Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating effects of trait anger and irrational belief and self-esteem as cognitive appraisal resources on the relationship between children's anger-inducing events and anger-out. The correlations among various variables identified in previous researches co influence directly or indirectly anger-out were selected to be performed of stepwise regression, and, from the results of the regression, several models were established to be verified for explaining anger-out. The subjects of this study were 510 fourth- to sixth-graders who were in two elementary schools located in Kyungsangnam Do, and they were surveyed by questionnaires for measuring anger-inducing events, trait anger, irrational belief, self-esteem, and anger-out. Among the subjects, 442 were analyzed as the data of this study. As a result of the stepwise regression in order to identify the explanatory power of variables including anger-inducing events, trait anger, irrational belief and self-esteem on anger-out, trait anger showed 50.0% in the explanatory power, followed by anger-inducing events (4%), irrational belief (2%), and self-esteem (1%). The whole explanatory power of the four variables was 55.7%. On the basis of this results, several models were produced and performed of comparing test on the relationship between anger-inducing events and anger-out when trait anger and irrational belief and self-esteem as cognitive appraisal resources were established as mediating variables. The results showed that trait anger and cognitive appraisal variables on the relationship between anger-inducing events and anger-out were mediated to lead co anger-out. At the same time, a partial mediation model was reveled to be most appropriate in which the trait anger was assumed to directly affect cognitive appraisal resources to lead to anger-out. The results of this study indicate that children respond to not anger-inducing events but the interpretation of such events or irrational belief and they may respond differently according to their personal trait anger or the level of self-esteem.