Anger related to psychopathology, temperament, and character in healthy individuals - An explorative study

We investigated relationships between temperament, character, and anger experience, control, and expression. Police trainees (N = 103) completed the Temperament and Character Inventory (Cloninger, Przybeck, Svrakic, & Wetzel, 1994), the Symptom Checklist 90-R (SCR-90-R; Derogatis, 1994), and the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI-2, Spielberger, 1999). Personality scores were of greater significance compared to SCL-90-R scores for most of the STAXI-2 subscales while the scores of both personality and mental health contributed by a similar amount to trait anger. Temperament subscales explained a much greater amount of anger expression-in variance while variance of character subscales explained more of the variance in anger V, angry reaction, state, and trait anger. Character was found to be superior to temperament in the determination of anger, supporting a cognitively focused definition of anger.