Effect of a Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention on Responses to Anger by Middle School Students with Chronic Behavior Problems.

Abstract

* As student behavioral responses to anger become more of a concern in public schools, program design becomes crucial to ensure school safety and to increase appropriate student social interactions. Chronic student anger can create an unpleasant and dangerous atmosphere in schools, resulting in a deterioration of the educational and social atmosphere. Many student behaviors that are considered discipline problems or a form of violence emanate from inappropriate responses to anger. Unfortunately, educators are often left with few alternatives to mitigate anger that is expressed through aggressive and violent acts. Thus, the reduction of inappropriate responses to anger must be targeted, and students should be offered replacement behaviors that assist them in interacting appropriately with peer and authority figures. Students can be taught methods to control their anger and to express it in constructive ways. Controlling anger involves identifying anger, developing management strategies, and expressing it appropriately (Gootman, 1997). Inappropriate behavioral responses to feelings of anger in adolescent populations merit the attention of researchers, practitioners, legislators, and community members. At the same time, however, it is critical to differentiate between feelings of anger and appropriate and inappropriate responses. For instance, aggression is a set of primarily interpersonal actions that consist of verbal or physical behaviors that are destructive or injurious to others or objects (Bandura, 1973) and is one behavioral response to feelings of anger (Averill, 1982). Although most adolescents display various levels of aggression, it is only when it becomes exceptionally severe, frequent, or chronic that it indicates some form of psychopathology (Lochman, Curry, Burch, & Lampron, 1984). Excessive levels of aggressive behavior, an inappropriate behavioral response to anger, have been found to be stable over time (Kazdin, 1987; Loeber & Dishion, 1984) and to be predictive of a multitude of negative developmental outcomes. Adolescents who demonstrate deviant levels of aggression have been found to exhibit poor overall school adjustment, higher rates of juvenile delinquency, greater than average rates of school dropout, increased rates of adult criminal activity, and clinical problems (Loeber & Dishion, 1984). Adolescents who experience problems responding appropriately in social situations (e.g., aggressively) often exhibit deficiencies in their social problem-solving abilities. Lochman and Dodge (1994) noted that highly aggressive adolescents generate fewer productive solutions to their social problems than do their nonaggressive counterparts. That is, they tend to generate more action-oriented solutions such as pushing or fighting (i.e., physically aggressive solutions), as compared to verbal assertion solutions such as talking about a conflict (Asarnow & Callan, 1985; Lochman & Lampron, 1986). In addition, aggressive adolescents often generate fewer bargaining and compromise solutions because they are less capable of accurately perceiving the motives of others. Thus, the solutions they develop are based on considering both the needs of self and others infrequently (Lochman, Wayland, & White, 1993). During the response-decision stage, aggressive adolescents tend to choose aggressive responses for social situations because they believe that such reactions will alleviate aversive behavior from others (Lochman & Dodge, 1994; Perry, Perry, & Rasmussen, 1986) and that their peers will not view their responses negatively (Slaby & Guerra, 1988). Research on Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions The cognitive-behavioral intervention model (CBI) represents one way practitioners can provide students with the requisite skills to respond to anger in socially acceptable ways (see, e.g., Etscheidt, 1991; Larson, 1994; Lochman & Curry, 1986) and to interpret social situations accurately (see, e. …

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