| The purpose of this study was to identify how problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping affect aggression. The participants were males and females enrolled in psychology classes at Mississippi State University. Participants were given the Ways of Coping Questionnaire-Revised, a reasoning task (either frustrating or non-frustrating), and a social problem solving task in which a provoking and neutral scenario were read and participants were asked to list ways in which to handle the situations. Participants either received a praise or an insult following the reasoning task. It was expected that the frustrating task, insulting feedback, male gender, and emotion-focused coping would be associated with greater aggression. Contrary to expectations, frustration and provocation alone did not consistently produce aggression. In addition, the results suggest that a combination of problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping is the most adaptive way to cope with frustration and provocation. |
