Causes of anger among senior high school students in Indonesia: An indigenous psychology approach

Abstract

Appraisal theorists have argued that anger is elicited when important goals have been obstructed. Using an indigenous psychology approach, the current study aims to test this premise by investigating the events that account for a person’s anger among Indonesian senior high school students. Data was collected using the anger item from the Happiness open-ended questionnaire, asking about events that make the subjects’ most angry. A total of 425 senior high school students consisting of 171 males and 254 females were involved in the study. The data was analyzed using an indigenous psychological approach by analyzing the content of the open-ended responses, categorization of the responses, and cross-tabulations with the respondent’s sex. The findings suggest that Indonesian senior high school students become angry when they their trust is violated, insulted, encounter an unpleasant experience, and disturbance. Further analysis was conducted to identify variability upon male and female subjects. The chi square test that was run towards the variables “events for causing anger” and “sex” indicated a significant relationship (p < 0.03). Male respondents were most likely to become angry when encountering unpleasant experiences while females were most likely to become angry when their trust is being violated. The findings are contrary to the notions that goal obstruction is central in eliciting anger.