Effects of Parental Attachment and Depressive Mood on Anger Expression Style among College Students

Abstract

This research examines the effects of parental attachment as a family-related variable, and depressive mood as an individual variable on anger expression style among Korean college students. Anger expression style was divided into three domains including anger-in, anger-out, and anger-control. The data were collected from 437 college student respondents using a self-administered questionnaire. The results demonstrated that male students displayed higher levels of anger-control compared to females, but no gender-related difference in the level of anger-in and anger-out. In addition, anger-control was positively associated with parental attachment. However, anger control in terms of anger-in and anger-out were negatively related to parental attachment and positively linked to depression. Additionally, parental attachment demonstrated a negative correlation with depressive mood. Multiple regression results indicated that after controlling for the effect of gender, anger-control expression style was influenced by parental attachment but not by depressive mood. In addition, anger-out and anger-in expression styles were influenced by depressive mood but not by parental attachment. Finally, implications for educators and clinicians working with college students and their family are discussed along with some suggestions for future research.