Abstract

The present study examined the differences between wives and husbands in external entrapment, submissive behavior, anger and the anger expression and the roles these factors on Hwa-Byung symptoms. Seventy five married couples(75 wives and 75 husbands) participated in this study, and they were asked to fill out questionnaires about related variables. The results showed that whereas external entrapment, submissive behavior, anger suppression were significantly associated with the levels of Hwa-Byung symptoms in the wives, external entrapment, submissive behavior, state and trait anger, anger expression were significantly associated with the levels of Hwa-Byung symptoms in the husbands. For the actor-partner interdependence model(APIM), the actor effects, for external entrapments and submissive behavior of both spouses were significant, the actor effect for the husband's anger-out, and the actor effect for the wive's anger-in were significant. The results of path analysis revealed that whereas husbands' external entrapment affected their Hwa-Byung symptoms directly and indirectly by their anger-out, The wives' external entrapment affected their Hwa-Byung symptoms directly and indirectly by their anger-in. Therefore, further study needs to be done on how to deal with entrapment and anger expression. The limitations of this study were discussed with suggestions.