mothers generated 35

different reasons for anger at their spouses in the ® rst session and an additional 15 in the

second session. Thus, given these probabiliti es, mothers’ perceptions of what makes family

members angry at one another showed a good deal of consistency over time.

To ascertain accuracy of mothers’ perceptions, 31 mothers’ descriptions were compared to

those of fathers in the same family. The degree to which fathers provided exactly the same

anger description as mothers ranged from 42% (for sibling anger at target child) to 67% (for

child anger at father) across the eight relationships (M = 56%). Again, these percentages

need to be interpreted within a context of parents generating 33 possible reasons for mothers

to be angry at fathers.2

Some of the mothers generated identical responses (e.g. seven mothers listed `̀ doesn’ t

listen’ ’ for the `̀ mother’ s anger at child’ ’ set). In these cases, only one such stimulus item was

presented to the Study 1 participants. However, even minimally varying responses of the

mothers were considered different and were individually presented to participants. Also,

some divorced mothers omitted certain items relating to father± child anger when they felt

that they were no longer familiar with those relationships .

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Procedure

Participants were run in groups of four to six persons. They were given the

six sets of mothers’ descriptions of reasons for anger in the family and were

instructed to sort each set of items into more than two piles, `̀ so that

similar causes for anger end up in the same pile together and different

causes for anger end up in different piles’ ’ . The six sets of anger descrip-

tions were presented to participants in individuali sed random orders.

Additionall y, the items within each set were randomly arranged. Whereas

some participants were able to complete all six sorts in the one-hour

session, other participants could complete only four or ® ve sets. There-

fore, different numbers of participants completed the six sorts: (1)

`̀ mother’ s anger at father’ ’ was sorted by 109 participants; (2) `̀ father’ s

anger at mother’ ’ was sorted by 112 participants; (3) `̀ mother’ s anger at

child’ ’ was sorted by 100 participants; (4) `̀ father’ s anger at child’ ’ was

sorted by 106 participants; (5) `̀ child’ s anger at father’ ’ was sorted by 107

participants, and (6) `̀ childs ’ anger at mother’ ’ was sorted by 112 partici-

pants. Thus, the range of the number of participants completing the sorts

was 100 ± 112.

Results

The number of categories that participants used for sorting the items ranged

from 3 to 17. For each of the six sets of anger causes, the incidence with

which participants sorted items into the same pile was recorded in a co-

occurrence matrix. For each of the six sets, a square matrix (ranging from

41 3 41 items to 54 3 54 items) indicated the number of partic ipants who

sorted each pair of the items into a set together. Each of the six matrices

was submitted to a cluster analysi s using the average linkage method

(similar to Shaver et al., 1987). Each cluster analysi s indicated the items

of a set that were typically or often grouped together by participants. Items

were considered members of a particular group if the distances to items

within the group were smaller than distances to items in other groups. From

each cluster analysis, the categories that participants used to sort the

stimuli could be inferred. These are reported as follows.

Parents’ Anger at Parents. As shown in Table 1, the cluster analyses

of mothers’ reports about mother’ s anger at father and father’ s anger at

mother resulted in six and ® ve clusters, respectively. There were substan-

tial similarities in the clusters that emerged; both mothers and fathers were

reported as angry about: (1) Money Issues; (2) Children Issues; (3) Person-

ality De® ciencies; and (4) Inadequate Time, although cluster size did vary

by parent gender.

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It is notable that the women who generated these items considered their

own personality de ® cienc ies to be the predominant cause of fathers’ anger,

but not vice versa. It may be that mothers are perceiving in their spouses

the fundamental attribution bias, but somehow avoiding it themselves; they

report that fathers see mothers as having personality characteristics that

cause fathers’ anger, rather than seeing the anger as contextually or

dyadically based (which is more how mothers appear to be reporting the

causes of their own anger). These results suggest that mothers may have a

more transactional or systems approach to the situation. That is, mothers

may recognise the importance of the interaction between the two interact-

ing partners, whereas they perceive fathers as placing causes for events as

TABLE 1

Layp erson Anger C ategories for Paren ts’ Anger at Each O ther and Exam ples o f Item s

C lu stered in to those Categ ories

Parental Anger at Each Other

What m akes m others angry at fathers What m akes fathers angry at m other s

Money Issues (n = 5) Money Issues (n = 7)

Spending money and time Financial matters

His job Shopping too much

Spending money like water Inability to keep track of the cheque book

Children Issues (n = 7) Children Issues (n = 4)

Lack of participation with kids Wants to eliminate milk from daughter’ s diet

Spoils daughter Disagrees about handling of children

Impatience with children Allowing children to misplace things

Personality De® ciencies (n = 6) Personality De® ciencies (n = 19)

Short temper Impatience

Jealousy Compulsivity

Sulky behaviour Too honest

Inadequate Time (n = 6) Inadequate Time (n = 13)

Watching TV She works late

Business trips he might not have to take Doesn’ t spend enough time alone with him

Spending time with friends, not family Lack of sex

Not Being a Caring Partner (n = 16) Being Controlling (n = 9)

Coming home late without calling Her nagging him

Lack of communication She has too many demands

Lack of interest/involvement Assigning him excessive duties

Not Contributing to Households (n = 14)

Neglect of duty

Asking to ® nd something

Slow to help

Note : n indicates the number of items sorted into that category. Examples are abbreviated

descriptions of mother-generated causes.

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more `̀ in one person’ ’ . Although conjectural at this point, these possible

differences are surprisingly related to other gender differences in the

communication and socialisation literatures (e.g. Aries, 1987; Maltz &

Borker, 1982), and are worth pursuing in future research.

Another difference in the sorts is how the issue of inadequate time and

attention is treated. Whereas fathers’ anger about time and attention is

represented in only one category (Inadequate Time: `̀ she works late’ ’ ,

`̀ lack of sex’ ’ ), mothers’ anger was classi ® ed into other-focused activities

(i.e. Inadequate Time: `̀ watching TV’ ’ , `̀ spending time with friends, not

family’ ’ ) and lack of interpersonal interest or communication (i.e. Not

Being A Caring Partner: `̀ coming home late without calling ’ ’ , `̀ lack of

interest’ ’ ). Thus, mothers may perceive themselves as more likely to

become angry due to a partner’ s lack of family involvement than are

fathers (for mothers, n = 22; for fathers, n = 13).3

Two other categories were unique to one parent. Only mothers’ anger

was sorted for Not Contributing To Household (n = 14). A perusal of

fathers’ items identi ® ed only two similar items (`̀ inability to keep track

of the cheque book’ ’ and `̀ not getting things done’ ’ ), and these were sorted

into the Money Issues and Personality De® ciencies categories. Also, only

fathers’ anger was sorted for Being Controlling (n = 9). A perusal of

mothers’ items identi ® ed only one similar item (`too directive and dicta-

torial ’ ’ ), and this was sorted into the Personality De® ciencies category. The

Not Contributing to Household and Being Controlling categories were

comprised mostly of items expressing, respectively, mothers’ concerns

that they are carrying too much of the burden of household chores, and

fathers’ concerns that their wives are playing the `̀ heavy’ ’ and demanding

too much of them, mostly with regard to household work. Thus, in many

households, the negotiation, or lack of it, regarding completion of house-

hold tasks appears to be a prevalent source of tension.

Parents’ Anger at Children. As shown in Table 2, the cluster analyses

of the sorts for maternal report about mothers’ anger at children and

fathers’ anger at children each resulted in four clusters. There were sub-

stantial similarities for three of these clusters; both mothers’ and fathers’

anger causes were classi ® ed as: (1) Disobedience/Not Listening; (2)

3Although chi-square analyses might be desirable for comparing the frequency of a causal

category across relationships , the categories that emerged from the cluster analyses were not

identical across all relationships . Consequently, item frequencies across categories could not

be compared fairly (the frequency could only be zero when items were not sorted into that

category for that relationship) . Now that these categories have been generated, future

research might include classi® cation across all categories so that differences between causes

of spouses’ anger, for example, can be statistically analysed.

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Naughty Behaviours ; and (3) Personality De® ciencies. However, one

interesting difference also emerged; the categorisations of damage beha-

viours that made mothers angry were predominantly interpersonal, whereas

categorisations of fathers’ reported anger focused on damage to property.

Children’ s Anger at Parents. As shown in Table 3, the cluster analyses

of maternal reports about children’ s anger at mothers and children’ s anger

at fathers yielded ® ve and four clusters, respectively. Again, there were

substantial similarities for four clusters; children were reported to be angry

at both mothers and fathers for: (1) Inadequate Attention; (2) Discipline;

(3) Unfair Treatment; and (4) Not Getting One’ s Way. Only mothers’ anger

was sorted for Power Struggles, and a perusal of the set of fathers’ items

identi ® ed only three similar items (`̀ power struggles’ ’ , `̀ makes child do for

self ’ ’ , and `̀ disagreements about plans’ ’ ). These three items were sorted

into the Unfair Treatment category. Although discipline seems to charac-

terise more of children’ s reported anger at father (n = 10) than at mother (n

= 4), mothers’ additional category of Power Struggles (n = 11) suggests

that discipline is not any less of a cause for anger toward mothers, but is

perceived differently.

TABLE 2

Layp erson Anger C ategories for Parents’ Anger at Ch ild ren an d Exam ples o f Item s


Parental Anger at Children

What m akes m others angry at ch ild ren What m akes fathe rs angry at ch ild ren

Disobedience/Not Responding (n = 14) Disobedience/Not Listening (n = 16)

Not listening Acting smart

Not following directions Won’ t follow directions

Having to ask her to do things again Refuses to do what she’ s asked

Naughty Behaviours (n = 13) Naughty Behaviours (n = 12)

Being rude Bad table manners

Acting like a baby Sucking her ® nger

Talking back Toys and clothes on the ¯ oor

Personality De® ciencies (n = 11) Personality De® c iencies (n = 7)

Dawdling Laziness

Slow to complete tasks Being slow

Bedwetting Being careless

Interpersonal Harm (n = 7) Damaging Behaviours (n = 6)

Fighting with brother Breaking something

Arguing with sibling Jumping on bed

Hurting her sister Playing too rough



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We speculate that these differences in anger toward parents may be due

to different parenting styles of mothers and fathers. Whereas fathers may

punish children for transgressions, mothers may be more likely to recog-

nise children’ s rights to disagree (resulting in power struggles). As can be

seen in Table 3, the causes listed by mothers about their own receipt of

anger include more negotiation by the child (e.g. decision child disagrees

with, child does not want to obey, child wants to assert her independence or

manipulate, child made to do for self ) as compared to father’ s punishment

(e.g. getting sent to room, told to obey, being too harsh). Again, there is a

hint of mothers’ greater transactional focus, with discipline seen as a more

dyadic process rather than an unilateral event. Mothers may be shifting

some of the power and rights to the child earlier than fathers, who are

described more as maintaining authority and power without sharing it with

children.

TABLE 3

Layperson Anger C ategories for Ch ild ren ’s Anger at Parents and Exam ples of Item s


Children’ s Anger at Parents

What m akes child ren angry at m others What m akes ch ild ren angry at fathers

Inadequate Attention (n = 8) Inadequate Attention (n = 8)

Not spending special time alone Dad travels too much

Failure to keep promises Not listening

Not getting immediate attention Won’ t play now

Discipline (n = 4) Discipline (n = 10)

Spanking Yelling

Correction Sends to room

Discipline Punishment

Unfair Treatment (n = 10) Unfair Treatment (n = 12)

Mom yelling Won’ t follow through with promises

Mom being impatient, rushing Disappointment

Mom interrupting child Child asked to hurry

Not Getting One’ s Way (n = 14) Not Getting One’ s Way (n = 14)

Refusal to buy something Not giving candy or toy

Not caving in Dad says `̀ no’ ’

Won’ t let him have his own way Not letting her have her way

Power Struggles (n = 11)

Decision child disagrees with

Child wants to assert her independence

Child doesn’ t want to obey



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Similarities and Differences across Relationships. This ® rst study has

provided us with important descriptive information about various types of

anger causes across relationships. The cluster analyses of participants ’

sortings of the stimuli resulted in 15 separate categories, with only two

categories reoccurring across relationships . Thus, as predicted, categories

were differentially relevant to the particular role relationship under con-

sideration (i.e. who is being angered by whom). Given that the reports of

anger are all from the perspective of one informant (the mother), such that

causes might be expected to be spuriously similar over relationships , these

differences are particularly striking.

The categories that do recur are also of interest. Inadequate Attention

was found for both the parents to parents and children to parents relation-

ships. The parents to children relationship also had a category of `̀ not

paying attention’ ’ (Disobedience/Not Listening), but this category was

more about the speci® cs of compliance, whereas the basic theme in the

other two relationships was that the parent or spouse didn’ t have enough

time for the other person. The second re-occurring category, Personality

De® ciencies, emerged for both the parents to parents (n = 25) and the

parents to children (n = 18) relationships, but not for the children to parents

relationship. Either children at this age do not succumb to the fundamental

attribution error, or are not perceived by others to be making stable

attributions of a dispositional nature.

Discussion

A taxonomy of perceived anger causes was developed in Study 1, and this

taxonomy revealed both the importance of social context and the proto-

typicality of anger causes. These descriptive data are important for our

understanding of how people think about anger causes. Whereas the

cognitive structure, in all cases, was that of a prototype, the content of

anger causes was found to vary across relationships .

First, as predicted, anger causes differed by relationship, with only two

overlapping categories. We have therefore identi ® ed divergent patterns of

anger causes that should be useful for both basic and applied (e.g. therapy)

psychological understanding . Some gender differences also emerged, with

slight category differences in each relationship type; these differences are

interpretable within the societal context of females’ and males’ roles as

spouses and parents. It would be interesting to explore whether the more

frequently used categories of anger causes apply only to relationships that

are intimate in nature or also apply to other relationships , such as those

with co-workers, neighbours , congressional representatives, etc. A next

logical step in categorising laypersons’ representations of the causes of

anger would be to add to the types of relationships investigated. Our

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results, then, indicate that attempts at generic analysis of anger causes may

miss fundamental differences in the social construction of anger across

relationships .

Second, the cluster analysi s of anger descriptions yielded data that ® t a

prototype model, in that (a) the causes of anger were organised into varying

classi® cations, (b) the categories occurred at varying levels of speci® city

that differed across relationships (i.e. money issues vs. personality defi-

ciencies), and (c) the categories included particular instances of anger that

were not unanimousl y sorted by participants into any given category.

These, respectively, indicate (a) differing categories, (b) a hierarchical

structure, and (c) fuzzy boundari es between categories. Thus, people’ s

representations of anger causes ful ® l the three criteria used to determine

prototype representation. From a cognitive perspective, these results indi-

cate that causes of anger, as conceptualised by laypersons, although

different in content across relationship, are represented in similar ways.

The third issue we wished to address in our studies, with respect to

laypersons’ representations of anger causes, was: Do these categorisations

correspond to categories proposed by anger researchers? Because psychol-

ogists ’ coding schemes have been based on laypersons’ accounts of anger

elicitors, we expected at least some degree of similarity, even though some

coding schemes for anger were not created speci® cally for anger within

families (Scherer & Tannenbaum, 1986; Scherer et al., 1986; Shaver et al.,

1987) . However, it was predicted that laypersons’ and psychologists ’

taxonomies would differ as suggested by Averill (1983) and Anderson

(1991).

Knowledge of how these taxonomies differ is important in both basic

research and applied settings. In terms of basic research, it is useful to

identify similarities and differences in how `̀ novices’ ’ and `̀ experts’ ’ differ

in their classi ® cations. In terms of application, a taxonomy might better

enable a therapist to translate layperson categories to psychologists ’

theories and vice versa. Thus, the degree of overlap between laypersons’

and psychologists ’ categorisations of the causes of anger is examined in

Study 2, and the dimensions along which laypersons and psychologists

differ are examined in Study 3.

STUDY 2

Several researchers interested in the causes of anger have developed coding

schemes for categorising the types of events that elicit anger. Five such

coding schemes are compared to the laypersons’ categorisations generated

in Study 1. These categorisation schemes are described in their order of

publication.

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First, Scherer et al. (1986) telephoned 779 participants in eight countries

and asked them to describe their most recent emotional experiences for

four different emotions. From their codes, we chose only those relevant to

interpersonal relationships, and combined some categories (e.g. temporary

and permanent separation) . The six resulting codes described the causes of

anger as due to: (1) failure of others to conform to social norms, or failure

to be considerate about persons and property; (2) failure to reach goals or to

achieve an objective; or an unexpected, unnecessary inconvenience, or

time loss; (3) inappropriate rewards to self (i.e. being unjustly treated);

(4) separation, either temporary or permanent; (5) damage to personal

property by others and by oneself; and (6) physical hurt.

Second, Shaver et al. (1987) asked 120 college students to write about

speci® c or typical instances of emotional experiences. From these descrip-

tions, four categories of causes that discriminate types of anger were

developed: (1) violation of an expectation; things not working out as

planned; (2) frustration or interruption of a goal-directed activity; (3)

reversal or sudden loss of power, status, or respect; or insult; and (4)

physical or psychologica l pain, either real or threatened.

Third, Camras and Allison (1989) asked 47 adult women and 43 children

to write or tell stories about situations in which six kinds of emotions

would be felt. Twenty-four categories of causes were generated overall;

® ve categories were used for more than one anger story. These ® ve

categories were: (1) violation of a personal or social contract or an implicit

social rule; (2) not receiving a desired or desirable object, response, or

experience; (3) damage or attempts to damage a person’ s body, posses-

sions, self-esteem, or free agency (the action is not justi ® ed by the person’ s

behaviour or the authority of the agent over the person); (4) damage or

attempts to damage a person’ s body, possessions, self-esteem, or free

agency (the action is justi ® ed by the person’ s behavior or the authority

of the agent over the person); and (5) taking something away from a person

without justi ® cation.

Fourth, Fisher and Johnson (1990) asked 192 2nd-, 5th-, and 8th-grade

children, and college students to tell stories about situations that cause

parents or children to be angry at each other. Fisher and Johnson, on the

basis of the theoretical model of Bengston and Black (1973), predicted that

the causes of anger within a family would be related to con¯ icts arising

from these negotiations as well as to general ability in social perspective-

taking. Their six categories of anger causes were: (1) not ful ® lling role

expectations, de ® ned as a pattern of failure to conform to expectations now

and probably also in the future; (2) not ful ® lling social obligations , (i.e.

behaviours that threaten family functioning as a social unit; (3) not

helping (i.e. failure to provide instrumental or material assistance); (4)

failure to provide affection; nonresponsiveness to feelings; lack of

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others’ empathy, liking , fairness, respect, love, or trust; (5) lack of con-

sensus in decision-making or values; and (6) low association or infre-

quency of contact.

Finally , Carpenter and Halberstadt (submitted) developed a taxonomy

based on the preceding four coding schemes, as applied to the descriptions

of anger in families that were generated by the 60 mothers reported earlier.

The best qualities of the four coding schemes (as determined through

theoretical considerations and empirical evidence) resulted in a 2 3 2 3

2 factorial design. (1) Type of Cause: expectancy violations vs. goal

blockage. (2) Focus of anger: person-focused vs. object-associated causes

of anger. (3) Temporal Speci ® city of cause: general, ongoing actions vs.

speci® c, circumscribed actions. Each factor has been theoretically pro-

posed to affect the experience of anger. First, the Type of Cause dimen-

sion is evident in major theoretical treatises on emotion (Averill, 1982;

Mandler, 1975, 1980). Second, anger that is perceived as due to the

mistreatment of people might be more frequent, intense, and enduring

than anger perceived as related to objects; this Focus distinction has also

been identi® ed in past theorising and research (Averill , 1982; Gates, 1926;

Scherer et al., 1986; Stein, Liwag, & Wade, 1994; Strayer, 1986) . Ander-

son (1991) also found the degree to which a cause was perceived as

interpersonal to be an important component in a layperson’ s causal analy-

sis. Third, Temporal Speci® city of an anger event is important because

ongoing , stable patterns of anger-eliciting behaviour may lead to more

intense or enduring anger than one-time, unique events (Weiner, 1982).

Additionall y, Anderson (1991) found that the dimension of `̀ temporary vs.

permanent’ ’ was signi ® cant in laypersons’ perceptions of causes. More-

over, each of these three factors can be found in some of the previously

cited coding schemes: Type of Cause emerged in all four codes; Focus is

represented in the Scherer et al. coding scheme; and two types of Temporal

Speci® city appear in Fisher and Johnson’ s scheme.

Study 2 was designed to determine the degree to which laypersons’

schemes of anger categorisation, as ascertained in Study 1, matched each

of ® ve psychological coding schemes. To determine these correspon-

dences, independent coders classi® ed each of the 60 descriptions provided

by mothers into one category for each psychological coding scheme.

Method

The clusters of anger causes generated by participants in Study 1 com-

prised the layperson classi ® cation schemes. To determine the ways that

each of the ® ve theoretical coding schemes would categorise the same

causes of anger, the transcripts of the 60 mothers’ descriptions used in

Study 1, complete with information about the type of relationship involved

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(e.g. mother’ s anger at father, child’ s anger at mother, etc.), were given to

® ve coders (one of the authors, one graduate student, and three senior

psychology students). Each coder categorised all of the mothers’

responses with respect to each of the ® ve coding schemes. Coders exam-

ined all 60 responses within a relationship and all relationships (in random

order) within one coding scheme before moving on to another scheme

(provided in random order, except for the Carpenter and Halberstadt

scheme (submitted) which was given last). A response was designated as

`̀ codable’ ’ and was considered to be categorised if three of the ® ve coders

agreed on the category that best applied to the response.4

Results

For each type of relationship (parents to children, children to parents, and

parents to parents) and for each of the ® ve psychological coding schemes,

the amount of agreement between laypersons’ codings and psychologists ’

codings of the causes of anger was ascertained using the lambda statistic

(Goodman & Kruskal, 1954). Lambda is a measure of association appro-

priate for comparison of two classi ® cation systems consisting of nominal

categories (which need not have one-to-one correspondence; rectangular

matrices are acceptable). It ranges from 0.0 (when one classi ® cation does

not reduce prediction errors in the other classi ® cation) to 1.0 (when one

classi® cation perfectly predicts the second classi ® cation). Lambda has

recently been used by Haslam and Fiske (1992) to compare laypersons’

and psychological theorists’ classi ® cations of types of relationships; the

highest lambda obtained in their study was 0.33. In the present study, the

lambda statistic will represent the degree to which categories of each of the

® ve theoretical coding schemes correspond to categories derived from

students’ sorts of the same causes.

As can be seen in Fig. 1, the degree of overlap between layperson and

theoretical coding schemes varied by type of family relationship. Overall,

psychologists’ coding schemes showed more overlap with layperson clas-

si® cations of children to parent anger (mean lambdas = 0.36 for father and

0.33 for mother) than for the classi ® cations of parent to children anger

(mean lambdas = 0.18 for mother and 0.15 for father). In addition, for these

relationships , the degree of overlap was relatively consistent across psy-

chologis ts’ coding schemes. These patterns could indicate either that

conceptions of anger are clearer for children than for adults or that causes

4Detailed descriptions of how each of the ® ve psychological coding schemes categorised

the causes of anger, and comparisons of the relative merits of each coding scheme for

categorising the causes of anger in familial relationships , can be found in Carpenter and

Halberstadt (submitted). In that study, 86.7% of all categories were codable .

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of parents’ anger at children are more complex or may be interpreted in

multiple ways. Codings of mother to father anger also showed good

average overlap (lambda = 0.35), but greater variability across psycholo-

gists’ coding schemes (lambda range = 0.19± 0.62) . The Carpenter and

Halberstadt scheme seemed to `̀ capture’ ’ best laypersons’ conceptions of

these anger causes. Thus, the psychologi cal coding schemes showed

differential correspondence to laypersons’ classi ® cations as a function of

type of family relationship, and for mother to father anger as a function of

psychologist coding scheme.

We also examined which psychologists ’ coding schemes showed the

most correspondence with laypersons’ classi ® cations. For mother’ s anger

at father, the Carpenter and Halberstadt coding scheme showed substantial

correspondence to laypersons’ organisation (lambda = 0.62). Other coding

schemes showed more moderate correspondence. For father’ s anger at

mother, four coding schemes showed similar overlap with laypersons’

sorts (lambdas = 0.29 for both Scherer et al., and Fisher & Johnson;

lambdas = 0.28 for both Camras & Allison, and Carpenter & Halber-

stadt). For parent to child anger, the Fisher and Johnson coding scheme

best coincided with laypersons’ classi® cations of anger causes (lambdas =

0.35 and 0.43 for mother to child and father to child anger, respectively).

FIG . 1 Degree of overlap, as measured by lambda, between 5 psychological schemes for coding

causes of anger as a function of type of relationship .

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For child to parent anger, the Fisher and Johnson coding scheme was most

similar to laypersons’ conceptions of child’ s anger at mother (lambda =

0.38), but not father (lambda = 0.00). The Carpenter and Halberstadt and

the Scherer et al. coding schemes best matched laypersons’ sorts for child

to father anger (lambdas = 0.46 and 0.48) . These results highlight the

importance of distinguishing the type of relationship, and suggest which

psychologists’ coding schemes may be most correspondent with layperson

classi® cations.

The lambda statistic provides information about the degree of overall

association; however, it does not indicate where the overlaps in categorisa-

tions occurred. Therefore, to determine which layperson classi ® cations had

considerable correspondence with speci® c psychologists ’ categories, we

examined the ® ve frequency matrices that were created when layperson’ s

classi® cations were the rows and the psychologists’ codes were the col-

umns. For these descriptive purposes, `̀ considerable’ ’ category correspon-

dence was identi ® ed on the basis of two rules: (a) Rule 1: if 25% or more of

the items appeared in a single cell of the frequency matrix, and (b) Rule 2:

if a cell entry equalled or exceeded 5 items and this exceeded the expected

cell frequency by a factor of 3. Both rules are described because they

yielded different patterns of overlap between laypersons’ and psycholo-

gists’ categories.5

The rules were designed to be generous, such that

correspondences would be easily detected. Given the small frequencies

chosen to designate co-occurrences, the reported results should be treated

as tentative. The rules allowed all but 2 of the 15 layperson categories to be

considered for overlap with psychological coding schemes (these two

layperson categories consisted of fewer than ® ve items). These correspon-

dences can be seen in Table 4.

For mother’ s anger at father, four laypersons’ classi ® cations showed

substantial overlap with seven psychologists’ codes. For father’ s anger at

mother, three layperson classi ® cations overlapped with seven psycholo-

gists’ codes. Students and psychologists agree that parents’ anger at each

other is most likely due to violations of expectations compared to goal

blockages.

For both parents’ anger at children, one layperson classi® cation over-

lapped with one category in each of the ® ve psychologists ’ coding

schemes. Also, for only mother’ s anger at children, two layperson classi-

® cations overlapped with three psychologists’ codes. Both students and

psychologists agree that parents’ anger at children for disobedience and

5Rule 1 tended to identify overlaps at a more psychological level (e.g. for parents’ anger

at parents, Personality De® ciencies with Violation of an Expectation), whereas Rule 2

targeted co-occurrences at a more speci® c , pragmatic level (e.g. for children’ s anger at

parents, Inadequate Attention with Inappropriate Rewards).

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644

TABLE 4

Corresponden ces Betw een Layp ersons’ and Psycholo gists’ C ategorisat ions of Anger

Causes for Each Rela tionsh ip

Laypersons’ Classi® cations Coding Rule and Psychologists’ Codes

Both Parents’ Anger at Each Other

Children Issues 2. Separation (Scherer et al.)

Money Issues 2. Lack of consensus (Fisher & Johnson)

Mothers’ Anger at Father

Money Issues 2. Failure to Reach Goals (Scherer et al.)

Not Being a Caring Partner 1. Ongoing Person-focused Expectancy Violations

(Carpenter & Halberstadt: C&H)

Not Contributing to Household 1. Violation of an Expectation (Shaver et al.)

2. Reversal or Loss of Power (Shaver et al.)

2. Ongoing Object-focused Expectancy Violation

(C&H)

Fathers’ Anger at Mother

Money Issues 2. Ongoing Object-focused Goal Blockage (C&H)

Personality De® ciencies 1. Failure to Conform to Social Norms (Scherer

et al.)

1. Violation of an Expectation (Shaver et al.)

1. Social Violations (Camras & Allison)

1. Not Ful® lling Role Expectations (Fisher &

Johnson)

Both Parents’ Anger at Children

Disobedience/Not Listening 1. Failure to Conform to Social Norms (Scherer

et al.)

1. Violation of an Expectation (Shaver et al.)

1. Social Violations (Camras & Allison)


Johnson)

1. Ongoing Person-focused Expectancy Violations

(C&H)

Mothers’ Anger at Children

Disobedience/Not Listening 2. Not Helping (Fisher & Johnson)

Personality De® ciencies 2. Not Ful® lling Social Obligations (Fisher &

Johnson)

2. Speci ® c Person-focused Expectancy Violations

(C&H)

Children’ s Anger at Both Parents

Not Getting One’ s Way 1. Failure to Reach Goals (Scherer et al.)

1. Frustration of a Goal (Shaver et al.)

1. Not Receiving Desired Object (Camras &

Allison)

1. Not Helping (Fisher & Johnson)

Inadequate Attention 2. Inappropriate Rewards (Scherer et al.)

2. Justi ® able Damage (Camras & Allison)

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personality de ® c iencies are most likely due to violations involving social

norms and expectations.

For children’ s anger at both parents, two layperson classi® cations

showed substantial overlap with six psychologists’ codes. For children’ s

anger at mother only, two layperson classi® cations overlapped with three

psychologists’ codes. For children’ s anger at father only, one layperson

classi® cation overlapped with one psychologis t code. The consensus of

both students and psychologists seems to be that children’ s anger at parents

is primarily due to obstacles to goals (mostly object-focused), but that

children also may be angered because of emotional expectancy violations.

Discussion

Study 2 was designed to determine the degree of correspondence between

laypersons’ and psychologists’ categorisations of the causes of anger and to

specify those correspondences. The degree of correspondence differed as a

function of (a) the particular psychologica l coding scheme being used, and

(b) the type of relationship being examined, as might be expected, given

that laypersons’ classi® cations differed across relationship types.

How well did the layperson and psychologis t categories correspond

overall? Of the eight layperson categories associated with parents’ anger

at each other, ® ve (Not Being a Caring Partner, Not Contributing to

Household, Personality De® ciencies, Money Issues, Children Issues) coin-

cided with at least one category for one parent in all ® ve psychological

categorisations . Of the ® ve layperson categories relevant to parents’ anger

at children, one (Disobedience/Not Listening) showed overlap for both

mothers and fathers with all ® ve of the psychologi cal coding schemes,

and for mothers only with one coding scheme. Another layperson classi-

® cation relevant only to mothers’ anger at children (Personality Deficien-

cies) corresponded with two psychologists ’ coding schemes. Finally , of the

® ve categories generated by laypersons to classify children’ s anger at

Children’ s Anger at Mother Only

Not Getting One’ s Way 1. Ongoing Object-focused Goal Blockage (C&H)

Unfair Treatment 2. Violation of an Expectation (Shaver et al.)


Johnson)

Children’ s Anger at Father Only

Not Getting One’ s Way 1. Speci ® c Object-focused Goal Blockage (C&H)

Note : Rule 1 indicates that 25% or more of the items appeared in a single cell of the

frequency matrix. Rule 2 indicates that a cell entry equaled or exceeded 5 items and this

exceeded the expected cell frequency by a factor of 3.

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parents, one (Not Getting One’ s Way) overlapped for both parents with

each of the ® ve psychologi cal coding schemes. For children’ s anger at only

mother or only father, two other layperson classi ® cations overlapped with

four psychologists’ codes. Thus, approximately half of the layperson

classi® cations were also found in one or more of the psychologists’ coding

schemes.

In general, the overlaps between laypersons’ and psychologists’ cate-

gories characterised adult anger at both spouses and their children as being

due to expectancy violations , and children’ s anger as due to goal

blockages. This is the same pattern found in comparisons between psychol-

ogists ’ coding schemes (Carpenter & Halberstadt, submitted). This replica-

tion indicates the robustness of the phenomenon.

Layperson classi ® cations that were not represented in psychologists ’

coding schemes were as follows: for parents’ anger at each other, Inade-

quate Time and Being Controlling ; for parents’ anger at children, Naughty

Behaviours, Damaging Behaviours, and Interpersonal Harm; and for chil-

dren’ s anger at parents, Discipline and Power Struggles: 5 of the 10

nonoverlapping categories (some occurred for both mothers and fathers)

contained fewer than 10 items (see Tables 1 through 3), so that achieving

overlap as de ® ned by either rule would have been dif ® cult. However, the

remaining ® ve layperson classi ® cations seem not to correspond to any

categories of the ® ve psychological coding schemes. These results are

similar in magnitude to those of Carpenter and Trentham (submitted) who

found moderate correspondence when layperson and theorist classi ® cations

of subtype descriptions of females and males were made ignoring `̀ target’ ’

(female, male) boundari es. Therefore, the contention of Averill (1983) and

Anderson (1991) that laypersons’ conceptions of causes differ from those

of psychologists seems to be well founded. The position that layperson

knowledge may be unsystematic, however, is not supported. Students in

Study 1 were able to create meaningful clusters of anger causes.

We now need to ask what underlies the differences in psychologists ’ and

laypersons’ classi ® cations of anger causes. Layperson categorisations were

restricted by the particular anger descriptions availabl e for sorting, whereas

some psychologists ’ coding schemes were based on a wider array of anger

causes, relevant to a greater variety of relationships . Thus, some of the

psychologists’ categories may have been irrelevant to this particular data

set. However, two of the coding schemes (Carpenter & Halberstadt and

Fisher & Johnson) were developed with the express purpose of analysing

anger in families; these schemes did not do a better job of matching

layperson schemes than those not so designed. Thus, it is unlikely that

differences in layperson and psychologist classi ® cations are solely due to

differences in the descriptors being considered while categorisation

schemes were being developed.

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We suspect, instead, that laypersons and psychologists engage in differ-

ent types of analyses in their taxonomies of the causes of anger. Thus, the

next task is to identify the differences and similarities in the ways layper-

sons and psychologis ts think. Anderson (1991) distinguishes between

scienti ® c and phenomenal (i.e. experiential) accounts as well as between

explanatory and descriptive accounts of causes. We hypothesise that these

dimensions will distinguish laypersons from psychologists ; whereas psy-

chologis ts are typically `̀ doing science’ ’ (e.g. systematically explaining,

creating theories, establishing generic rules, etc.), laypersons are more

typically `̀ doing laundry ’ ’ (e.g. experiencing life and achieving everyday

goals) . Additionally , because prototypes of emotion vary along a `̀ ver-

tical’ ’ , hierarchical dimension (Shaver et al. 1987), and because other

research suggests that laypersons cluster at a more speci® c level whereas

psychologists operate at more abstract levels (Carpenter & Trentham,

1994) , we predicted that laypersons’ categories would re¯ ect more basic

levels of classi ® cation and psychologists ’ categories would re¯ ect more

superordinate inclusive levels. Study 3 was designed to determine the

degree to which psychologists ’ and laypersons’ categorisations differ

along these three dimensions: description vs. explanation, experiential

vs. scienti ® c, and speci® c vs. abstract.

STUDY 3

In Study 1, mothers’ descriptions of anger causes were grouped on the

basis of similarity , with no category names provided for making the

classi® cations. In Study 2, mothers’ descriptions were categorised on the

basis of pre-existing psychologis t coding schemes, so category labels had

been provided by those schemes. Thus, for Study 3, two units of analysi s

are appropriate: the category labels used in Study 2, and the unnamed

layperson grouping s created in Study 1. Therefore, in Study 3, participants

rated both the category labels and the grouping s without labels along the

three dimensions of: description vs. explanation, experiential vs. scienti® c,

and speci® c vs. abstract.

In Phase I of the study, students generated category labels for the

layperson grouping s of anger causes obtained in Study 1. This allowed

us to compare the category labels from psychologist coding schemes (see

Study 2) with the category labels we created for the layperson groupings

(see Study 1) and the category labels the laypersons created for the

layperson grouping s (Study 3). In Phase II of the study, an independent

set of participants rated: (a) the unnamed layperson groupings, and (b) the

three types of category labels just described, both with respect to the three

possible dimensions of variability.

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Method

Phase I: Generating Category Labels for LaypersonGroupings

Participants. Twelve undergraduate students generated category

labels for the layperson groupings . All four male students and four of the

female students had no children. However, four of the students were

mothers of children between the ages of ® ve and seven (similar to the

mothers who had generated the original anger descriptions) . One mother

was African-American; all other participants were Caucasian.

Materials. The descriptions of anger causes in each of the 15 layper-

son grouping s were compiled for each grouping separately. The groupings

were randomly ordered, then numbered.

Procedure. First, participants individuall y generated category labels

(`̀ names’ ’ ) for each layperson grouping . Each label was written on an

index card. These cards were collected and organised so that the 12 labels

(one for each partic ipant) for a single grouping were organised together.

Second, particants examined all 12 labels and independently ranked the 6

`̀ best’ ’ labels from this set. The labels most frequently ranked as ® rst by

participants were used as layperson category labels in Phase II.

Phase II: Dimension Ratings of Category Labels and ofGroupings

Participants. Five psychology majors in their senior year (three female

and two male) and six female psychology graduate students were invited to

participate. All students had substantial training in research methodology

and cognitive psychology. One undergraduate and one graduate student

were mothers. All participants were Caucasian.

Materials. For the category label-rating task, a list of 54 category

labels (4 for Camras & Allison; 6 for Carpenter & Halberstadt; 6 for

Fisher & Johnson; 5 for Scherer et al.; 5 for Shaver et al.; 15 for the

Carpenter & Halberstadt labels of layperson grouping s, and 13 for the

layperson labels of layperson groupings from Phase I was prepared.

Descriptions of the dimensions to be rated were presented on separate

pages, followed by the 54 labels. The three dimensions were presented

in counterbalanced order across participants. Thus, participants rated all 54

labels for one dimension prior to going on to the next dimension.

For the grouping-rating task, the data set was reduced to make the task

feasible for the raters and to focus on the speci® c question of similarities

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and differences between laypersons’ and psychologists’ cognitive repre-

sentations of anger causes. First, three of the six relationship types were

chosen, such that (a) one relationship showed maximum overlap between

psychologists’ and laypersons’ categorisations : mother to father (lambda =

0.35), and (b) two relationships showed minimum overlap: mother to child

(lambda = 0.18) , and child to mother (lambda = 0.15). This `̀ degree of

overlap’ ’ variabl e allowed us to determine the extent to which the three

dimensions being examined contribute to the differences previously

obtained between laypersons’ and psychologists’ categorisations . We

expected that categorisations of the mother to father relationship would

be rated similarly across the three dimensions, but that the mother to child

and the child to mother anger categorisations would be rated differently on

at least one of the three dimensions. Second, three of the psychological

coding schemes were chosen to be rated, such that, for most of the

relationships being examined, the greatest and least overlap between

laypersons’ and psychologists ’ categorisations were represented. The

empirical pattern of overlaps suggested that the Camras and Allison,

Fisher and Johnson, and Carpenter and Halberstadt coding schemes might

yield the most useful data on similarities and differences. Fortunately, from

a theoretical perspective, all three coding schemes were speci® cally

designed to provide taxonomies for causes of anger in the family. Follow-

ing this reduction, 57 grouping s remained to be rated.6

For both the label-rating task and the grouping-rating task, the defini-

tions of the three dimensions were the same. As an example, the experi-

ential (rating = 1) versus scienti ® c (rating = 7) distinction was described as

follow s:

Experiential accounts of behaviour tend to be more subjective, indicating

how people `̀ experience’ ’ an event. These accounts refer to one’ s `̀ stream of

consciousness’ ’ and may also include feelings associated with an event.

Scienti® c accounts tend to be more objective, indicating characteristics a

behaviour has in common for most people. Scienti ® c accounts therefore tend

to be more `̀ summary’ ’ in nature. For example, `̀ when my father teases me,

it hurts my feelings’ ’ is an experiential account. A scienti® c account of the

same event might be `̀ my father exhibits passive-aggressive behaviour

toward me’’ .

6The 57 groupings were composed as follows: 15 groupings for the layperson sorts, 14

groupings for the Carpenter and Halberstadt coding scheme, 17 groupings for the Fisher and

Johnson coding scheme, and 11 groupings for the Camras and Allison coding scheme. Across

these four schemes, there were 20 groupings for the mother to father relationship, 16

groupings for the mother to child relationship, and 21 groupings for the child to mother

relationship.

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The dimension of description (rating = 1) versus explanation (rating = 7)

distinguished between description of behaviour (e.g. `̀ She checked the

door locks three times’ ’ ) and an explanation of behaviour (e.g. `̀ she is

nervous about intruders ’ ’ ). The dimension of speci® c (rating = 1) versus

abstract (rating = 7) distinguished between speci® c/exclusive descriptions

(e.g. rocking chair, coffee table) and more generic/inclusive descriptions

(e.g. furniture).

Procedure. First, the intent and procedure of the study was explained

to participants. Then each participant was instructed in the use of the scales

and the de ® nitions of the dimensions until the experimenter was satis ® ed

that the participant understood the task. In all cases, partic ipants rated

category labels ® rst. Our rational e was that this task would acquaint

participants with the task and rating dimensions; we expected ratings of

the grouping s to be more dif ® cult. This expectation was supported by

informal debrie ® ngs of the participants, who described the label rating

task as `̀ dif® cult’ ’ and the grouping rating task as `̀ extremely dif ® cult’ ’ .

In addition, rating of the experiential /scienti® c dimension was described as

most dif ® cult. Participants completed both tasks at their own pace (70 ± 90

minutes).

Results

Reliabil ity of Ratings. We were concerned about the consistency of

both the label and grouping ratings because participants expressed having

dif ® culty with both tasks. Coef® cient alphas were therefore computed for

each dimension, across participants. For the label-rating tasks, alphas were

remarkably high for the speci® c versus abstract (r = 0.86) and the descrip-

tion versus explanation (r = 0.91) dimensions. Alpha for the experiential

versus scienti ® c dimension was lower (r = 0.70) than for the other dimen-

sions, as might be expected given participants ’ reports of this dimension

being the most dif® cult to rate. However, this reliability coef ® cient is quite

`̀ respectable’ ’ ; it is comparable to that obtained for widely used tests using

Likert scales (e.g. Edwards Personal Preference scales, rs = 0.60 ± 0.87;

Locus of Control , r = 0.70; both reported in Anastasi , 1988).

For the grouping ratings, reliabilities were computed for each dimension

in each of the three relationships, yielding nine alpha coef® cients. Eight of

these reliability estimates were surprisingl y good (ranging from 0.67 to

0.81), considering the dif ® culty of the task. The alpha for the grouping s of

mother anger toward father, rated in terms of abstraction, however, was

extremely low (r = 0.16) . Patterns obtained for this one relationship/

dimension combination should therefore be interpreted cautiously .

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Label Ratings. These data were collected to determine whether the ® ve

sets of psychologists’ category labels differed from the two sets of layper-

son labels along the three dimensions of description versus explanation ,

experiential versus scienti® c, and speci® c versus abstract. For each dimen-

sion, each participant’ s average rating within each of the seven sets of

labels was determined (e.g. average rating for the four Camras & Allison

categories, etc.). Then the ratings for the ® ve psychologists labels were

compared to each other (in a 1-way ANOVA) and the ratings of the two

layperson labels were compared to each other (in a t-test). These two

analyses showed the psychologists ’ labels to be similar to each other

across all three rating dimensions (all Fs < 1), and the layperson labels

to be similar across all three dimensions (all P-values > 0.26). Thus,

psychologists’ and laypersons’ labels seem to be `̀ internally consistent’ ’

with respect to the dimensions of differentiation being tested. To determine

whether layperson and psychologis t labels differed, a t-test was conducted

for each rating dimension.

For the dimension of speci® c versus abstract, psychologists ’ labels were

rated as signi® cantly more abstract (M = 4.34, SD = 0.80) than labels of

layperson grouping s [(M = 3.75, SD = 0.63) ; t(52) = 9.07 , P = 0.004] . For

the dimension of description versus explanation, no signi ® cant difference

was obtained between psychologist (M = 3.79, SD = 0.69) and layperson

labe ls [ (M = 3.65, SD = 0.61) ; t < 1] . For the dimension of experiential

versus scienti ® c, the analysi s revealed psychologists ’ labels to be more

scienti ® c (M = 4.26, SD = 0.65) than layperson labels [ (M = 3.85, SD =

0.77 ); t(52) = 4.38, P = 0.04] . Thus, using category labels as the unit of

analysis, psychologists ’ and laypersons’ categorisations of anger causes

were shown to differ both in terms of the `̀ speci® city vs. abstraction’ ’ and

the `̀ experiential vs. scienti ® c ’ ’ dimensions.

Grouping Ratings. For each participant, ratings of grouping s were

averaged within each relationship and each rating dimension. For each of

the nine relationship/dimension combinations , t-tests compared ratings of

psychologist grouping s to those of layperson groupings. Due to the number

of comparisons, a Bonferroni correction was used to set the accepted

probability level at 0.0055.

For mother to father anger no differences were expected for the varia-

bility dimensions; this was the relationship that had shown greatest overlap

between psychologist and layperson grouping s in Study 2. This prediction

was supported. For each dimension, t-tests showed ratings of psycholo-

gists’ and laypersons’ grouping s not to differ: (a) speci® c/abstract, t = 0.05 ,

P = 0.96, (b) description/explanation, t = 0.85, P = 0.44, and (c) experi-

ential /scienti ® c, t = 0.12 , P = 0.91 .

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Overlaps between layperson and psychologis t categorisations were

minimal for the mother to child and the child to mother relationships.

We therefore expected differences in ratings of grouping for one or more

of the three variability dimensions. For mother to child anger, participants

rated psychologis t grouping s as more abstract (M = 3.70, SD = 0.22) than

layperson groupings [ (M = 3.14, SD = 0.20), t = 5.76 , P = 0.004] . Ratings

for the other two dimensions were not different for psychologis t and

layperson groupings (both ts < 1). For child to mother anger, no significant

differences were obtained for any of the three dimensions: (a) speci® c/

abstract, t = 2.92, P = 0.03, (b) description/explanation, t < 1, and (c)

experiential/scienti ® c, t = 1.95, P = 0.11. In summary, when groupings are

the level of analysis, the dimension of speci® c versus abstract best differ-

entiated between psychologists’ and laypersons’ classi ® cations.

Discussion

Study 3 identi ® ed the dimension of speci® c/abstract as best differentiating

between psychologists’ and laypersons’ categorisations (for those relation-

ships that showed strong differentiation) in terms of both labels and

grouping s. The dimension of experiential/scienti ® c also distinguished

between those categorisations at the level of category labels. These two

variables may partiall y account for the lack of overlap between psycholo-

gists’ and laypersons’ categorisations obtained in Study 2. The dimension

of description/explanation was not shown to be implicated in the differ-

ences between the two types of categorisations . This variabl e may partiall y

account for the degree of overlap that was found between the two types of

categorisations . This makes sense, considering the stimuli and task. First,

items within groupings were descriptions of anger experiences or causes.

The psychologists ’ coding schemes we chose to study categorised causes of

anger, to a great extent, in terms of explanato ry frameworks. Similarly,

when asked to sort diverse descriptions of anger into categories, laypersons

may have been relying on explanatory similarity in order to complete the

task. Future research could compare results of `̀ free’ ’ sorts to those of

`̀ directed’ ’ sorts (requiring subjects to sort descriptions in terms of expla-

nations) .

Studies 2 and 3, in combination, address two research questions posed in

this paper: `̀ How do perceived anger causes differ across relationships ? ’ ’

and `̀ How do psychologists’ and laypersons’ categorisations of such anger

causes differ? ’ ’ Psychologists’ and laypersons’ categorisations are similar

in many respects, but differ reliably in terms of abstraction, and also

possibly in terms of the experiential/scienti® c dimension. However, the

type of relationship in question must also be considered. Relationship

affected both the degree of overlap between categorisations and the factors

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that in¯ uence differences: (1) the mother to father relationship showed a

good deal of overlap for psychologists ’ and laypersons’ categorisations; (2)

the mother to child relationship showed poor overlap, partiall y due to level

of abstraction being used during categorisation; and (3) the child to mother

relationships showed poor overlap that was not due to differential levels of

abstraction being used. This differential pattern across relationships sup-

ports our contention that anger is socially constructed both by psycholo-

gists and laypersons; behaviours can be differently interpreted depending

on relationship context.

G ENERAL DISCU SSION

The goals of the three studies reported were (a) to generate a taxonomy of

laypersons’ perceptions of anger causes, so we could learn whether these

perceived anger causes (b) differ across types of relationships (in this case,

family relationships) , (c) are cognitively represented as prototypes, and (d)

correspond to psychologists ’ taxonomies of anger causes. In Study 1,

students demonstrated a clear and consistent pattern of categorising

descriptions of anger causes; 15 distinguishable categories were gener-

ated. These categories provide a taxonomy of perceived anger causes

within nuclear family relationships.

As predicted, college students clustered anger causes differently across

types of family relationships, except for the two categories of Inadequate

Time or Attention and Personality De® ciencies, which are experienced

across several relationships. Given the age and power differences within

the family structure, and the probable differences in expectations, goals,

and activities as a consequence of those age and power differences, the

differences in anger causes are not surprising . They are, however, very

interesting from a descriptive perspective, and they additionall y highlight

the importance of examining emotional experience within the context of

social relationships.

With respect to cognitive representations , students’ structuring of anger

causes matched the characteristics of a prototype. That is, several cate-

gories of anger causes within each type of familial relationship were

elicited, as expected in a prototypic representation. In addition, these

categories varied across relationships and levels of speci® city (e.g. money

issues vs. personality de ® ciencies). Finally , as expected in a prototypical

structure, the category boundari es were sometimes fuzzy; some items `̀ ® t’ ’

into more than one category. Such data suggest that a taxonomy of the

causes of anger (as well as other emotions) is possible for both descriptive

and predictive purposes.

It is interesting to note the degree of similarity that this taxonomy shares

with another taxonomy of causes created for a very different content

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domain. In students’ phenomenal organisation of the causes of success and

failure, the categories of personality traits and control concerns emerged

(as well as several other categories of causes; Anderson, 1991). These two

categories of success and failure causes parallel the two categories of

Personality De® ciencies and Disobedience/Not Listening of anger causes

derived from our participants’ sorts in Study 1. Thus, how people think

about the causes of anger may be similar to how people think about the

causes of success and failure. It may be that speci® c types of causes (e.g. of

anger, success, etc.) are connected, at an even more superordinate hier-

archical level, to a more generic prototype of cause. Additionally , it may be

possible to create taxonomies about phenomenologi cal components to

summarise similarities (and differences) in people’ s thought processes

across very different content domains.

Finally , comparison of the students’ categorisation schemes to ® ve

psychological coding schemes in Study 2 resulted in both similarities

and dissimilarities. First, layperson classi ® cations appeared to be much

more pragmatically structured (i.e. focused more on topic matters such

as money issues or discipline), whereas the psychologi cal codes focused

more on underlying emotional experience (such as violation of a personal

or social contract or loss of power, status, respect). Second, only half of

laypersons’ classi ® cations were found to coincide with any categories of

psychologists’ coding schemes. Study 3 provided evidence that some of the

differences were due to the level of abstraction being used for classifying

causes. The presence of this `̀ level of abstraction’ ’ dimension offers

additional support for our contention that causes of anger are represented

as prototypes. However, this dimension was not shown to differentiate

between causes across all relationsips ; this con® rms our expectation that

causes of anger need to be studied with respect to particular contexts, as the

social constructionist position would dictate.

In summary, a taxonomy of anger causes was generated by laypersons,

and this taxonomy is highly sensitive to familial relationship differences, is

structured as a prototype, and shows both differences and similarities to

psychologists’ taxonomies of anger causes. Given the differences, which

taxonomy of anger is most useful for understanding anger and its causes?

This decision must obviousl y be based on the goals of the research. For

example, researchers concerned about predicting people’ s behaviours sub-

sequent to an anger episode might prefer to use laypersons’ classi® cations,

because the causal attributions of the person being angered may profoundly

affect the phenomenal experience of that anger. Liu, Karasawa, and Weiner

(1992) maintain that negative emotions (such as anger) give rise to causal

analyti c reasoning and to more explicit attribution searches than do posi-

tive emotions. According to their research, an angry person is likely to

attribute a negative emotion to a single, suf® cient cause. Such an attribu-

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tional analysi s would allow for a clear direction of action in response to the

anger. Therefore, people’ s own perceptions of the reasons they became

angry may be better predictors of subsequent behaviours than are psychol-

ogists ’ theories. However, understanding the underlying factors (e.g. sense

of being unjustly treated, loss of respect) rather than the ostensible causes

(e.g. discipline , children’ s issues) in their relationships may help indivi -

duals to initiate responses that will optimise outcomes. Thus, clinicians

who wish to test clients’ understanding of each others’ underlying anger

causes may prefer to use one or more of the psychological coding schemes.

Also, researchers may wish to test the ef® cacy of different behavioural

responses to anger causes when categorised according to their underlying

structures. The present research now makes availabl e a layperson taxon-

omy organised for anger, provides a comparison of taxonomies conceived

both by several psychologi cal coding schemes and by laypersons, docu-

ments their relative merits, and indicates the correspondence between these

schemes across a variety of family relationships .

Manuscript received 6 July 1994

Revised manuscript received 26 February 1996

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