The Influence Of Angry On Social Events Attribution Among College Students

As a common negative emotions in our life, angry not only would have negative impact on individual’s physiology, mentality and behavior, but also has close relation with individual’s cognitive. This study investigated the influence of college students’ anger on social events attribution after inducing subjects’ state anger in laboratory situations. The purpose of the study was to explore the characteristics of the influence about college students’ anger on social events attribution, and its internal mechanism. Lastly, author hopes that the conclusions of the study would have some help for mental health education and social practice. Specifically, this study consists of two small studies:Study 1, in the conditions of the actor factor of social events materials used in study 1 was more salient (compared with the context factors), we investigated the influence of college students’ anger on social events attribution. The results showed that:when the actor factor of social events materials was more salient (compared with the context factors):(1) The college students with angry were more inclined to made actor attributions than the situational attributions to social events.(2) Compared with neutral emotion group, angry group were more inclined to made actor factor attributions to social events.(3) For angry group, male students made more actor factor attributions than female students, but context factor attributions were not. For neutral emotion group, there were no significant differences of attributions between male and female group.Study 2, in the conditions of the context factor of social events materials used in study 2 was more salient (compared with the actor factors), we investigated the influence of college students’ anger on social events attribution. The results showed that:when the context factor of social events materials was more salient (compared with the context factors):(1) The college students with angry were more inclined to made context factor attributions than the actor attributions to social events.(2) There were no significant differences of actor and context factor attributions for neutral emotion group.(3) Compared with neutral emotion group, angry group made more context factor attributions to social events. But neutral emotion group made more actor factor attributions than angry group.(4) For angry group, male students made more context factor attributions than female students, but not actor factor attributions. For neutral emotion group, there were no significant differences of attributions between male and female group.Lastly, on the basis of study 1 and study 2, we discussed the internal mechanism about the influence of college students’ angry on social events attribution. And the conclusions as follows:Angry could affect the attributions tendency college students on social evens, but at the same time, it was also affected by the salience feature of actor and context in social events. That was, angry individuals would more inclined to make the salient factor attributions to social events.Between gender, anger had a greater impact on male college students. Specifically, compared with female college students, male college students were more inclined to made salient factor attributions to social events.