This study examined whether relationships between anger management style (anger suppression; anger expression) and adjustment variables for patients with chronic pain depend on patient hostility, and/or depend on a patient's gender. A 'spouse response model' was also evaluated to test whether patient expression of hostile anger is linked to infrequent positive and frequent negative responses from spouses, and hence to poor adjustment. The sample of 127 married chronic pain patients was assessed prior to entry into a multidisciplinary pain treatment program. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed significant 'Anger Expression x Hostility x Gender' interactions for pain severity, activity interference and activity level: High Anger Expressor/Low Hostile women reported the lowest pain and highest activity; Low Anger Expressor/High Hostile men reported the highest pain and highest interference. Among men, support was also found for a spouse response model: pain severity and activity interference for High Anger Expressors was partly accounted for by negative spouse responses. Results suggest that discriminations among patients may be made based on anger management style in interaction with level of hostile attitude and the patient's gender, and that these distinctions may have implications for understanding mechanisms of pain and disability, and for designing appropriate treatment.

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The authors investigated whether attributions for positive life events predict decreases in hopelessness and depressive symptoms among clinically depressed adults. Measures of attributional style, attributions for recent events, depressive symptoms, dysfunctional attitudes, hopelessness, and life events were administered to 52 depressed psychiatric inpatients treated with antidepressant medication; the measures were readministered 12 and 24 days later. Results indicated that (a) internal, stable, global attributions for recent positive events mediated a significant association between attributional style for positive life events and decreased hopelessness; (b) decreases in hopelessness mediated a significant association between internal, stable, global attributions for recent positive events and decreases in depressive symptom levels; and (c) depressotypic cognitions were not associated with decreases in either hopelessness or depressive symptom levels.

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